By Elliott Brack | New Orleans was our recent destination, one of our favorite cities in the USA, for after all, we had not been in several years. While you still see problems left from Katrina, the city seems to be enjoying a new vibrancy, moving forth as always, happily.
Boosted by continual tourism, which seems to have bounced back nicely, its prices for hotels, foods and trinkets remain high.
With four of us going, we chose to rent a short-term apartment, through Vacation Rental by Owner (VRBO), deciding finally on one rental of the many we viewed on the Internet. Our place turned out to be a half block from St. Charles Avenue (and its handy trolley). It was costly, though no more than a good hotel, and spacious. We had parking inside a gate, and a beautiful back garden, and plenty of space.
We were there during Lent (and across the street from the Episcopal cathedral), but New Orleans doesn’t mark Lent like other cities. On the Saturday we were there, four St. Patrick’s Day parades were on tap, each in different areas of the city. The parade we saw was in the Garden District on St. Charles Avenue. It lasted four hours, and oh!, the fun these people were having.
Take a look at these photographs. (Go to end of this column). Note the many characters, decked out in costumes, in the parade, accented by the color green in uniforms, in hats, in flowers….amid the welcoming crowds also often decked out themselves. You can tell these people are celebrating, whether in the crowd or in the parade.
Note the last photograph…..which we shot of the street after the parade went by. There was all kind of debris from the celebrating, from flower, paper, candy, beads, beer bottles…..all along the street.
As we left, we spotted a crew of street sweepers. Talking to the crew chief, he told us that cleaning up after the many parades throughout the year in New Orleans is a routine happenstance. On this part of the parade route, he had about 20 people with bright yellow vests on ready to start cleaning the route as soon as the last unit went by. “Altogether, throughout the city today, we’ll have about 350 people working in this clean-up,” he said.
Sure enough, two hours after the parade went through this neighborhood, you could find nary a piece of discarded parade junk around. The city does a magnificent job in making neat what after every parade must be a mess!
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Brennan’s Restaurant in the French Quarter is back in business after being renovated. When having (yes) breakfast there on that Saturday, you could tell something was about to happen, as a large, colorful crowd had gathered. We were seated inside, overlooking the courtyard, and soon the activities began, amid people dressed for partying! While we couldn’t hear what was going on, later I asked the guy who seemed to be in charge. He identified himself as Ralph Brennan.
Seems like the turtles, who had previously lived in a pool in the courtyard, had been moved when the renovation started. So, it was the turtles returning to Brennan’s, and like happens in New Orleans, they had a parade to honor their return. The restaurant even had the nearby Catholic monsignor to come and say a few words over the festivities.
Only in New Orleans.
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