NOLA & Mississippi

A mere one month (literally 4 weeks!) after my weekend in Amsterdam Laura and I reunited, this time in the American Deep South.

The funny thing is this trip was planned well before Amsterdam!  

I really wanted to see her this summer, but really, really wanted to avoid going to her current hometown of New York City.  You've heard me bitch and moan about heat here before (as recently as one month ago) but I've never moaned louder than my trip to NYC a decade ago.  No thank you ever again [in summer], please.

So when Laura suggested I visit her and her mother in Mississippi - a state where literally nobody I know has ever been - I was not about to turn down this wildly exotic once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!  And it turned out to truly be one of the most exotic places I've ever been.

The logical place to fly to such a far flung destination is none other than The Big Easy, New Orleans.

A quick and easy two hour drive away.

Or, if you're feeling adventurous American style, a three hour Amtrak train ride away.

More on that cultural experience later.  First, more on America's playground. 

My first sight in town was the Superdome, which really took my breath away because I remember it from the Hurricane Katrina news coverage and subsequent documentaries.

I wasn't in town long enough to get a feel for what ghosts remain from the disaster and bungled response 20+ years later, but I saw enough in my short time there to know that the spirit of the city is alive and well.

I have a friend from college who lives in New Orleans and works as a wedding planner.  I thought it would be impossible to catch her in the narrow sliver of time I had available before Laura's arrival, on a Friday night, in July, during peak wedding season.

Turns out in the South summer is actually low wedding season due to the heat!  This was the first of many realizations I had that this part of the country looks nothing like the part where I grew up.  It might as well be on the other side of the world!

I love having locals show me around new places.  There's no way I would've seen or done or eaten what I did on my own without Becky's guidance, like dining at the exquisite Columns Hotel.

We had gumbo and a delicious dish I'd never heard of before - red fish, which is a...white...fish found in the Gulf of Mexico.

Absolutely delicious and it was lovely to catch up and meet her husband for the first time.

She also took me to a local spot called Tipitina's, which is a live music venue that offers free Friday concerts during the summer (presumably because it's low season for all hospitality purveyors).

Those who know me know I am not one for live music, but when it is a live-like-a-local experience that gives me a dose of cultural immersion I will make an exception.

At 10 p.m., a time when I am normally cozy in bed, it was time to bid adieu to my local hosts and ramp up the drinking (which was already on medium-high heat) on one of America's booziest streets.  

Bourbon Street!

To be fair we spent maybe 5 minutes on this street, walking among the drunken hordes.  We spent the majority of our night nearby, namely in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood and at a dueling piano bar, which I sadly have only experienced once in my life before but should be enjoying annually.

I should have visited here a decade or two ago in the prime of my drinking years.  Or maybe my liver and kidneys are glad I did not.

Despite my general disdain for it, NOLA has got to be the most live music friendly place I have ever been in my entire life.  Every bar has a band playing!

Even the beignet cafe the next morning had a band rocking out at 9 in the morning!

These tasty little things, which somehow are but are not donuts, are the #1 must eat item in New Orleans.  They were good - hey, it's deep fried dough and I'm a fat ass - but they didn't knock my socks off entirely.  I'd definitely prefer the fresh stroopwaffel we had a month ago in Amsterdam.

After a whirlwind kick ass 18 hours in NOLA it was time to ride on.

I had never ridden the Amtrak before, or even been on a train in the USA ever in my life.  In fact, I had never been on a train before studying abroad in Norway.  So this was an event for me!  And let me tell you it was great.

In an anthropological, touristy kind of way.  Look at all this abundant leg room!  In an "I'm in a rush to get where I'm going" way, not so much.

The train we were on started in New Orleans and went all the way up to Philadelphia and New York!  We were going a mere 3 hours - only the second or third stop - which somehow got stretched into 3.5+ hours.  I can't imagine how many hours the long haul travelers were delayed on their 24+ hour journey.

This did allow us ample time to view the outskirts of New Orleans, namely the cemeteries.

I feel like I must have known this information but had forgotten it at some point, but I learned that in NOLA they bury their dead above ground.  I was shook by this information!  Until I remembered that I once knew that, because that makes sense when you're so far below sea level.

See what I mean when I call this an anthropological experience?

Finally we got to our intended destination.

Laurel, Mississippi "The City Beautiful". 

They're not blowing smoke with that [strangely worded] slogan, though.  It really is a scenic small town (or, by the standards of where I grew up, a raging metropolis). 

Their claim to fame is an HGTV home renovation show called Home Town, which takes comedically cheap real estate and spruces them up into lovely, charming, character-filled homes.

The town is riding high on that fame, going so far as to offer golf cart tours showcasing the myriad houses that have been renovated by Ben and Erin Napier, patron saints of Laurel.  They even have this bad boy at one of the quaint local shops owned by them:

I have never fully appreciated the term "hitch your wagon to someone else's star" until witnessing the juggernaut that are these TV personalities who - let the record state - are infinitely better and more talented than Chip and Joanna.

But reality television real estate was not the main purpose of my visit.  There were many cultural experiences to be had on my second ever lifetime trip to the Deep South. 

Catfish eating

And general eating of foods that aren't normally deep fried, like a pork chop.

Interestingly I learned that collard greens aren't "the" side item here like TV would have me believe.  Turnip greens - which I'd never even heard of - are.  And don't forget a gallon of sweet tea (painfully lacking in carbonation for my tastebuds) to wash it down!  

World Cup Viewing

And associated day drinking.  Americans can get into soccer twice a decade, it seems.

Authentic Mexican grocery shopping

Related: I somehow talked myself out of buying this absolute banger of a hat, which I've come to regret.

Backyard swimming

Hard to avoid when it's 100+ degrees all of the damn time.  But you won't catch me bitching about it for once, because this is the South.  What do you expect?!  Precisely this.

Dancing at the American Legion

The Legion where I come from hosts wedding dances, but that's it.  This is a weekly public event that is so serious it has rules posted on the front door, my favorite of which I will share here:

• No cursing or vulgar language
• No vulgar or indecent dancing
• No weapons of any kind allowed on premises
• No fighting or altercations allowed
• No short shorts or tube tops

And my personal favorite:

This one hits home because the only time I've ever wound up in the emergency room was from a dancing related injury in 7th grade (LOL).   

Patriotism 

'merica

Church

Not my usual spot but it's the done thing in Mississippi on a Sunday morning, is a deep anthropological dive into the South and I am a sucker for a stained glass window.

Waffle House (!!!)

I might be the last American alive not to have eaten at Waffle House, and I'm proud to say I've finally met my destiny.

I wasn't nearly drunk or hungover or high or impoverished enough to fully grasp the essence of it, but it was cheap and cheerful and I respect an icon.  Like any red blooded American I would trust my life and the life of my children to the employees of this, or any, Waffle House. 

Finally I have witnessed American exceptionalism at work.

After a long weekend of seeing how the other half of the country lives t was time to get my Yankee ass back up north to return to my kids and extended family, who I'd traveled half the globe less than a week ago to see.

I'm skeptical the south will "rise again" but it is a fun look into a totally foreign, yet somehow entirely domestic, world.