[] bikes and beignets []

A little road trip this spring brought us through my new favorite city, New Orleans (well, second to Los Angeles, of course).  I quickly fell in love with the dense culture and amazing visuals.  Its like you can smell the culture in the air. Canal Street with its 50 foot tall palm trees lining the streets in front of buildings infused with a Creole-European architecture was a regal way to enter the city. A strong eclectic bike community and the wash of a punk scene was a complete surprise.  But I had some work to do, I needed to make new memories of this place.  Everything I knew about New Orleans has been gathered from my parents dated, grainy Mardi Gras footage from the 1970's.  Needless to say, there were many things in those videos that I didn't want to see, but being there in the city myself was nothing short of amazing.  The bogginess of the air forces you to slow down.  The unevenness of the sidewalks shifts your mind down a gear or two, all the while people are moving in and out of the streets like ants. Living in a city with millions of people I really miss, and these city streets make me feel found again.  One of the best things I enjoyed that day was getting to walk around and observe the French Quarter residents and the very present biking community.  I'll be the first to admit that i am a little obsessed with bikes, and the bikes down there were completely different than what I'm used to seeing.  Different shapes, colors, and models totally fit into the niche they were chained to.  They were everywhere.  And the feeling of the freedom that comes with riding one, well, its there in a big way.

Ok, so my senses are on overdrive: people, bikes, architecture, culture, street music...what could possibly make this better? 
Cafe du Monde: A simple french cafe that has a huge following of coffee fans around the world.  And when I say simple, I mean simple.  The only thing on their menu is coffee and beingets.  My sister and I found the perfect combination of a decaf café au lait with an order of the "heaven on a plate" french doughnuts on our small marble table. A funny fact: In 1986, beignets became the official Louisiana state doughnut! The coffee here is also special, as its coffee-not espresso.  Its brewed really strong and dark and roasted with chicory to give it a flavor all its own.  At one time in history people had to think up a way to conserve their coffee supply, so they started experimenting with adding chicory to the roasts to stretch their supply.  Add milk to the brewed mixed, viola! The café au lait was born. 

The french-ness of this sidewalk cafe reminded me when my sister and I went to Paris when we were 17 years old.  The city was great, but I was really too young to really appreciate where I was at.  What i did appreciate was my sisters plan to prank other guests in the hotel, call them up and pretend to be the concierge of the hotel requesting what time they would want their wake up call.  The funniest part, we were with a group from high school and a few of our teachers were chaperoning us. Every morning they had something planned at the crack of dawn, so we figured if the entire group missed the bus, we could all sleep in.  Grace rang our teachers room " ahem, mademoiselle, this is the concierge Lief at the front desk. Vwould you like to shez-ule a vwake up call for ze morning?"...They totally fell for it.  We threw in a few "v"s and other unnecessary sounds to fake the perfect bad french accent. I will always remember those times and laugh...

But I've digressed: I love New Orleans.  This city will be on my places to come back to, perhaps to cheer on my friend in the February Marathon.  I'm also really glad I got to make my own memories here, where the culture is as thick as the air.  some naw'lins love...