New Orleans

I've only been to New Orleans once. Years ago, my old roomate Erin and I drove from Long Beach, California to Maryland (she was moving back from Hawaii to Maryland, and had her car shipped to Long Beach), and we decided that we HAD to take a detour to New Orleans since we were going to be a mere 12 hours away on the route we were taking. We spent a single night in New Orleans, and Erin drank so much that she puked (again) as we were pulling out of town on our way to Atlanta the next morning.

Boy, we had fun. We went out in the French Quarter, danced, drank, and I sang Karaoke for the first (and only) time in my life. We thought it was awesome that we could walk the streets with our beers in hand. The people were friendly, and I wish we'd had several more nights to stay in town.

That said, it's a shame that New Orleans is still not safe from further storms, that two years after Katrina hit so many people are still not back in their neighborhoods.

I'm ashamed and embarassed that they're still not okay. FEMA fell down and hasn't corrected their failure. There isn't money to build the levees to protect the city. It's horrible, and I'm fairly inarticulate about my feelings here. But it sure makes my current troubles seem small.