My Flying History in Logos

The time of flying logos are used. Thanks to Aerosite for all except Aeroflot Nord logos. Aeroflot, Atlantic Coast Airlines and Delta have changed their logos since I last flew them. Vanguard Airlines went bankrupt. Air France teamed with KLM and there is a joint new logo.

Wanted countries

Here is the final map: of the countries I would like to visit:

create your own visited country map or check our Venice travel guide

My Paths

Here is the map of the world with countries I’ve been to painted in red (Russia, UK, USA, Oman, Turkey):

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I made connections at airports in France, Germany, and UAE, but this doesn’t quite count as whole countries.

And finally the map of the US states I’ve been to (AL, AZ, CO, GA, LA, MS, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, SC, TN, TX, UT):

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New Orleans – 5th anniversary.

It’s been five years since I first came to New Orleans (first out of three times). I remember everything as if it happened yesterday. That night of August 18th 2001 stuffed with Louisiana humidity, juiced with mixed feelings and spiced with typically New Orleans smells. Here is the text of my magazine article born from a chapter from my American Diary. Keep in mind that this is a pre-Katrina New Orleans.

“Easy Traditions of a Languid City” (originally – “The city in jazz tones”)

From afar, on coming to the city you feel that it lies below the sea level: the car seems to be flattened by the heat and level landscape, there is a curve of a bridge far ahead, and scarce bushes on the roadside enhance the impression. Then, after crossing the bridge, comes the fleeting glimpse of houses, office buildings, supermarkets, gas stations and typically one-storied America. There are no skyscrapers; you can only see them on the horizon in the business district. Bass music flattens you even more. There are trees, quite a lot of them; palms and oaks are together. A huge mass of City Park floats on the right. The interstate divides: you can go straight and soon leave the city behind, or turn left and make a bend through the city centre and past the Superdome, the biggest roofed stadium in the world. And surely nothing prevents you from leaving the interstate and taking a plunge into a unique atmosphere of this unique city, this decadence kaleidoscope of sounds, smells, buildings and entertainment, the main of which is the city itself. Welcome to New Orleans!

Unique, languid, musical, tolerant, rich and poor at the same time, permeated with history, humid – you can continue the line of epithets endlessly. History is everywhere; it dominates and sometimes prevails over you: old quarters, exquisite patterns of balcony railings, houses with shabby walls in the old part, streetcars preserved from the twenties of the last century, old oaks, traditional cuisine, traditional cemeteries, and century-old mansions with Corinthian columns. You can continue this line as well. The citizens are proud of their city having so many traditions, not coined to attract visitors (like many things in the USA) but authentic, preserved through centuries.

From the South the city is bent by the turbid band of the Mississippi, the longest river in the country. Its waters are still furrowed by the paddle boats taking tourists to nearby plantations. In the North there is Lake Pontchartrain with the longest bridge in the world (23 miles, of which for 8 miles you cannot see the shores). Both waters are above the city level, and New Orleans is protected by the system of levies and gates. The city is down; it languidly stretches from the lake to the river. Humidity, especially in the summer, makes day walks unbearable; it is best not to leave the room till the evening. Even at night it is humid, and only a slight breeze somewhat freshens your sweaty body. At daytime sweat rolls down your face and body in streams and you can’t do anything about it. The Americans do not perceive their lives without the AC and in New Orleans you start to understand it acutely.

The gem of New Orleans is undoubtedly its French Quarter, an old part of the city recalling French and Spanish periods, reflected in the street names. Two-three-storied red and yellow buildings are adorned with balconies. You won’t find such balconies anywhere else; you can walk for hours and admire the refined patterns enlivened by the green plants. Traffic in narrow streets is lazy: pedestrians and drivers are mutually respectful, there are not so many of the latter, since it is best to explore the quarter on foot or by bicycle.

Smells of Creole and Cajun cuisines, kitchen workers unloading the produce for restaurants, ringing of the shop bells, ubiquitous tourists and locals, cacophony of melodies from bars and clubs. New Orleans is considered the birthplace of jazz, a typically American type of music. This is the city of Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, King Oliver and Sidney Bechet. But jazz is not the only local style: there are Cajun music with its European and Creole roots and zydeco – a blend of Afro-Caribbean rhythms, blues and Cajun music; there is rhythm & blues with local celebrities, such as the Neville Brothers, Earl King and Fats Domino. Music is harmonised with local cuisine, climate, character, mix of peoples; music is heard from the radio, open windows, bars, restaurants, at the wedding-parties, and even at funerals. It is only here that you can see the so-called jazz funerals, when the procession moves along with a jazz band. The citizens prefer to go the last way to the music.

Around Jackson Square, with its monument to the General-President, Catholic St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo, you will find artists and fortune-tellers. The nearby brewery has been refurbished into a stylish shopping centre with a three-storied music store. There is a “Moonwalk” embankment behind it. And close by you get to Café du Monde. It is a must-do, though there can be a line for a vacant table. Trying beignets, French doughnuts sprinkled with powdered sugar, together with café au lait (half chicory coffee, half hot milk) is trying the sweet New Orleans taste. Also you cannot imagine local cuisine without jambalaya (rice with tomato and every possible combination of beef, chicken, sausage, pork, shrimp), gumbo (soup of endless types), Po-Boy sandwiches (just about anything on French bread).

Bourbon Street is the night magnet of New Orleans. At daytime it is occupied by cars, at night only horse police rides here. Pedestrians rule over this thoroughfare of night enjoyment. The crowd flows from one bar to another, stares at the girls in the strip-bars windows, dances on approaching the clubs and sings together with restaurant singers. Neighbouring streets hide some dangers and are sunk in the dim light of street lamps, deserted except for tourists and couples gone here astray. Back to Bourbon Street where there are lights, music, a reek of alcohol, heavy breathing of the crowd indulging in pleasures after the working day. Pat O’Brien’s is a favourite with its several halls and an inner yard with flaming fountain, where you can taste the Hurricane cocktail. There is also “Absinth-House” here.

The city offers no less at day than at night. Without any doubt, you should take a streetcar with the same cars as at the beginning of the twentieth century – hard wooden benches, old mechanisms. The streetcar line goes along St. Charles Avenue through the Garden District with its old mansion buildings. Like buns they show their balcony bellies with white columns, sitting with propriety surrounded by oak trees. University buildings are just across the street from the Audubon Park – the favourite place for walks. There are four big universities in the city: Catholic Loyola, civil Tulane, predominantly black Xavier, and University of New Orleans. Where the streetcar line ends a poorer district begins with shotgun houses, so-called because of their narrow floor plan that lines up all the rooms in a row, standing on brick posts in case of flooding.

Proximity of ground waters and high risk of flooding presupposed not only the absence of basements in most of the houses but also the cemetery planning. Poor customers are buried in vaults in the cemetery walls. Well-to-do bury their relations in tombs – above ground structures similar to miniature houses. Marshy soil makes it impossible to bury underground: the water would fill the graves before they could be closed. Crosses and angels rise high above white-stoned tombs like beacons on City of the Dead street crossings.

A new streetcar line is being built from the Cemeteries to the city centre. Streetcars are not only popular among tourists but make a good addition to the lazy bus system. The line goes along Canal Street which divides the French and the English parts of the city. There used to be a real canal here, but it was filled up later. However, the street continues to divide the city into two parts: old French one with smaller buildings, and English business district with skyscrapers. The street ends up at the foot of the World Trade Center with a restaurant on the 33rd floor that rotates around. Opposite there is the gaming palace – “Harrah’s” Casino. The Aquarium of the Americas is to the right.

You get back to the French Quarter where legends of voodoo-queens and ghosts are still alive, where the Louisiana Purchase treaty was signed, where the streetcar “Desire”, immortalised by Tennessee Williams, once went along some streets, where you can find the French Market (the oldest in the USA), and where Joan of Arc Statue glitters in the sun. 

The city absorbed multinational traditions, melted them into a southern blend of dark-negro type. The French heritage is everywhere here, starting from the name of the city and its centre, and finishing with the legal and administrative system adopted in Louisiana. Acadians, descendants of the French Canadians expelled from Canada by the British, make up a separate group with their own variant of the French language. Creoles, Caribbean, Africans, Europeans – their blood has long been interwoven in the genealogy of New Orleaneans. Spanish heritage is also seen in the courtyard architecture and local topography. And, of course, Anglo-Saxons couldn’t but have influenced this corner of untypical South. Untypical it is because this is not quite the slave South we know, paradise of the white based on hard work of Negro slaves. By the way, Afro-Americans constitute the majority of the local population with the Mayor himself. There is something that makes New Orleans similar to Russia: the previous mayor and his administration were highly corrupted (though in New Orleans, the ex-mayor received a long prison term), most of the roads are run-down (due to lack of funds and the climate), a lot of citizens rely solely on social benefits and food coupons, some districts are dangerous even for locals.

Still, New Orleans is not like any other city in the world. The city in jazz tones sucks you in, makes you forget about work and indulge in holiday called New Orleans. “Big Easy”, as is its unofficial name, knows how to work, but how to celebrate it knows even better. Students from all over the States are attracted here by the fact that it is the city of parties. Every night they party in New Orleans: liquor is flowing like a river, music fires you, sweaty bodies are refreshed a bit by the night breeze. And lonely saxophonists play their melody on the crossings of the Quarter, permeating the air with a pre-dawn jazz languor.