Going Back to the Big Easy

Our return to New Orleans was wonderful. Weather was full-blown spring - we ate at many great restaurants (Cafe Giovanni that features the opera singers not one of them, but my sister knows the Chef so maybe next trip). Rode the street car and browsed in the French Market, watched the cargo ships on the Mississippi with KK and had tea at the Ritz Carlton, saw my sister's new digs across from Commander's Palace and stayed in a very nice boutique hotel - the Lafayette Hotel - it was what a visit to New Orleans should be.

The highlight for me was breakfast one morning at Camellia Grill - the best Western omelet my mouth has ever tasted followed by a slow ride up St. Charles in the street car past all the blooming azaleas and dogwood trees, not to mention beads still hanging precariously tossed too high for any Mardi Gras revelers to retrieve.

We also saw the sobering rebuilding process after Katrina - the middle class and upper crust neighborhoods are clearing lots and rebuilding, FEMA trailers are everywhere, but the poor side of town stands still with green moss growing on the roofs of the decaying buildings. In every neighborhood, the houses still standing wear the X's and messages spray painted on the sides by the National Guard like a badge of honor denoting if anyone or pets were still in the house or had been removed. Luckily, my sister lived across Lake Ponchatrain when the storm hit, but every home she had ever owned in New Orleans was damaged or gone. So, so sad.