Blerina Syla - New Orleans

Blerina Syla

Period 2

11/05/13

Reminiscence of a Place

There’s no place like New Orleans. After moving at the age of 7 because of hurricane Katrina, I lost most of my memories of living there. I visited New Orleans Winter Break of 2012. The funny thing is, my brother, who I visited, lives only a couple houses of down of where I lived in until I was 7. The weather was always nice, not too hot, and not too cold. It was a long 15 hour drive to New Orleans from Chicago. My favorite part of the drive was when we finally arrived. The first thing I saw was the bridge, and then I definitely knew we were in New Orleans. It was around 5 am and the sky was pink and orange, it looked beautiful. I remembered as a young girl, my dad would always drive past the bridge. My favorite place was the French Quarter. There was jazz music playing, Christmas lights everywhere, and the weather was perfectly chill. I was really excited to go to the French Quarter, I even remember waking up at 7 am and waking everyone else up because I was excited to go. There were so many little shops on every corner of the street. Magnets, key chains, bumper stickers, Bourbon Street name plates, and everything imaginable was sold in these shops. Bourbon Street is the most famous street in New Orleans. Everyone in Bourbon Street is huge fans of the New Orleans Saints, during football games, there are tons of people packed in bars and cafes cheering on their favorite football team through a TV screen. My family stopped by a café and my nephew really liked the band that was playing, he started singing along to the song. There are many street performers on Bourbon Street. I specifically remember a group of maybe 5 or 6 guys that would dance every single day. What I found interesting is I remembered them from when I used to live in New Orleans, and they were still there when I went back. They usually danced by an auditorium set up but instead of there being chairs, there were stairs and people would sit and enjoy the show. My favorite street performer was a pantomime, he had silver paint all over him, and every inch of his body was covered in silver. He was completely quiet throughout his entire performance. There are many things that remind me of New Orleans and I hope to visit again soon.