About New Orleans, June 2008

It's been nearly fifteen years since my first trip to New Orleans, also business related (that is, if you count the college newspaper). It was a crash course in the Post-Katrina era of the city. It's very tragedy is part of the tourist trade now.



But before we got to experience anything, we needed two flights to get there. One from Boston, of course, the other from Dallas airport in Washington. The latter was interesting, since I got to sit right behind the First class seats, which, rather than opting for fancy curtains, used a simple...bug screen to separate the privileged passengers from the dregs.







Not only did I not get any special treats, I had a ringside view to what I wasn't getting. Insult to injury.







Once we arrived, it was my co-worker Don who kept asking questions to the cabdrivers, hotel workers, and any other local we had contact with. His curiosity, coupled with his conversation skills honed from his salesman days, more than made up for my being withdrawn (I did not want to be away from home so soon after my grandfather's funeral). The two most common statements of almost everyone he questioned was: 1) No one outside of their home had any idea about the full extent of their plight since Katrina. 2) The media didn't care about showing it.



My first observation was a bit more pedestrian: Unlike my hometown of Boston, New Orleans is the type of city that can sport both billboards for the Rush Limbaugh EIB network as well as signs for the following:











Not to worry. I won't put up anything as vulgar as an EIB Network banner on a blog that anyone can stumble upon (think of the children).







On a more serious note, the city definitely felt quiet, and it was hard for me to tell whether it was related to the tragedy or to it being "off-season" for it's tourism. Don had visited the city more times than me, and he felt it was the former,though we were staying in a part of New Orleans that was relatively untouched by the Katrina tragedy. We never went to the wreckage, though they were advertised as tourist attractions everywhere we went. One thing's for certain: There wasn't a lot of human traffic when Don and I were walking around in the city proper and not the tourist traps.







What was much more jarring was the military presence. The majority of the hotel we stayed at was occupied by US soldiers. The above picture shows only a few of the SUV's that were parked just outside.







The advertisements for alcohol and other vices aside, Don and I were there on business. When I was on Bourbon Street, it was to eat (tip: never sit in the patio when the streets perpetually smell like urine) and to prove to my friends back home that there is such a drink as a hand grenade.







In your face, Ed. IN.







YOUR.







FACE!







The day we arrived, Don and I ate pretty well and cheaply. After our first full day of training of six individuals on the use of retinal cameras in a cramped room with no fully functional system, we were so exhausted, we opted for hot dogs. One each. That was it. After training others under stressful circumstances, we were actually too tired to eat properly.



We made up for it the last night we were there. More on that later.