Two Weeks in New Orleans

What's behind the curtain

What have you been doing the past two weeks?  Nothing much has been happening in New Orleans, the way nothing much ever does, which means plenty has happened but most of it doesn't make sense unless you spend a lot of time here, which we do.  All in all, there isn't much to report.  My typing finger healed up just in time.

Esplanade Avenue is a beautiful street.  I don't say this because we live on Esplanade, I say it because it's true.  I'm not the only one to think this.  Frau Schmitt agrees with me and she's usually right about these things.  Other people say it, too.  While Esplanade Avenue is the highlight of our part of New Orleans, I also always say that we live in a very interesting neighborhood.  I say it all the time.

It's not the French Quarter and it's not the Marigny.  It's not the Garden District.  Heck, it isn't even Faubourg St. John, which is just on the other side of North Broad Avenue, three blocks away.  Our neighborhood doesn't have a name because it's sort of in the middle of everything, a pleasant kind of Interzone, if you will, without the junkies, criminals, surrealism or cut-up stream of consciousness.  Maybe it is a bit surreal sometimes, but our part of town is more beatified than beatnik.  

Once the hipsters have priced themselves out of the Bywater, I suspect our part of town will be next.  Wikitravel lumps us in with Mid-City, which is close enough.  Other people consider us part of Treme, which is also somewhat accurate.  Esplanade Avenue is sort of a world of it's own, the boundary line between the 6th Ward and the 7th Ward, if that means anything to you.

Clouds in the 7th Ward

Judging from the reviews we get, the vast majority of people who stay with us enjoy our neighborhood.  The neighborhood seems to grow on them the longer they stay, but we never know for sure until we read it in black and white.  I'm the kind of person who believes what he reads.  Regular readers of this blog seem to be that kind of person, too.  Am I right?

A street corner in the 7th Ward

We do not live in the French Quarter.  The Quarter is about a 20 minute walk away, but ours is a very different kind of neighborhood.  It looks nothing like where you're from, unless you're from New Orleans, of course.  I don't want to sugar coat any of this.  We live close to all sorts of things.  The best fried chicken in America is fried just five blocks behind our house, for instance, and the best record store in the world, if you collect punk LPs, is three blocks away on Bayou Road.

Some people think your humble narrator watches a lot of Nick at Night.  Untrue.  I was, however thinking of The Jeffersons' theme today because I got an email announcing the scheduled musical line up for the 6th season of Jazz in the Park.  

Jazz in the Park is a series of free concerts held on Thursdays in Armstrong Park in Treme.  The park is about a twenty minute walk from our house, on North Rampart Street.  I like the video that went along with the announcement:
 
That instrument you hear in the beginning is a washboard.  It's going to be a solid lineup.  I especially like all the high school marching bands that are performing.  If you think watching them is going to be a ho-hum recital, you're in for a surprise.  They march through our neighborhood to practice for Mardi Gras, and I see them every year around our house.  They're great.  This is how music is made in New Orleans.

If you're thinking about visiting New Orleans between April and June next year, I suggest arriving on a Wednesday or early on a Thursday.  I always say four nights is the right amount of time for a visit.  A little longer is always nicer, but shorter is always too little.  Of course, you should come for as long as you have time for.  You won't regret it no matter how long you stay.

If you have two weeks free, and you have nothing else to do, I know a nice place where you can stay.  We've got room, unless it's the first weekend of Jazz Fest.  We're already booked solid for that.  

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.