{"id":957,"date":"2009-11-24T21:36:32","date_gmt":"2009-11-25T03:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/2009\/11\/24\/what-i-learned-in-new-orleans\/"},"modified":"2009-11-24T21:36:32","modified_gmt":"2009-11-25T03:36:32","slug":"what-i-learned-in-new-orleans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/24\/what-i-learned-in-new-orleans\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Learned in New Orleans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most of my time in New Orleans was spent in hotel rooms \u2013 either in mine sleeping or in conference rooms listening.  But I did get out for meals and to walk from one hotel to another.  That afforded me a few opportunities to experience the culture.  Here are a few things I learned.<\/p>\n

I have a different name in New Orleans.  I am “baby,” “darling,” and “hun,” to people I’ve never seen before.<\/p>\n

New Orleans is like Egypt: the goal is to separate you from your money.  The city has a 9% sales tax.  The hotel charges $10 if you want to exercise.  There is a $25 surcharge for mailing a package near a hotel.  McDonalds does not<\/em> give free refills. (And I thought the last was a right granted by the Constitution.)<\/p>\n

I’ve studied a lot about temples in the Greco-Roman world this year.  New Orleans has a temple where many go to worship.  They make pilgrimage to here from great distances.  The building’s facade even looks like a temple.  (I didn’t get a picture, but you can see one here<\/a>.)  When archaeologists dig this up in a thousand years, they will find clear evidence of cultic activity.<\/p>\n

There is no equal opportunity employment at McDonalds.  Everyone is the same color and gender.<\/p>\n

The city has sections that are sleazier than any I’ve seen even in Europe.  I guess it didn’t take long after the clean-up to get real dirty.<\/p>\n

I saw nothing to indicate that a hurricane had hit the city four years ago.  I never would have guessed.  I suppose if you really want to take a city out, fire and brimstone works better.  <\/p>\n

Tomorrow I ‘ll share some of the presentations I attended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of my time in New Orleans was spent in hotel rooms \u2013 either in mine sleeping or in conference rooms listening.  But I did get out for meals and to walk from one hotel to another.  That afforded me a few opportunities to experience the culture.  Here are a few things I learned. I\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}