"N'awlins" a New Orleans Travel Page by acemj

New Orleans is not as slowly captivating as a city like Budapest or dramatically elegant like Prague. It's not as serious as London or as hectic as New York. There are not as many famous landmarks as there are in Paris and visiting the Big Easy is not as exotic as a trip to Istanbul might be. But all in all, New Orleans packs a lot into a sometimes bawdy, sometimes refined veneer. Getting to know what's really underneath the surface of the city could take years, but I gave it my best shot in my five days here.

I had wanted to visit the Crescent City for years. It wasn't the lure of out of control co-eds during Mardis Gras that drew me to New Orleans, but the interesting mix of cultures. The French and Spanish presence came long before American settlers arrived and the influences of all of these cultures on the architecture, music, art and cuisine have left a tangible legacy. Everywhere you go, you'll get sensory impressions that are clues into the past, whether it's eating a corn-based dish (from the Native Americans) or listening to Zydeco music (from African, Caribbean and French roots). I did my best to savor the foods and absorb the music and sights. Hopefully, this page will allow you to glimpse a bit of what I saw, but you'll have to visit yourself if you want to taste the gumbo!

While I was in New Orleans (the locals pronounce it "Nawlins") I ran into the filming of a movie and snapped a bunch of black and white photos of such stars as John Cusack, Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman (check out the Paparazzi Pics travelogue), but none of those pictures is as beautiful as this one. I was walking down the street and I saw the light hitting this stark white wall and this homeless man counting the little change that he had in his hand. For that moment, he was more graceful, more resplendent than any Hollywood actor in a thousand dollar suit could ever be.