Nine Flights, Three Cities, Two Holidays and a Wedding

Happy New Year from The Big Easy. 

There is simply nothing like partying in the town that invented the word. New Orleanians would have heart failure if you were to threaten to shut off the lights after 1 a.m. as the Hollande administration is proposing for the City of Light.

The Vieux Carré was wall to wall revelers dining in the restaurants, listening to music in the jazz clubs and wandering the streets with drinks in their hands getting ‘happier’ by the moment. We took in a performance by Topsy Chapman and Solid Harmony at Snug Harbor on Frenchmen Street in the Faubourg Marigny. My daughter and I couldn’t sit still in our seats and danced to the jazzy sound before heading over to a friend’s apartment in the French Quarter for drinks and desserts.

For those who don’t know “Noo Awlins,” The Vieux Carré and the French Quarter are one and the same, but by different names. Locals call it “the Quarter.” The Faubourg Marigny is a neighborhood adjacent to “the Quarter,” down river, that has become well known for its jazz clubs and restaurants. The locals call it “the foh-berg.”

My friend, who I’ve known since kindergarten, owns a typical French Quarter building behind the Presbytère, which is adjacent to St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo (the old city hall), all of which border the northern edge of Jackson Square. Jackson Square, originally known as “Place d’ Armes,” was designed after Paris’ Place des Vosges. From the balcony of the apartment we could see the fireworks at midnight launched from the edge of the Mississippi River.

During these few days in New Orleans I had a chance to reconnect with people I hadn’t seen in as much as 40 years. It was fascinating to see how much some people had changed and others who hadn’t changed hardly at all. It also solidifies the roots of the old proverbial oak tree.

Today I travel to New York and then tomorrow to Paris. I will have been on nine flights to have visited three cities to celebrate two holidays and a wedding. While vacationing with friends and family in places I have lived and love, I still look forward to getting HOME to what is still the City of Light (thank goodness!).

A la prochaine…

Adrian Leeds
Editor, Parler Paris

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P.S. Don’t miss Parler Paris Après Midi this coming Tuesday, January 8th from 3 to 5 p.m. when Harriet Welty Rochefort, author, speaker and freelance journalist discusses “Putting some French Joie de Vivre into your life.” For more information, visit Parler Paris Après Midi