So I got a call today and I’ll be getting an official job offer tomorrow!
It’s gonna take me to the Big Easy, New Orleans. Being a northern boy my whole life, I know absolutely nothing about the area where I will likely end up. A quick google mapping shows me that the company has two addresses in the area, one is in Avondale, one is in Slidell but aside from seeing them on a map this means nothing to me.
What I could really use is some advice on the neighborhoods in the area in terms of which ones are nicer, which ones I should avoid like Paris Hilton’s cooch, which are outrageously expensive, etc. Preferably somewhere where I won’t be swamped every year come Mardi Gras (I’ve seen the GGW videos, I know how bad that shit gets!). Any and all advice is appreciated.
Also, the last thing I could use is advice for finding and getting a new place in a new state on a relatively fast schedule. At the very least my lease in my current apartment is up in a month so I need a new place, get approved, and move in something like a 3-week period. Getting my stuff OUT of Delaware will be easy enough, its everything on the other side that I’m unsure of.
Thanks in advance for any advice guys… I’m more than a little out of my league right now and need to jack myself up to the majors.
The Slidell (Northshore) area has some nice parts to it. Land in most of New Orleans is relatively cheap and in the Northshore area you can get a brand new house or build a house for a decent price. Other good suburban areas would be Metairie, Kenner, and certain parts of Westbank also. If you prefer more urban (but not downtown) then you might like Uptown. If you want a newer condo type of living, you can find that in the wharehouse district, which is in the downtown area but not in the French Quarter. The deal in New Orleans is that good areas and less desirable areas are not separated. Seriously in uptown there will be multi-million dollar houses and a couple blocks down there are projects. So you really gotta drive around and see what places you like and which you don’t. I’d say since you are in a hurry, start your search in Metairie, as that’s probably the safest bet for a decent neighborhood. If I remember correctly, you can find a whole street of apartments in Metairie.
If you don’t want to deal with Mardi Gras madness then you should be ok as long as you don’t have a place in the French Quarter. Regardless of where you live in the city, you’ll probably run into traffic and occasional parades due to Mardi Gras, but the madness is typically isolated to downtown.
Some general advice -
-Eat the food it is awesome.
-Figure out on the map where the river is and where the Lake (Pontchatrain) is. The roads in the city are typically routed around these landmarks. Directions are often given as “towards the Lake” or “towards the River” , things like that
-Always have an umbrella in your bag
-Make sure your apartment has A/C
And get ready for taxes. You’ve been spoiled in Delaware.
Also, as a bit of advice: Don’t go on and on about how good it was back home compared to(new place). Explore and try new things and foods and be complimentary when shown hospitality; I was raised in the South and moved to Philly later in life and now I’m in the midwest. It’s like 3 different countries really. But everyone responds to kindness just the same.
[quote]Humbert wrote:
And get ready for taxes. You’ve been spoiled in Delaware.
Also, as a bit of advice: Don’t go on and on about how good it was back home compared to(new place). Explore and try new things and foods and be complimentary when shown hospitality; I was raised in the South and moved to Philly later in life and now I’m in the midwest. It’s like 3 different countries really. But everyone responds to kindness just the same.
Except maybe the Philly people.[/quote]
I grew up in Pittsburgh, so don’t worry about the taxes… I knew my free ride would come to an end some day…
So long as people down south drive like sane individuals (unlike NYC/Philly drivers, for example), I’ll get along with them just fine. I’ve dealt with Pittsburgh as a very spread-out, relatively uncongested city and Philly as a super crowded, dense, everything is one-way city. Overall I prefer the “Pittsburgh” layout, but I’ll adapt to anything since good jobs are somewhat of a premium these days… I’ve said more than once that I can work anywhere for 4 years to get my Professional Engineer credentials…
Keep the ideas comin’ guys, I appreciate what’s been said and have already checked out some of those areas in terms of apartments… Seem smaller compared to what I’m used to up here, but at the same time, the 2 bedrooms are looking a little cheaper than a decent number of the 1 bedrooms up here…
srsly though, x2 on the whole “back where I am from/back up north” stuff…Southern Hospitality is alive and well, but it wont last you long if you spend the whole time talking about how your old home is better.
I am picturing right now in my head two law school classmates of mine…both are from the northeast…one is a black man from Queens New York, the other a white woman from Boston Massachusetts…the former came down with an open mind to Jackson, Mississippi, and while he confesses to miss home, he loves his new adopted home and speaks highly of the people there…the latter bitches about whatever she can think to bitch about, and constantly puts down Mississippi, and wonders why no one seems to like her.
Alright, after doing a little research (and about a 20-hour period where I thought I was actually going to end up in Pascagoula, Mississippi…), I’ve come up with a preliminary list of apartments I want to check out…
The plan is going to be to fly down with the girlfriend around the 24th, stay for a few days and look at apartments. Most are in Metairie/Kenner, although more than a few of them ended up a little south in River Ridge (I’d assume an area bounded by a river to the south and two nicer areas to the north is a nicer area?). I made a little compilation of our preliminary apartment search that you can check out here http://tinyurl.com/6cczheq (the Northrop Grumman dot is where I’m working), and if you have any particular opinions on one of the apartments, please do tell!
One last question for now… How are the drivers/pedestrians in NOLA? Up around these parts, it’s practically NYC-lite in terms of asshole drivers and pedestrians just walk into the streets sometimes…
[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:
A northerner headed to the Deep South?
grabs popcorn
srsly though, x2 on the whole “back where I am from/back up north” stuff…Southern Hospitality is alive and well, but it wont last you long if you spend the whole time talking about how your old home is better.
I am picturing right now in my head two law school classmates of mine…both are from the northeast…one is a black man from Queens New York, the other a white woman from Boston Massachusetts…the former came down with an open mind to Jackson, Mississippi, and while he confesses to miss home, he loves his new adopted home and speaks highly of the people there…the latter bitches about whatever she can think to bitch about, and constantly puts down Mississippi, and wonders why no one seems to like her.
See what I am getting at?[/quote]
As a Boston native sir I can honestly say all white women up here are like that regardless
[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:
A northerner headed to the Deep South?
grabs popcorn
srsly though, x2 on the whole “back where I am from/back up north” stuff…Southern Hospitality is alive and well, but it wont last you long if you spend the whole time talking about how your old home is better.
I am picturing right now in my head two law school classmates of mine…both are from the northeast…one is a black man from Queens New York, the other a white woman from Boston Massachusetts…the former came down with an open mind to Jackson, Mississippi, and while he confesses to miss home, he loves his new adopted home and speaks highly of the people there…the latter bitches about whatever she can think to bitch about, and constantly puts down Mississippi, and wonders why no one seems to like her.
See what I am getting at?[/quote]
As a Boston native sir I can honestly say all white women up here are like that regardless[/quote]
[quote]samdan wrote:
Alright, after doing a little research (and about a 20-hour period where I thought I was actually going to end up in Pascagoula, Mississippi…), I’ve come up with a preliminary list of apartments I want to check out…
The plan is going to be to fly down with the girlfriend around the 24th, stay for a few days and look at apartments. Most are in Metairie/Kenner, although more than a few of them ended up a little south in River Ridge (I’d assume an area bounded by a river to the south and two nicer areas to the north is a nicer area?). I made a little compilation of our preliminary apartment search that you can check out here http://tinyurl.com/6cczheq (the Northrop Grumman dot is where I’m working), and if you have any particular opinions on one of the apartments, please do tell!
One last question for now… How are the drivers/pedestrians in NOLA? Up around these parts, it’s practically NYC-lite in terms of asshole drivers and pedestrians just walk into the streets sometimes…[/quote]
Your map looks good and maybe you could look at some more places on the Westbank if you are going to work in Avondale. If you are living in Kenner / Metairie area and you take the Huey P. Long Bridge to Avondale, get ready for a scary drive. That bridge is super narrow and 18-wheelers like to take it. However, they are working on widening it. Compared to the East Coast the drivers in New Orleans are probably a lot more relaxed, but sometimes that means “slow”
[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:
A northerner headed to the Deep South?
grabs popcorn
srsly though, x2 on the whole “back where I am from/back up north” stuff…Southern Hospitality is alive and well, but it wont last you long if you spend the whole time talking about how your old home is better.
I am picturing right now in my head two law school classmates of mine…both are from the northeast…one is a black man from Queens New York, the other a white woman from Boston Massachusetts…the former came down with an open mind to Jackson, Mississippi, and while he confesses to miss home, he loves his new adopted home and speaks highly of the people there…the latter bitches about whatever she can think to bitch about, and constantly puts down Mississippi, and wonders why no one seems to like her.
See what I am getting at?[/quote]
As a Boston native sir I can honestly say all white women up here are like that regardless[/quote]
I grew up in Slidell, good times. Enjoy the heat/humidity
Slidell is a nice little city, but it’s outgrown it’s infrastructure at this point and the traffic is a major pain in the ass at times.
It’s a quiet place though for the most part, literally like no night life scene everyone commutes to baton rouge/NOLA/ NO for going out so you will be avoiding all that. I lived in the neighborhood called French Branch, it was a nice neighborhood. There’s some good fixer uppers there if that’s your thing and not very pricey.
