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| A parade went in front of our house |
From where we are, this is something that happens a couple of times a year, each time as enchanting as the last time, or more so. I'm not telling you this to boast about the parade-worthiness of our address. It's just a fact of living where we do. Next weekend, a marathon will be run in front of our house. Next month, it will be another. There is never a dull day on Esplanade Avenue.
People ask why we live in New Orleans. It isn't just because of all the parades we see. There are a lot of reasons we love living in New Orleans. One of them is that New Orleans isn't in Canada. We have nothing against Canada but when we saw this picture, well, we're happy we're in Louisiana at the moment:
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| What's the weather like in Ontario? |
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| What's the weather like in Uppsala? |
If you ask Frau Schmitt, she'll tell you that your humble narrator loves living in New Orleans and he isn't interested in living anywhere else. Frau Schmitt is usually right about these things. She'll also tell you that I generally like everybody no matter where they come from. She is right about that, too.
Wanna know what people I like the most? When I say I like them the most, I mean I like them the most at this moment. I like whoever is sitting in front of me, as a general rule. There are no strangers in New Orleans. There are only friends you haven't met yet. Of course, in our line of work, we tend to meet people as soon as they arrive from the airport. We make a lot of friends, and I don't only mean the tangential Facebook kind of friend. You are always welcome to like us on Facebook. I mean friends whose company we enjoy. The kind of friends who share adventures and insights. The kind of friends you don't forget.
I like people who come from Jacmel, which is a city in Haiti.
There are longstanding ties between New Orleans and Haiti. After the Haitian Revolution, the population of New Orleans doubled because displaced Haitians (I am trying to phrase this as politely as possible) wanted to live where people spoke French. Voilá. Bienvenue à la Nouvelle Orléans.
You will hear people say, and your humble narrator says this on occasion when prompted, that New Orleans is the northernmost Caribbean city. It's true. New Orleans has more in common with Jacmel than it does with New London, Connecticut or with Wewoka, Oklahoma.
Mardi Gras season ended last week in New Orleans. What does Carnival look like in Jacmel?
We recently had a gentleman from Haiti stay with us for a week and his lovely bride. Yves turned me on to Carnival in Jacmel. I've been talking to Frau Schmitt about it and we may have a trip to Haiti in our future.
Our recent guests, not the ones from Ontario or Sweden but the ones from Haiti, were on their honeymoon. They are moving to a new country in the next month or so. Guess where they are moving. They are moving to none other than Port Moresby which was detailed in an earlier installment of this very same blog. That was just two months ago. It's a small world when you have omnivorous interests, even if the country in question is Papua New Guinea.
What's the only place better than Louisiana?
By the way, remember the picture of the giant crawfish we featured in the January 3 installment? That picture comes from a restaurant in Sweden! What did I say a few paragraphs above about not wanting to live in Sweden? I take it back. We have a chap named Orc to thank for pointing this out to us.
Do you know what they call crawfish in Swedish? Swedes call them kräftfiske. Anywhere where they boil up kräftfiske is okay with me. God bless Sweden.
If you can't make it to Haiti, Ontario, or Sweden, and, really, who would want to at this time of year? you know where to find us. We're on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans. Good memories are made every day on our street.
À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast
....where the rest comes easy.
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