French, s'il vous plait

On this lovely 90 degree, 90% humidity Labor Day, two of my housemates and I wandered about the French Quarter for a few hours. It was nice to see a little more of the city and enjoy our last day before we all start our jobs.

I've had an interesting time observing French from the moment I crossed the state line from Mississippi on I-59. I'm fairly confident in my complete inability to pronounce anything even vaguely French. I had my spelling corrected approximately 23957 times in the meeting last Friday (ok, just twice, after I wrote down my fifth iteration of the town "Thibodaux"-- Tibido, Tibideaux, Tibideau, Tibidaux, Tibi~~~ (squiggly lines ensued), and after I noticed a specific local forestry term written down on one of the papers being passed around the room). Thankfully, one of the good things that came out of the infamous Peace Corps debacle was plenty of free online French language lessons and resources. Also, I hear there are lessons at my local library. One of my goals for the year: learn enough French that I can at least write things down correctly, or closer to correctly. I'll know I have truly succeeded in this if I can also pronounce street names and business names without the preface, "I know I'm about to embarrass myself..."

I heard a lot more French being spoken in the French Quarter than I expected, oddly enough. People have reassured me over and over that I'll be fine without a background in French or Romance languages (nine years of German and a year of Mandarin? Surprisingly not useful!), but I'm pretty sure I've heard it every day so far. I definitely heard it more on my trips outside of the city, weaving its way into and out of conversations between people whose families have lived in the area for generations.

I guess I was vaguely aware that the French here are related to the French in eastern Canada and northern Maine. This weekend, while down in Bayou Blue, it was pointed out that "Cajun" is a sort of bastardization of "Acadian". It all kind of clicked and I started to think about all of the beautiful things I saw last summer when I drove across eastern Canada with Jamie, Amanda and Katie. The stop signs may not say Arête, but the language is still very present here.

Cajuns were exiled from eastern Canada for failure to pledge allegiance to Britain. They kind of wandered south until they were left alone, settling on the bayou and adapting their culture to the local environment. (This is as opposed to Creole, which are people of France French heritage and sometimes Spanish and Italian.) They invented all sorts of wonderful foods and Zydeco music.

So anyway, French Quarter. It's very touristy, so my lack of French skills was not actually a hindrance. Hannah, Jess and I wandered around the market, checking out local crafts and the myriad of masks, beads and voo doo dolls. We had lunch at Mothers, a legendary po'boy shop where even the cabbage had meat visible in it, so I ordered buttered grits and was plenty happy. Another goal for the year that I am not sure should actually be a goal but am considering anyway: building up to eating food that was cooked with meat in it, but probably not actually eating the meat. So the rice and beans that's cooked with a hunk of ham in it, potatoes and corn cooked in the same pot with the crawfish or shrimp... I'm still really not interested in eating meat, and I'm pretty sure my digestive system isn't either after nearly ten years of vegetarianism, but I really do want to experience the culture as best I can, and I really don't want to turn down the incredible hospitality offered to me here.

I drove, and was happy to do so, to start getting my bearings on the area. The whole Crescent City thing is confusing-- there are streets that go from one side of the city to the other, but they don't exactly run due east-west. Still, we had a pleasant drive, ultimately down Canal Street and Magazine Street back over to our neighborhood, Carrollton. It was a good day.