Calliope
New Orleans, LA, was extraordinary. I had been expecting it to be a small town full of drunken frat boys, à la Key West. Not at all! (Well, except for a stretch of Bourbon Street) Coming into NOLA after dark, I was struck by how much like a city it looked: high-rises, stores, people on the streets, aggresive drivers that put Bostonians to shame. We stayed in the French Quarter at the Hotel Provincial, which was as charming as you can imagine and extremely cheap. In fact, it is apparent that although the French Quarter is up and running as usual, tourism has not yet recovered from the effects of Hurricane Katrina. In other areas, of course, things have not yet gotten back to normal, and many of the stories we read in the morning paper indicated that the city is still processing the structural and social aftermath of the storm.
At any rate, perhaps my favorite part of our New Orleans stay was the ride on the Riverboat Natchez along a short stretch of the Mississippi. One morning after breakfast we decided to take a peek at the river when, all of a sudden, we heard Christmas carols carried on the loudly shrill notes of a calliope. Like moths to a flame, we joined the other tourists on a sailing that was both informative and moving: this was the very same river Mark Twain grew up on.
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There are some more images of New Orleans here.