New Orleans Retrospective

Ahem.

It's been way too long since I've posted, so I thought I'd set about rectifying that situation. A month or so ago, I went to New Orleans to attend a conference. I'm just now getting around to sharing some of my photos from the trip.

I was struck by how completely different the architecture was from anything I've encountered elsewhere. For instance, the house where I stayed, with my kind and lovely friend Shannon, was a BRIGHT cheery yellow:
(yes, it matches her car)

Here's a fairly traditional scene:
Yes. It's really that bright.

I took a lot of photos of things I noticed on the streets. Here are a few:
Many of the downtown streets have these street markers imbedded in the concrete at the intersections.

Instead of filling this tree-root area in the sidewalk with gravel or bark mulch, it's filled with oyster shells.


I thought they looked like ears. Ew.

Here's some art-y graffiti:



And an art-y piece of metal in the sidewalk:


And some disturbing art:



OK, so this isn't a terrific shot, but I was stopped short while waking by this on the street. Look closely:


that is the H. W. Johns-Manville Co.'s building, which, apparently, specialized in ASBESTOS. Sign me up for an apartment in that building!

The crazy display below is made up of tiny filled macaroons of various flavors. This is in the window of a candy-maker and sweets shop called, appropriately, Sucre:


And yes, we did order a few macaroons and they were delicious. I had chocolate and orange, Shannon had chocolate and hazelnut (I think). Yum!

I was also struck by the VERY different flora in this neck of the woods.


I think it looks like that tree has hair and tusks. It might be a wooly mammoth in disguise.


Some lovely purple flowers. Everything was in bloom!

Below is my favorite shot. We saw some weird things in New Orleans. Among them was this man walking down the street in a top hat. Tamara, this one's for you:

{I was trying to be all discreet about taking his picture; we actually saw him close up and he looked a bit hobbit-ish. Strange.}

That's about it for today. New Orleans is very beautiful and quite unlike anyplace else I've ever been.