Nawlins, Day 1

Ahh.... high speed internet.... my bliss is complete.

I hesitate to say much about the flight, which was my first, or the walk BA, Big Kahuna (BK), and I took into the French Quarters dispite the semi-consistent downpour.... I hesitate because I do not want to spew cliches (even if true) or impersonate a travel agency.

I entered into my journey this morning with as few expectations as I could. And thus doing so, I was delighted in everything. I was delighted in the chai latte that I sipped for an hour in the airport's main lobby; I was delighted in the impromptu conversations struck up with fellow travelers in the security line; I was delighted to find passangers headed to Vegas reading Atlas Shrugged and Jane Eyre. It's so easy to focus in on our little private ambitions, thus limiting our vision. It would have been easy to throw my nose in Jean Auel's The Shelters of Stone during the short flight, or to catch a nap to make up for today's early hours... well, easy for some, I suppose. I guess there is little skill in living in the moment when that moment is new, as surely all of today was for me, but it was wonderful nonetheless.

Haha... look at me now! Patting myself on the back while giving myself up to the powers of the wireless. (To that I say - I won't go out alone; the day would not find me already indoors if I still had but a fellow explorer.)

It's strange to find that the day is so late... and that my shorts are already dry! lol When we left Memphis at 0930, New Orleans was promised to be partly cloudy upon arrival in an hour. As the plane broke through the first layer of clouds upon our decent over New Orleans, there were sparce pockets of tiny white puffclouds. By the time we circled over Lake Pontchartrain, the world above and below was a deep shade of gray. Although I'm sure I would normally be disappointed that the torrential downpour had to directly coincide with my first day, I smiled all the more as on my plane window, 1 tiny vein of water turned to 3 rivulets turned to uncountable amazons. I smiled when BA, BK and I went splashing through the Hertz parking lot to a car that wasn't there; I smiled when my hair frizzed and curled; I smiled when I slipped and slid over the French Quarter streets in my beloved hemp flipflops which were, upon reflection, better equipted to promote water skiing down a Slip and Slide than navigating smooth paving stones. And guess what? My work laptop won't let me access the ethernet in my room, so I'm smiling as a pay for wireless in the hotel lobby, alone but not lonely. Happy to just sit, experience, and enjoy.

Other mentionable firsts for today: ate crawfish instead of using them as bait; discovered that oysters are not disgusting, but not anything to write home about; set up camp for 4 days in a bedroom suite that makes my old apartments feel dingy; found some shops in the French Market that have some delightful "Hear/See/Speak No Evil" and the Eight Immortals figurines.