Okay, let this be my first “I am new and these locals are weird” post.
I was blessed/spoiled to have lived most of my life in cities with a relatively straightforward grid pattern, making navigation by either foot or by car relatively easy. Philadelphia, easy. Washington, DC, easy. New Orleans, not so much. Some of the major streets sort of wind all over the place.
The lack of the straight roads isn’t so much of a problem as the directions. See, in most places (hell, every other place) people use words like North/South/East and West. Apparently down here, it’s “lake side” and “river side”.
Lake side is north, check.
River side . . . . . well what to say. River side is south, east and west. Yes, ladies and gentleman, you can be driving “towards the river” and “away from the river.”
So, being (1) a little stupid and (2) getting directions like “go towards the river and make a left on X street”, you can imagine the fun getting around this city.
Thank god for mapquest.
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2 comments:
It's like when I lived in Boston. I still get lost even walking there. I feel your pain. Philly saved me with the grid pattern.
t
Oh, Jordo, I remember that feeling well. I think the mapquest might be of help. But when I was there, didn't see much in the way of street signs anymore anyway. I like the signs they've put up in some neighborhoods...Is it on Jeff Davis that they have all those handmade signs? For some reason, that seems like among the coolest thing I've seen people in NO do since Katrina...those cool signs on JD. Because they're not even like, plain signs. They're all colorful and on these long sticks. Like folks there got tired of waiting for new signs, and put up their own, but in true NO fashion, made them, well, cool looking. It's something.
Angela
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