Tag Archives: NOLA

the IBIT Travel Digest 2.10.13

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The good, the bad and the bizarre in the world of travel

Hong Kong fireworks

Hong Kong fireworks — © Farang | Dreamstime.com

Wishing peace, health and prosperity to our IBIT friends in China and Chinatowns around the world as they ring in the Year of the Snake on this Lunar New Year.

EAT, DRINK AND GO TRAVEL
Every so often, I go back through old digests of mine to look for recurring themes — and if you’re a regular reader of the IBIT Travel Digest, there’s at least one you’ve spotted already. Nearly every digest, it seems, features at least one mention of food or drink.

So starting today, FOOD & DRINK gets its own section in the digest — and it kicks off with two subjects equally dear to my heart and my tastebuds.

New Orleans was a foodie town long before someone invented the term “foodie.” The word itself is out of favor these days among the blogerati (not that I give a damn), but the NOLA’S flare for flavor will never die.

From its beginnings, New Orleans cuisine has blended a mélange of influences — French, Spanish, Native American, African, Italian, Irish. Starting with the 1980s, though, a new taste fell into the city’s gumbo pot — the flavors of Vietnam.

San Diego was the first American city to receive South Vietnamese refugees en masse following the 1975 fall of Saigon, which made it the first to be exposed to Vietnamese dishes in a big way.It didn’t take long for pho and banh mi, with their fresh ingredients and vibrant mix of flavors, to become staples here.

And for you gumbo purists out there (and you know who you are): Yes, they do put in okra on request.

But while the Vietnamese cuisine tsunami was washing over San Diego, other refugees gravitated to the Gulf of Mexico to resume their lives as fishermen. Inevitably, many settled in New Orleans.

A city that already treated po’boys and gumbo as basic food groups had little trouble embracing pho soups and banh mi sandwiches. And among the Vietnamese and their descendants who grew up in the NOLA, the feeling seems to be mutual, as the New York Times recently discovered.

Today, within an easy drive from my house in San Diego are at least two Vietnamese restaurants whose menu is a mix of Vietnamese and New Orleans Creole dishes, run together by people from both locales. The nearest one features a daily special that includes half a banh mi and a bowl of gumbo.

But the best place to see the result of this marriage of cultures is in the Crescent City itself and you’ll see it below in the inaugural FOOD & DRINK section of the IBIT Travel Digest.

IBIT says: Bon appétit…or perhaps, chúc ngon miệng!

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WILL TRAVEL FOR JAZZ
Back at the turn of the 20th century, as Europe was plunging into the first of its two disastrous world wars, Paris witnessed the arrival of blacks from America, mostly soldiers, who brought with them a style of music Parisians had never heard before.

The Americans called it jazz, and Paris promptly fell in love with it. And as Jonathan Lorie discovered when he went roaming Ernest Hemingway’s old Parisian haunts for London’s The Guardian newspaper, the love still burns.

Jazz may be an American invention — perhaps the best of all American inventions — but there may be no better place to enjoy it than Paris. And as you’ll see in Lorie’s article, there are a lot of venues in the City of Light where you can enjoy it.

Lorie’s piece also links four other famed Jazz Age authors — F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Christopher Isherwood and Somerset Maugham — and their jazz hangouts from New York to Germany and even Sri Lanka.

But if all these folks were still around today, they all might leave their hearts in San Francisco. The reason is SFJAZZ, which opened late last month in the city’s Hayes Valley neighborhood.

It is the first concert hall in the United States — and maybe the world — built expressly for jazz. It features an auditorium, an ensemble room, rehearsal areas, a digital learning lab, and even a sidewalk cafe.

IBIT says: Hemingway would’ve dug it…once he got used to the no-smoking rule.

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AND FINALLY…
USA Today reports that Kate Hanni, head of the airline consumer organization FlyersRights.org, is stepping down as the group’s executive director, walking away from the outfit she founded in 2006.

You can read the entire USA Today story here.

She formed Flyers Rights after being stuck on the tarmac aboard an American Airlines flight in Austin, TX — for nearly nine hours — and getting little more than lip service from the airline. Her outspoken efforts since then led to federal regulations governing how the airlines handle flight delays.

Not surprisingly, Ms. Hanni didn’t make a lot of friends in the airline industry during her time with Flyers Rights, but she did prove that consumers who organize at the grassroots and speak truth to power can make a difference.

IBIT says: Thanks for all you did, Kate, and all you tried to do.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from the Los Angeles Times
In the eternal hunt for airfare bargains, booking too early can be as costly as booking too late.

from Travel Weekly
You may soon be able to watch in-flight shows and movies on-demand on Southwest Airlines flights, streamed to your own personal electronic devices. That’s the good news. The bad news? You’ll be paying extra for it.

from Budget Travel
A survey of travel agents says that when it comes to booking their clients on connecting flights, Atlanta-Hartsfield is one of their most favorite airports. It’s also one of their least favorite airports. Am I confused? No. I’m just booking non-stops.

from Travel Weekly
Frequent-flier miles…from an airport? Starting in June, the parking, food, merchandise or airport hotel stay you buy at Dallas-Ft. Worth International (DFW) will count toward airline miles.

from FareCompare
When is a “free” airline ticket not really free at all? FareCompare’s Rick Seaney counts the ways, and there are five of them.

LAND
from Condé Nast Traveler
The world’s ten most beautiful train stations, according to CN Traveler, right on time as New York’s Grand Central Terminal marks its 100th anniversary. Some are classic, others ultra-modern, and some brilliantly mix old and new. SLIDESHOW

from Travel Weekly
For the third time since it first opened in 1981, San Francisco is set to expand its Moscone convention center.

SEA
from the New York Times
Lust and luxury aboard the Queen Mary 2. Just don’t call it a “cruise.” It’s just not done, you know…

from Travel Weekly
Kai Tak, Hong Kong’s old airport, where almost every landing seemed like an adventure, is returning to the travel business — this time as a gleaming $1 billion cruise ship terminal that can handle the largest vessels in the business, even Royal Caribbean’s behemoth Oasis-class ships.

FOOD & DRINK
from the New York Times
In New Orleans, they know their pho — and their yaka mein. If you don’t know either, read up. WARNING: Your mouth may involuntarily water while reading.

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AFRICA
from Travel Weekly
The Radisson hotel chain opens its first Radisson Blu hotel in Mozambique.

from TechZim (Zimbabwe)
New travel startup, Zimbabwe Bookers, aims to make finding hotel rooms easier for travelers in one of Africa’s growing tourist markets.

from Tanzania Daily News (Tanzania) via allAfrica.com
Tanzania draws up plans to aggressively promote tourism in overseas markets. Its top four markets — Britain, the United States, Germany and Italy.

from Angola Press via allAfrica.com
Angola’s environmental agency building bungalows, other facilities in the country’s national parks in a bid to boost ecotourism.

AMERICAS
from The Guardian (London UK)
When your mother takes you on a sailing excursion to Central America at the age of six, just the two of you — and it lasts for four years — school field trips may have a hard time holding your attention after that.

from the New York Times
A look at San Juan, Puerto Rico, starting with one of my favorite spots — Condado Lagoon. SLIDESHOW

from The Guardian (London UK)
Are you into “Girls?” I’m referring here to the HBO hit TV series, set in Brooklyn. A look at the neighborhoods that give the show its inspiration.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from the Washington Post
Singapore spent so many decades living with the reputation of being the straight-laced capital of Asia, that it’s hard to imagine this city-state having a quirky side. But it does have one. Yes, it does.

EUROPE
from France 24
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of…graffiti? The city’s Shoreditch neighborhood is becoming a mecca for lovers of street art.

Edited by P.A.Rice

NEW ORLEANS: Streetcars and Baby Dolls

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St. Charles Avenue streetcar, New Orleans

St. Charles Avenue streetcar, New Orleans | ©IBIT/G. Gross

A pair of once-familiar sights are set to make comebacks this year in the Crescent City. One figures to delight visitors to the Superdome. The other may turn Mardi Gras upside down.

“Welcome to New Orleans. Come for the Super Bowl. Stay for Mardi Gras.”

That’s the pitch that the Crescent City is making to visitors in February. It’s an offer the city has made before, and one that hundreds of thousands of tourists will find impossible to refuse.

But those who take up that offer this year will be witness to a couple of street revivals.

New Orleans takes its traditions seriously, even the ones it periodically turns its back on, and two good examples of that are poised to return this winter to “the NOLA.”

THE STREEETCARS
The first is a new streetcar line through the city’s Central Business District that links the French Quarter to the Superdome. If all goes as planned, the new line should be ready to roll by Feb. 3, in time for Super Bowl XLVII.

But the importance of this line goes far beyond one over-hyped football game. It’s part of an ongoing effort to undo one of the dumbest things New Orleans city government ever did.

City Hall spent the better part of four decades ripping out streetcar lines — at least 15 of them that I can find — and replacing them with buses. New Orleans has largely regretted it ever since.

Maria C. Montoya of the News Orleans Times-Picayune probably put it best: “Tennessee Williams never would have written ‘A Bus Named Desire.’ ” (emphasis mine)

Preservationists managed, barely, to save the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line (seen above) that runs down through the city’s über-scenic Garden District. It’s now a working icon of New Orleans history, used and beloved daily by locals and tourists alike.

In the late 1980s, the city fathers reluctantly acknowledged what a lot of their citizens had been telling them for years, namely that when it comes to efficiently moving people around a city, buses are no substitute for streetcars. And as the St. Charles line clearly showed, they lend a character to a city that no bus ever could.

So they decided to bring them back.

The first came in 1988 with the opening of the short Riverfront line, linking “the Quarter” to the New Orleans Convention Center. But the real resurrection began in 2004, when streetcars returned to Canal Street, the city’s main downtown thoroughfare.

There are ambitious plans to restore other lines. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 temporarily derailed all of that, but now the revival appears to be back on track.

[ FREE — AND NEARLY FREE — DELIGHTS IN NEW ORLEANS ]

This actually is one of the ways I prefer to get around a major city when I travel. Definitely faster and more comfortable than a bus, and you get to see a lot more than you will on a subway. The streetcars (or as they call them, “trams”) in cities like Amsterdam, Geneva, Switzerland, and Lyon and Strasbourg, France are sleek, state-of-the-art dreams.

The New Orleans streetcars are still largely old-school in appearance. Their two major concessions to modernity are automated fareboxes and air-conditioning, the latter of which you will bless in the summertime. But they’re just as handy when it comes to getting around.

And the way IBIT sees it, any kind of public transit that can save me the cost of a rental car is a good thing.

THE BABY DOLLS
The other comeback this winter involves an all-but-forgotten Mardi Gras tradition — and I’m not sure if even New Orleans is ready for this one.

The Baby Dolls are back.

When the Krewe of Zulu rolls their parade to open Mardi Gras Day, Feb. 12, there will be a troupe of Baby Dolls among them.

Mothers may want to hide their children — and their husbands, too.

When blacks weren’t allowed to take part in the “mainstream” Mardi Gras parades and activities downtown, black communities promptly came up with their own ways to “laissez les bon temps roulez.” The Baby Dolls were one of them.

The original Baby Dolls were a product of Storyville, the infamous red-light district famed equally for its prostitution and its jazz joints.

In a sense, the whole thing grew out of one of those Uptown-Downtown rivalries common to New Orleans. When word got out that some downtown hookers were planning to stage a Mardi Gras parade, the working girls of Storyville took that as a challenge that could not go unanswered.

They took the nickname their pimps had given them and turned it into a fashion statement, literally dolling themselves up in bonnets, bloomers, knickers and what-not, and staged a parade of their own.

But these definitely were no Barbies.

Storyville itself was torn down during World War 1, but by then, the Baby Doll idea had caught on in black neighborhoods. Before long, first-graders, their mothers and even grandmothers were rocking the Baby Doll look.

You no longer had to be an “industrial debutante” to be a Baby Doll.

Soon, they were as much a part of the black Mardi Gras tradition in New Orleans as the Mardi Gras Indians, second-line clubs and Skeletons.

The Skeletons were the first to hit the streets in “the ‘hood” on Mardi Gras morning. Ghostly figures dressed head to toe in black-and-white skeleton suits and fierce-looking masks, they went from block to block, banging on pots and pans and yelling:

“WAKE UP! YOU NEXT!”

Then came the neighborhood parades, following no preset schedule or route, with their Indians and jazz bands and second-line clubs&hellip,and the Baby Dolls.

Over time, as other black Mardi Gras traditions gained recognition and acceptance from the mainstream, the Baby Dolls gradually disappeared from the streets — but not from memory.

Now, they’re making a comeback, updated to include one of New Orleans’ newer creations — “bounce music” and dance.

These days, you don’t have to be a prostitute, or black or even female. But it’s still a reach back in time to acknowledge the city’s baudy, insolent past…which returns to the present every Carnival season. You may be amused or you may be appalled, but either way, you won’t be bored.

And that’s the NOLA for ya.

NEW ORLEANS: Watch on Isaac

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Nearly on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a fresh tropical storm is building in the Gulf of Mexico. Crescent City visitors need to stay alert — and take a few simple precautions.

It’s hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico, and there is no one who lives in that region who does not understand what that means.

Now, with the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina almost upon us, a fresh new tropical storm code-named Isaac is building toward hurricane strength — and the city of New Orleans is officially under hurricane watch.

If you live in the Crescent City, especially if you were a resident in 2005, you already know what to do. You’ve been there and done that.

If you’re a visitor to the NOLA, your situation may be a bit different.

PLAN AHEAD
For those whose travel plans could have them arriving in New Orleans at the same time as Isaac, now might be a good time to do a little contingency planning. Check with your travel agent (if you have one) about what happens with your air, hotel or cruise reservations if the storm hits.

If you don’t have an agent, you’ll need to check with those various folks yourself.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t already done so, now would be a really good time to look to buying some travel insurance.

If you’re already in New Orleans, and your scheduled stay falls within Isaac’s timeline, a few good-sense precautions are in order.

The first is to stay informed on what the weather is doing.

Gulf storms are almost willful in their unpredictability. They may build to hurricane strength, or not. They may turn in your direction, or not. They may speed up, slow down, or do any number of other things that no one expects.

In other words, they’re a lot like teenagers, only larger, louder and wetter. Not to mention potentially much more destructive.

** URGENT **
Tropical Storm Isaac is now expected to reach hurricane strength after crossing through the Florida Keys and is currently on a path that could take it into the city of New Orleans. The city is now on HURRICANE WARNING. The city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana are now officially under a state of emergency.

WATCH V. WARNING
A hurricane watch is serious, but it only means that a storm has the potential to strike your locale. It’s not the same as saying, “You’re going to be hit with hurricane-force winds sometime in the next day and a half.”

That’s essentially what a hurricane warning means. When that happens, it’s time to either batten down — to the best extent that a visitor can do that — or get out of Dodge.

I would lean toward Door Number Two, the one with the Exit sign over it. If you lean the same way, you need to take a few steps before things get to the point.

You need to keep your car’s gas tank filled. Decide in advance which direction you’re going to take out of town if it comes to that. Stash a gallon or two of bottled water and some non-perishable high-energy snacks in the trunk, enough for maybe a day or two on the road.

If the car is a rental, contact the rental car company, let them know the situation.

If you have airline reservations, call the airline and see if you can fly out a day or so early. Do this sooner rather than later; you won’t be the only one thinking along those lines.

DON’T GIVE UP THE ROOM
If weather conditions deteriorate rapidly, not only might you not be able to fly out early, you might not be able to fly out at all, as the airlines may well cancel all flights in anticipation of the storm.

If you’re due to check out of your hotel around the time the storm is due to arrive, ask about keeping your room an extra day or two, just in case. New Orleans hotel operators especially understand this situation and generally will do their best for you.

In any case, keeping the room you’ve already got could be a lot easier than trying to find a new hotel with a hurricane bearing down on the city.

Once you feel sure that you’ve taken all the sensible precautions you can, there’s only one thing left to do: Go back to enjoying your visit to the NOLA. Down an extra po’boy. Catch some good music. Dance the night into dawn.

Hell, in this town, you can even drink a hurricane.

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 4.9.12

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The good, bad and bizarre from the world’s best travel media. ​

With this edition of the IBIT Travel Digest, we’re trying a slightly different format. Let me know if you prefer this approach or you’d rather keep it “old school.” Because unlike other social media (*cough* Facebook! *cough!*), IBIT prefers not to force changes down your throat.

​And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR

RYANAIR…AGAIN
Ryanair, Ireland’s low-fare airline will try anything to to lighten its airplanes to cut fuel costs — lighter on-board magazines, less ice in passengers’ drinks. At one point, they even considered removing armrests from seats and imposing a “fat tax” on passengers.

Now, Ryanair is after their female flight crew to watch their weight.

You can’t make this stuff up — and here’s the proof, courtesy of London’s Daily Telegraph.

from msnbc
Flying while (extremely) pregnant — a risk worth taking?

from Smarter Travel
JetBlue and Hawaiian Airlines are hooking up to make it easier for Americans back East to head for the islands.

fromUSA Today via DearSkySteward
Looks like Delta has found a formula to beat rising fuel costs: Higher airfares and fewer seats. Meanwhile…

from the New York Times
Delta actually may be looking to buy its own oil refinery. Genius or madness? You decide.

from OutOfTown
IBIT readers absolutely adore gleaming new Asian airports like Changi (SIN) in Singapore and Seoul Incheon International (ICN) in South Korea. An abundance of Internet-friendly facilities is one reason. Changi’s extra effort to make the airport a pleasant experience is another.

from msnbc
Five of the world’s best airlines and the lengths to which they go to earn their reputations.

LAND ​

TAX SHELTER, OF SORTS
Federal income taxes this year are due April 17, and there’s a New York hotel that’s offering you a different kind of tax break.

According to USA Today, if you check into the Andaz Wall Street, A Hyatt property, between now and April 15, they will have their “Accountant in Residence” file your taxes for you — free.

All the hotel needs is your tax information and 72 hours’ notice. So get those receipts together.

from GOOD
Where in America do people walk and bike the most? Probably not where you think they do.

from Eater.com
Want to reserve a table at one of these 11 ultra-exclusive restaurants? It won’t be easy.

from National Geographic
NatGeo’s nominees for the world’s ten best food markets. Most are in Europe, a couple in Asia, a few more in Latin America and the Caribbean. But their top choice is in Canada.

​from Wandering Educators
Can’t visit the world’s great art museums because your bored children make it a miserable experience? The art of getting kids to appreciate art.

SEA ​
COSTA ON THE COMEBACK?
Travel Weekly is reporting that Italy’s Costa Cruises is showing its Easter cruise bookings for 2012 up from 2011.

If so, it represents a nice rebound for a catastrophic first quarter following the Costa Concordia disaster and an engine-room fire that knocked another of their ships, the Costa Allegra, out of service.

But if everything is coming up so rosy now for Costa, why is it — as TW also reports — that Costa is making these upbeat pronouncements solely to Italian media? You’d think the company would want the whole world to know, yes? Curious, to say the least.

from National Geographic
The stream of tsunami debris from the 2011 Japan earthquake/tsunami disaster has tourists paying to see — and literally dive into — the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

from Vacation Cruises Info
A review of the new cruise ship Celebrity Eclipse. Half-acre on-board lawn? Check. Glass-blowing studio? Check. World-class dining? Well…

from CNN Travel
What is about the Titanic that people find so endlessly fascinating? A full century after she went down, people are still bringing her up.

from the Toronto Star (Canada)
New York to Toronto…by cruise ship? Welcome to the world of small-ship and inland waterway cruising.
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AFRICA ​
EDITORIAL
It’s been a turbulent week or so for the Mother Continent. A tense presidential runoff election in Senegal. A military coup coupled with a Taureg revolt in Mali. A dispute over presidential succession in Malawi after the incumbent succumbed to a heart attack.

Enough to make most Westerners shrug. Just business as usual in Africa, right? Not really.

In the Senegal presidential runoff, the challenger swamped the incumbent, who gracefully bowed out. In Malawi, politicians obeyed their own constitution and elevated the country’s female vice-president to the top job. And Mali’s neighbors imposed their own sanctions to force the coup plotters to return the country to civilian rule.

Imagine that. West African nations handling their business through diplomatic channels and democratic means. It’s a sign not just of political stability, but maturity. It’s an example for the rest of the continent.
— Greg Gross, IBIT

from The Witness (South Africa)
Soldiers posted in Kruger National Park may not be having much luck stopping poachers, but they’re great at terrorizing lost tourists. Who trains these guys, the TSA?

from the New York Times
A year after its revolution launched the Arab Spring, Tunisia is once again beautiful, serene, historic — and peaceful. It might be a good time to visit, before the tourist hordes come back.

from The Nambian via allAfrica.com
Namibia is trying to become the first African country ever to host the Adventure Travel World Summit, in 2013.
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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN

from Gizmodo
For those who’ve forgotten how incredibly beautiful Yosemite National Park is, this time-lapse video will remind you.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Easter is every weekend at the Tierra Santa (Holy Land in Spanish) religious theme park in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

from the Toronto Star (Canada)
You know Francis Ford Coppola for his movies. Get to know him for his California wines.

from the Washington Post
On location in the Big Easy: A two-hour tour of New Orleans sites used as film backdrops.

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ASIA/PACIFIC ​

CAN ANCIENT CHINESE MEDICINE HELP MODERN TRAVELERS?
After China opened itself to the world in the 1970s, we started learning about traditional Chinese healing techniques such as acupuncture, the use of delicate needles to relieve pain by manipulating pressure points in the body.

Not quite as well known is acupressure, which works on the same principles, but without the scary-looking needles.

Could acupressure work on some of the aches and pains common to travelers? There’s a small story on the CNNgo site that suggest the answer could be “yes.”

As always, CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR FIRST.

from Travel With A Mate
Ten cool things to do in the South Korean capital, Seoul, on a budget.

from We Blog the World
Speaking of overlooked destinations in Asia, Manila almost never comes to mind. Maybe it should.

from Agence France Presse via France 24
Got a road-rage fantasy? Want to unleash your inner Patton? A company in Christchurch, New Zealand will put you at the controls of a main battle tank…and let you run over cars with it.

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EUROPE ​

from About.com/Eastern Europe Travel
Croatia is not your typical European destination — and that can be a good thing.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Speaking of Croatia, the Balkans may still be a politically fractured and fragile region, but these days, it’s also one ruggedly beautiful landscape that’s welcoming visitors.

from Go World Travel Guide
Cheap flights to Europe are only half the battle. Tips for saving money once you get there.

from Agence France Presse via France 24
In the Black Sea resort town of Batumi, they’re building a tower with a fountain at the top. Once a week, the fountain will flow not with water but with chacha — also known as “grape vodka.” And you get to taste. Pray that your tour bus has a designated driver.

Escape from the Super Bowl

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You say being submerged in the most over-hyped sporting event of all time is not your idea of a good time? How about a western Caribbean cruise instead? Now is the time to plot your getaway.

February is coming, which means the Super Bowl is coming.

And that means Super Bowl Nervosa is coming.

You know what I’m talking about. A Super game between two Super teams and a Super halftime show in a Super stadium with seats sold at Super prices, all of which will be surrounded by weeks of Super hype and Super media overkill.

Want to get away…desperately?

If so, I have a friend named Milton Wallace who may be able to help you out.

Milton’s got a travel agency called Dreams Come True Travel, and with the help of Carnival Cruise Lines, he’s put together a package that could be your best hope to escape from Super Bowl Nervosa.

It’s a four-day cruise in the western Caribbean aboard Carnival Elation to the island of Cozumel, off the coast of Mexico.

He calls it his Super Bowl Cruise, but you can think of it as your “Escape from the Super Bowl Cruise.” If you live east of the Rockies, you also can think of it as at least a temporary escape from winter.

I’ve been to Cozumel. It’s warm, tropical, with some of the clearest, bluest water you’ll ever see anywhere.

And it’s warm.

You can snorkel. You can scuba. You can stare at the ocean wonders beneath you in a glass-bottom boat. There’s jungle to explore. For adrenalin junkies out there, you can rappel off what’s described as the tallest tower in all of Mexico.

Did I also mention that it’s warm?

So as you can see, a cruise is a nice way to get away from a lot of things. Stress. Winter. Excessively hyped football games.

Even better, your cruise originates in New Orleans. So in addition to cruising the Gulf of Mexico, you also get to cruise the Mississippi River, a completely different experience from being on the ocean, and a blast in itself.

And speakng of blasts, New Orleans is a dream destination in its own right — food, music and good times going 24/7. Get here a day before your cruise departs, or stay a day after it returns, and you’ve got yourself two vacations in one.

Maybe three.

You see, February also happens to be the month that Carnival season starts in the NOLA, which means you can get a taste of it as part of your cruise. Street parades, cotillions, all manner of gaiety.

You can even see Mardi Gras parade floats being built, all pointing toward Mardi Gras Day on Feb. 21.

Of course, your cruise will be long over by then, but so too will the Super Bowl. You’ll be safe.

Your budget also will be safe. An inside cabin for this cruise aboard Carnival Elation is going for $401 per person (double occupancy). A room with an ocean view, $437.

That works out to slightly over $100 a day for four days of transportation, lodging, all your meals and all your drinks (except alcohol).

At most land destinations nowadays, you’d be hard-pressed to find a decent hotel room for $100 a day.

If this sounds more like your idea of a good time, you need to get a $150 deposit down by Oct. 17, with the balance due by Dec. 5. You can contact Milton via his Web site at Dreams Come True Travel.

You also can find him on Facebook, or give him a call at (940) 368-4886, or email him.

And when he asks you how you heard about the cruise, be sure to tell him about IBIT.

POSTSCRIPT
Of course, if you or your significant other actually WANT to watch the Super Bowl, you’ll probably be able to do that, too. Except that you’ll be able to have all the snacks you want at no charge, be able to take a dip in the pool or the Jacuzzi at halftime, and go clubbing after the game.

Or just kick back and watch the stars and the Gulf of Mexico glide by.

Isn’t it nice to have options?

All on a Mardi Gras Day

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The city of New Orleans probably could exist without Mardi Gras. But there really wouldn’t be much point.

Mardi Gras indian, 2005 | ©Greg Gross

Tuesday is Fat Tuesday — or in French, Mardi Gras — and that means one of the longest Carnival seasons in living memory wraps up today in New Orleans.

But Mardi Gras is only the last day of a pre-Lenten season the locals call Carnival, a season which, depending on the lunar calendar, can last from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, as it has this year.

Mardi Gras Day features two main parades. The Krewe of Zulu rolls in the morning. The Krewe of Rex rolls in the afternoon.

As anyone in New Orleans will tell you, parades in this town don’t march. They “roll.”

It’s not a casual choice of words.

But there’s a lot more to Mardi Gras than just Mardi Gras. Because in truth, there’s more than one.

There’s the tourist Mardi Gras, the one that visitors treat as a hall pass to act out all their Animal House fantasies — until some NOPD cop reminds them, at times rather forcefully, that even New Orleans has its limits.

There’s the high-brow Mardi Gras, the one that drips and reeks of money and privilege, the one into which you can only be born, or maybe buy your way into. This is the original Mardi Gras, the one first created by and exclusively for the city’s well-to-do. Entry into this world is by invitation only.

Then there’s the “other” Mardi Gras. The Mardi Gras of neighborhoods and second lines and Mardi Gras Indians, likw the one pictured here. The Mardi Gras of tambourines, feathered “flags” and gilded coconuts. The one that has given Mardi Gras most of its traditions, most of its energy and most of its identity.

The black Mardi Gras.

To truly understand that one, you need to understand what goes on in New Orleans the other 50 weeks or so of the year. This is a city in which race and class entwine around one other like a pair of snakes, strangling the hope from thousands who call “the NOLA” home.

If your wallet is thinner than a pizza crust and your skin darker than a paper grocery bag, New Orleans may not have a whole lot of use for you.

These days, for the most part, New Orleans is too gentile and sophisticated to tell you that to your black face, but it manages to get the message across, just the same.

Those too long on the receiving end of that message seek shelter from the pain wherever they can find it — the pew of a church, the bottom of a liquor bottle, the smoke from improvised crack pipe. Others just take out their rage and frustration on one another. The courts, the cops and the coroner keep score.

It was that way long before Hurricane Katrina, and in to many respects, little has changed.

So from whence, then, comes all this exuberance, all this energy and creativity, all this celebration?

Undearneath all the joy is a lot of defiance.

When the originators of Mardi Gras forbade black folks from showing themselves on Canal Street or St. Charles Avenue when those wealthy and for-whites-only krewes were on parade, the folks in New Orleans’ black ghettos created their own Carnival, in their own neighborhoods.

In place of silk and rhinestones, their “costumes” might have been made from burlap and bedsheets, turkey feathers scrounged from a butcher shop and bits of broken glass. Instead of linen tablecloths, fine china and soup tureens, there were barbecue grills, paper plates and gumbo pots.

They hit the streets and they did their thing, without sheet music, route maps or parade permits from the police department.

In so doing, they built a folk culture unique in America. In spite of poverty, in spite of prejudice, in spite of everything.

Things are a bit more organized these days, the “suits” a lot more elaborate and wildly more expensive. But the energy, the passion, the pride, the musical genius, are all “same as it ever was.”

And people from all the world converge on New Orleans every year to get a taste of it.

Those in charge of drawing tourists and conventions to New Orleans will tell you that Mardi Gras is America’s ultimate celebration of life — that’s true, and if you live along St. Charles or Napoleon Avenue avenues or in the Lakeview district.

if you live on Washington Street or Jackson Avenue or LaSalle or in the Tremé, or any of its equivalents in the Ninth Ward, you don’t celebrate life. You celebrate in spite of life.

Mardi Gras is how black New Orleans gives the finger to life.

Proudly, loudly, and sometimes even with a smile.

That is the spirit that will propel New Orleans today, and get it through the other 364 days of the year.

And the year after that.

And the year after that.

That is how this city rolls.

A TASTE OF MARDI GRAS
If you can’t be in New Orleans to enjoy Mardi Gras Day in person, you can still get some of the flavor of the event via the Web.

A dozen parades will close out Carnival 2011 — four in New Orleans and eight in its suburbs. The two major parades of the day — and the ones you’re most likely to be televised outside of New Orleans — are Zulu and Rex.

Zulu always rolls first, at 8:15 a.m., followed by Rex at 10 a.m.

Audio
By far, the best radio station to hear the music of Mardi Gras is New Orleans’ own WWOZ. If you have a Mac, just open your iTunes, look under the Library menu and click on Radio, then pull down the Jazz stations list. That’s where you’ll find WWOZ. If you don’t have iTunes, or just want to see everything the station is up to, go to the WWOZ Web site.

Naturally, they’re also on Facebook and Twitter (isn’t everyone?).

Their studios are located in Louis Armstrong Park, site of the old Congo Square, where slaves would get together on Sundays to sing, dance, share stories and briefly forget about their servitude (the French gave their slaves Sundays off).

Video
The Web site of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, nola.com, has Paradecams that stream live video of Mardi Gras along St. Charles Avenue through the Garden District, as well recorded video of earlier parades.

It also carries the entire parade schedule for every day of Carnival. Something to remember for 2012.

Some TV stations around the country, including PBS stations, broadcast Mardi Gras Day parades live, of only for 30 minutes to an hour or so. Check with stations in your area or look for live Mardi Gras broadcasts from New Orleans on your favorite search engine.

As for New Orleans-area stations, you may be able to find live streaming parade coverage on the Web sitates of WWL-TV and WDSU-TV.

TRAINS: The Amtrak Crescent

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One of an occasional series

It also could be called the train that walks on water and flies through kudzu.

Rather than fly from California to Washington DC, I decided to fly into New Orleans and from there, take Amtrak to the nation’s capital, a run of 27 1/2 hours

The Amtrak Crescent gets its name from New Orleans, nicknamed “the Crescent City.” Its roughly 1,400-mile route gently meanders up through the “Dirty South” to the Eastern Seaboard, terminating in New York City.

Three long-distance trains operate out of here — the Sunset Limited to Los Angeles, the City of New Orleans to Chicago and the Crescent.

When I took my first big train trip out of here as a kid, the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal was still new. It was my own little Cape Canaveral — and it launched my dreams.

These days, the station exists in a kind of twilight zone — not old or ornate enough to look grandly “historic,” too plain and tired to be viewed as modern. There are few distractions inside beyond a 120-foot-long mural of Louisiana history.

RIGHT ON TIME
The Crescent offers sleeper compartments for its First Class passengers, but I was in Coach for this trip. There also were diner, lounge and baggage cars. Unless your suitcase is the size of a car, you probably can bring it aboard with you.

Train 20, the northbound Crescent, rolled out right on time at 7 a.m., passing the New Orleans Arena, as well as several cemeteries, with the above-ground crypts for which the city is famous.

We slid through the greenery and lagoons of City Park, crossed the Industrial Canal and rolled atop the levee that (theoretically) protects New Orleans from the waters of Lake Pontchartrain.

On one side, the saltwater lake stretches 40 miles wide from east to west. On the other, mile after mile of swampy bayou, dotted with rickety fishing shacks of weathered wood, sitting on equally weathered wooden stilts. Here too are the abandoned ruins of Lincoln Beach, site of the blacks-only amusement park before integration closed it in 1965.

Back in the day, the bus ride out here from uptown New Orleans to this lonely spot out in the Ninth Ward seemed to take forever; it was the end of the line in more ways than one. Waiting there were carousels, bumper cars, a man-made beach and a swimming pool full of cloudy, chlorinated water, where you would be dive-bombed by huge, biting sand flies.

DOES THIS TRAIN FLOAT?
A lot of famed black musicians performed out here. Fats Domino was a regular.

Its only visitors these days arrive by kayak.

Then came the lake itself, and the VERY low railroad bridge that ran across it. A single, straight line of track, much narrower than the train it supported.

Look down from your window seat and you see nothing but water, a sight that bemused some and unnerved others. But we made it into the cross-lake suburb of Slidell without anyone getting wet.

Less than an hour later, we were in Mississippi, and our rail journey began in earnest.

In all, the Crescent has 30 stops between New Orleans and New York. Most of those stops are in rural country — four in Mississippi, three each in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, five in North Carolina and six in Virginia.

(If you wonder why Virginia made out so well, you need only look at its proximity to Washington DC.)

The route itself partly explains why Amtrak passenger service has survived, despite all political efforts to kill it off.

Its annual ridership of not quite 300,00 people puts it in eighth place among Amtrak’s 15 long-distance trains, but its importance to the region far outweighs the numbers. For a great many people, it’s their only real link to the rest of the country that doesn’t require them to drive hundreds of miles.

Hurricane Katrina disrupted the run for several months. Its ridership has risen every year since.

THE VINE THAT ATE THE SOUTH
The dining car menu is pretty much Amtrak-standardized, especially at breakfast and lunch. If the dining car ever offers any Cajun or Creole dinner specialties on this run, go for it.

This trip introduced me to kudzu, an Asian vine that was introduced into the South in the 1930s.

Somebody made a BIG mistake. Kudzu ran amok.

Miles of farmland have been swallowed up by it. Whole pine forests disappear under this stuff, along with telephone poles, tractors — and as you can see if you look carefully at the pic — the occasional house. In some places, it literally blots out the sun.

Down here, they call kudzu “the vine that ate the South.”

Pray that it doesn’t ask for seconds.

Many of the places that figured in the Civil Rights movement are stops on the Crescent’s route. Hattiesburg, Laurel and Meridian, MS. Birmingham and Anniston, AL. Greenville, SC and Greensboro, NC. A history lesson on rails.

You also roll through or past the ancestral lands of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole tribes of Native Americans, the so-called Five Civilized Tribes.

HISTORY AND HERITAGE
Night had long fallen by the time we hit Atlanta, and on the northbound run, you sleep through the Carolinas to awaken in Virginia, rolling past Civil War battlefields like Manassas.

You know what happened here all those years ago and why, but you can’t picture it. These fields are too peaceful, too achingly lovely, to be sullied by mental images of smoke and horror and dying men. So your eyes drink in the beauty and the peace, and your brain says that’s enough for one trip.

At 9:30 a.m., precisely 27 1/2 hours after leaving New Orleans, we rolled into Washington DC and its lovingly restored Union Station. The train was now crowded with a mix of long-distance travelers from New Orleans and suited-and-booted professionals from the Virginia suburbs, commuting to their Capitol jobs.

The train would make four more stops before reaching New York’s Penn Station, but my journey ended here. It’s a journey I would love to repeat someday.

The 4-1-1
TRAIN: The Crescent
OPERATOR: Amtrak
ROUTE: New Orleans — New York (Train 19 southbound, Train 20 northbound)
DISTANCE: 1,377 miles (NOTE: The distance on the Coast Starlight between Los Angeles and Seattle is exactly the same. Weird.)
STOPS: 30
TIME: 30 hours (approximate)
TRAINSET: Viewliner cars (single-deck), Coach seats, First Class roomettes & bedrooms, dining, lounge, cafe and baggage cars
RIDERSHIP: 300,000 annual (approximate), 800-plus daily average