abroad

Categories: EuropeNorth AmericaThe SouthWestern Europe

NOLA / BCN

So this Spring I decided to run off to Spain with a buddy, and then another buddy invited me to the New Orleans Jazzfest, and I’ve been wanting to go, even though I absolutely hate music fairs/festivals/events that require you to sit outdoors on the ground in the hot sun and wander and be in crowds and use Port-O-Potties. I can’t do it. But for a weekend, and NOLA, a city I love hanging out in, I think it’s worth it.

Jackson Square, New Orleans, LA. Source: http://www.experienceneworleans.com/

Mmm, NOLA (new orleans)

Jessica Lange as Blanche in a Streetcar Named Desire. Source: http://americanhorrorstory.wikia.com/

NOLA is a fucking sexy city. She’s a loose woman of high morals, I don’t even know how to put it. She wears A Streetcar Named Desire lingerie and she has a heart of gold and she isn’t quite sleeping around with everyone, but she keeps making you think she at least wants to, and at the same time, she keeps playing hard to get, too hoity-toity and good for anyone to actually capture. Clutching her silky negligée closed. Evasive. Elusive. Yet seductive and taunting. She wants you to want her and she wants you to never, ever catch her. But sometimes you do. And then she gets under your skin, and you never forget her, no matter how many years and lovers go by. And you may even forget you miss her, what she means to you.

And then you hear the horns, or you suddenly get a flash of eating really good etouffée, a sense memory of walking along the Mississippi in the wee hours of the morning and an older black gentleman who takes a dollar to be your human jukebox. He’ll sing anything you want him to. And you ask him to sing, Sittin’ on the dock o’ the bay, cuz it feels right. And you end up whistling the end together.

Or that time you sat down in St. Jackson Square in front of St. Louis Cathedral and out of absolutely nowhere, you hear Louis Armstrong singing La Vie en Rose, and you just flat out feel your soul soar and you straight up tear up. TEAR UP. Like a little girl. And you literally don’t know where the music came from for years and it feels like a spiritual hallucination until someone tells you it may have been the speakers hidden in the grass. But you decide whatever, it was a spiritual hallucination and the universe was trying to tell you something, dammit.

So, NOLA. A place where you can eat like a fat king, run around in the humidity and let it all hang out, kiss strangers, walk into a club on Frenchman street, and watch your friend get up on the stage and start singing with the 5 piece band that suddenly trickles into a 9+ piece band and people are just walking in off the street with instruments to join him. And you’re all dancing and it’s breathtakingly impromptu and serendipitously spontaneous.

And when I leave, at least, I never feel refreshed. My body his always tired, wrung out, dehydrated. But my skin glows from the humidity, and my heart is full, and my soul, nourished.

Looking forward to going again in a few weeks. It’s been a long while.

BCN (Barcelona)

Have never been, so I can’t reminisce, but multiple people have told me this is the spot to go in Spain. Amazing food, warm weather, great nightlife. Figure it’s about time. Euro is getting closer to the dollar (bad for them, good for us right now) and these guys are also the hometown of Natura Bissé, a really good (hurt your wallet-good) skincare line. I’mma stock up, yo.

We’ve booked a vacation rental and there will be tapas, tapas, tapas! And food tours. And my travelling buddy likes to walk walk walk so I’m coming prepared with sturdy sneakers so I can keep up.