New Orleans

Nick and I went to visit our friend Christian in New Orleans over the weekend. We stayed with Christian and his girlfriend Kim, in the outer edge of the French Quarter... Marigny actually, the place where all of the recent murders have been taking place!

We made it back safe and sound but not without incident: We arrived Thursday afternoon and were picked up at the airport by Christian and Kim, who had just come from the hospital because apparently, the day before we arrived, Kim had fallen down the stairs and broken her foot and now needed surgery! It was a bummer for us because they had planned a bunch of activities for Friday (my birthday), some of which included a massage and a facial, but now Kim was scheduled for surgery that day so Nick and I were on our own.

So Friday we headed into the French Quarter and toured around most of the day. It was all a bit hazy at first as we both were feeling very ill; Nick from a hangover, me from a stomach bug. Towards mid afternoon though we both started to feel better so we did what any good tourist in New Orleans would... We hit the bars. Many of them.

Several hours later we stumbled back to Kim and Christian's where we spent the evening catching up with them and marveling at the fact that we didn't get shot on the way home from the Quarter.

The next day Christian took us over to see the progress on his house, which is in the process of being rebuilt after it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. It has now been raised up about four feet and is currently gutted on the inside. We crawled under the house and peeked in through the missing floor boards... Everything from roughly four feet and below has been completely torn out, everything above that looks shiny and new. It was obvious that the house had been recently spiffed up before the hurricane.

As we were driving around the city I was amazed to see the amount of damage there was. People all over were living in trailers out in front of their homes while waiting for them to be repaired/rebuilt. Many people had just up and left the city and abandoned their homes... Every other house it seemed had a "for sale" sign posted on it. Other postings on houses included the spray painted "taggings" of the National Guard and CHP, listing the findings of each house after initial search; 2 human, 2 canine etc... pretty eerie. Also pretty scary was the fact that you could see the water level lines on the sides of the freeway, up to 6 feet in some places, and as Kim pointed out, there was even a whole stadium that was completely under water. To see it all in person was very surreal.

Later on Saturday afternoon we headed off to The Dome for the Saints vs Eagles game. Nick, Christian and I walked through the French Quarter, along with thousands of other rowdy fans marching to the stadium, stopping in a few bars along the way. Poor Kim had to be chauffeured to the game and missed out on all of the excitement. Having never been to a NFL game before I had no idea what to expect but was pleasantly surprised to discover that we would be watching from Kim's suite, which was completely stocked with a full bar and enough food to feed half of the stadium. It was a great game... And The Saints won too!

Sunday we set out for home. I was eager to get back to see our little monkeys as they had been sick and vomiting the whole time we were away, so of course our flight was delayed and we arrived 3 hours later than scheduled...

More photos from New Orleans in the photo album. (link in the sidebar)