25,327 (New Orleans, LA) - So Easy to Love the Big Easy

hello and good morning,
I'm sitting in the Rue de la Course coffeeshop, drinking the second good cup of coffee I've had since coming home (the first good cup was the one I had here yesterday). This is a beautiful cafe - it's an old bank, like the one in Mary Poppins...tall, gray, stone walls...marble...deep dark wood counters...30 foot ceilings...really lovely. And the cafe au lait!

It has rained from the moment I arrived in New Orleans on Wednesday night. We drove here in the rain, and crossed bridges in the rain. I HATE bridges with a passion, and I drove over the longest bridge I've ever been on - 22 miles - and I'll have to cross it again today on my way to Lake Charles...in the rain.

That being said, even constant rain could not dampen my enthusiasm for this city. My friend Doug has been our host here, and he himself is a transplanted New Orleanian (?)...he says that two words sum up the city: texture and flavor. I'd say he's about right. Even walking around in the Quarter, where the streets are lined with tacky tourist shops...even having cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe du Monde, where millions have done so before me...you get the feeling that the city is new and there only for you. It has a density, a lived-in sort of spirit that is palpable.

I've had thai food, middle-eastern food, gumbo, french pastries, and cafe au lait. I sat on the porch of an old antebellum home, now The Columns Hotel, drinking Pimms (a British summer drink). I rode the streetcar. I went to my first aquarium and petted a shark (albeit a very small one, probably on tranquilizers). Last night I went to the New Orleans Film Festival and saw "Undertow," the new movie by David Greene. David Greene and Josh Lucas (one of the film's actors) came and did a Q&A after the movie (which was good but very dark - don't go in with a heavy heart or you'll come out with it somewhere around your toes). All in all it has been a full three days, but not jam-packed-crazy-full...just pleasantly-occupied-full.

Thanks to the folks that came to the show on Thursday, and thanks especially to the new fans who bought Sparkler. Hope you are enjoying it.

Is the ICOM site dark on your computer? I'm taking a poll. Some say it's perfect, some say they didn't even realize there were photos behind the text. Let me know.

Off to Lake Charles, where a house concert awaits...and then, the great drive north.
au revoir,
vanessa