heart beat...

There is no way I could really describe New Orleans to you all. Wait, let me rephrase that. There is no way I could really describe New Orleans to y'all. That's better.

NOLA (New Orleans Louisiana, it took me a while to work that out) is crazy. Absolutely crazy. It makes no sense. In a good way. The city surrounds the meandering Mississippi river, acting like a heartbeat to its vibrant streets. Those streets criss-cross all over the place, north to south, east to west, to southwest, to northeast, following the loops of the river. Only five years ago this great city was devastated by the events of Hurricane Katrina, but as the waters receded, that heartbeat still pumped. The city picked itself up, and found a way to carry on. You still get a sense of the recovery that is still ongoing, many of the roads are uneven and potholed, many of the houses still lie empty. But there is much construction work and a great feeling of moving forward. One man told me that time is divided into two zones in the this part of the country. Pre-K & Post-K. Listening to a local band play live on the radio the interviewer asked how long they'd been together. "Four years" came the reply. "Aah, so you're a post-K band" she said. He wasn't lying.

The past week has flown by, and now I'm moving on to LA. I feel like I'm moving on to a new part of my journey now. Having met Drew about a month ago when we both stayed with Tara & Lexi in Minneapolis, I would never have imagined we would have just ventured on a 2 week roadtrip from Washington DC to New Orleans together. We've had many more ups than downs, and it's been great having someone on the road to see and do things together. But now I'm ready to move again, and I'm looking forward to the next part of my trip. I could have continued by bus, but the southwest of America really is best viewed if you have acess to a car, and I managed to find a flight to LA (via Denver) for $140, so decided that way I could meet up with Fabio (we worked at SEE together, he now lives in LA) before he went home to Spain for Christmas, and from there make my way up to San Francisco. Having had the past 2 weeks roughly mapped out in advance, it's nice to get back to the unknown road...