Tuesday, September 09, 2008

New Orleans - Gustav Blows

Yeah, I have a girlfriend, and it's crazy, but I think I'm in love with her - after less than three months. You never expect that stuff to happen, and then boom, it does, and you're just floored. I'm not sure I've even fully digested it yet.

We went to New Orleans last week and it was so surreal; we got there on Thursday, with limited power, most businesses closing at 5 or 6 pm, and water in short supply. We rented a car and drove around and saw the city recovery, national guard troops, and police everywhere (even New Orleans has joined the annoying trend of Police Cars with permenant flashing lights, which I suppose was good in the darkness uptown).

We went down to the quarter the first night and hit up Port of Call, then went back uptown relatively early after a drink at Lafitte's blacksmith shop. Around 4 am we woke up thirsty and realized we hadn't bought any water, and so we went out looking for some - and much to our chagrin, or perhaps luck, nothing was open and the streets were empty because of a curfew (which in reality was only a walking curfew, thank god we had that car).

Anyway, we drove all around the empty quarter, the empty uptown, the blackened streets. Eventually we stopped at the Hotel La Pavillion and asked a couple of police officers if they knew of any place to get water and they gave us a dozen bottles out of the back of their truck. Surreal.

By Friday though, everything was business as usual. We even saw James Carville at Lilette's, and even Jacques Imos was back up on Saturday night.

The law school stuff is still in the embryonic stages, I haven't completed the apps yet - that's my goal for the next two weeks.

I'll post pictures soon.

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