First Impressions

I love it. The moment I step out of the plane I know it's New Orleans from the unmistakable blast of heat and humidity. It lasts for just a moment before I enter the air conditioned overcompensation of the airport; the cheerful dixieland streaming over the PA system; the blue vinyl "We're jazzed you're here" welcome banners;and the ubiquitous restaurant ads with Times Picayune bean scale ratings—forget about stars or thumbs-up, four beans means yum.

I'm instantly calmer, friendlier, talking to everyone around me. The Southern has come back within minutes and the frenetic LA mentality seems to have melted into the heat. My glasses fog the instant I leave the airport. This is swampland.

I feel an enormous psychic release to be back in what seems like another world, another life. The shuttle to the Alamo lot takes its time and the only words the woman at the wheel has for me are "My job is to circle, drop, circle, drop." She drops me off and I find out my economy car has been upgraded to a premium white Magnum pimp-mobile that I can barely see out of. Perfect.

I've finally got my chops on and I'm ready to roll to the Olde Town Inn in the
Marigny, part of the 30% of New Orleans that's still habitable or so Gus tells me as he shows me to my room. I remember the view from the sky as I landed in New Orleans--the smattering of lights scattered on the banks of the Misssissippi and concentrated in the few lucky neighborhoods that survived. The rest was swallowed in darkness.

Although I've see little direct evidence of the storm, I get the strange feeling of being in a sparsely populated ghost town. New Orleans is no longer the city that never sleeps. At 1:30 AM I am the only one up. The neighborhood bars and cafes are closing for the night and I don't even have a bottle of water. I make my way down the uneven wood clapboard stairs into the overgrown courtyard of the inn and find a vending machine. I'll have to hydrate myself on rootbeer until the morning.