New New Orleans...

Righto… So the train took a good 12 hours to get from Atlanta to New Orleans… but it was actually not too bad… I slept a bit, but was mostly entertained by the two children sitting in the seats next to me (and their mother).

I got into New Orleans I guess at about 9pm, and waited for a bit for a taxi to arrive that was willing to take me to my hostel… Take this as a review on Joe and Flo’s candlelight hostel – Don’t do it. The look my cab driver gave me as I told him where I needed him to take me should have been enough for me to say “okay, take me somewhere else. Now” but I didn’t… I’d already paid for a night and I’m a bit stubborn like that. When he told me that there were 2 people shot on the street the night before, and one boy died, Again, I should have taken the hint and told him to find me somewhere else to stay… and then when he gave me directions on how to avoid the bad areas when I went into town the next day, I should have been scared enough to get him to take me straight back to the train station and I’d wait there for the next train to anywhere-but-here-ville. But I was in a good mood, and too tired to stuff around, so I got out at the hostel. He was nice enough to give me his number if I changed my mind and needed a lift – fast. Then I sat in the foyer/lounge at the front of the hostel for an hour while I waited for someone to arrive – he apparently had to drive from his house to book me in… and when I got to my room and was greeted by a not-so-sane guy sleeping on the bottom of the bunk that I was meant to be staying on the top of… the itchy bed and the 2 inch thick mattress with what felt like bars of steel running across… I decided pretty quickly that I’d be there for one night only and used the one good thing that they had – free wireless internet – to book another hotel for the next 3 days. Luckily enough I found a reasonably cheap place right in the city, of course it doesn’t have free internet though. So I got here and fell asleep at about 4pm with the intention of getting up at 9 or 10 and going out, but I slept soundly until about 8am this morning. Nice.

One thing that did hit me was the guy that ran the hostel, also ran a shuttle bus service pretty much whereever you want to go. I felt a bit bad getting him to take me to another hotel, but he chatted to me along the way, about New Orleans, and the aftermath of Katrina... how he understood why people committed suicide, and that he'd thought of it himself. He'd lost everything, and was one of the people that hadn't seen any of the money that got poured into the community to help. He didn't get any new car or plasma tv like a lot of people apparently did. He lost everything and once he finally got his house livable, a smaller tornado ripped through and tore off the back of his house again. So he's back living in a trailer... I really felt sorry for him... I tried to offer advice, but it all came out sounding cliched and he'd probably heard it all a million times, but he listened and talked while we found the hotel... As I got out and paid him the $10 fare, I gave him a $2 tip, as I would have any taxi driver... you should have seen him... he said "is this for me?!" I said yeah... he said that he'd never got a tip before... it was really sad... I told him that I hoped things got better for him...

I didn't know what else to say...

Today I’ve wandered a bit around the French Quarter – mostly gift shops, bars and strip-joints… looking for lunch and wireless internet that I wouldn’t have to pay for… eventually I found a sure bet – Starbucks. I think I found the only one in the world that doesn’t have wireless internet. In fact I’m not sure if the girl just didn’t understand me or whether that was really the case, but she looked at me funny when I asked.

So I’ve had to pay for it back at the hotel – but it only seems to work downstairs in the foyer – not in my room…even then it's intermittent.

Damnit.

Anyway, I can’t think of much else to write today… and I’d better leave the hotel before I decide to have a nap… not a good idea when there’s a comfy king-size bed waiting for me… going to go for a run instead… American food is terrible… fattening stuff...

Oh, okay, I guess I should really tell you what I think of New Orleans too… it’s nice… it has charm – especially the French quarter – I think the most interesting thing about it is the smell…

Hard to describe the smell…

It smells like road-kill… and it seeps into your skin… its hard to enjoy a place when it smells like its dead.

and a storm’s a-brewin…