There's Always Next Season
I am lucky to live part time in Georgetown, and part time in the French Quarter neighborhood of New Orleans. Over the past few years, I have grown to love my new home (the latter) as much as my true home (the former), although for completely different reasons. I adore Georgetown because it is old (by US standards), beautiful, elegant, and serious. I adore New Orleans because it is warm, laid-back, and filled with music and delicious food and cocktails.
I spend weekends in both cities, based mostly on weather and the schedule of ongoing New Orleans festivities and festvals. Logically, I should have spent this past weekend in New Orleans. After all, what greater festivity possible is there than the Super Bowl?!
This was the 10th year that New Orleans hosted the Super Bowl since 1970, putting this city neck and neck with Miami for the most Super Bowls hosted. Importantly, this was the first Super Bowl New Orleans hosted since Katrina, and since the Superdome’s $336 million renovation to bring the stadium back to Super Bowl standards. Yes, there was the slight technical glitch of the power outage, which is still being analyzed. However, despite that glitch, Roger Goodell, a figure both loved (for bringing the Super Bowl back to the city) and hated (for his handling the Saints-related bounty scandal of this past season) in New Orleans, promised that “We want to be back in New Orleans. We will be back in New Orleans.” Maybe that will be the year I go, the year the Patriots are back in that big game.
Instead, this past weekend, I chose to stay in DC and watch the Super Bowl from my favorite sports bar, Town Hall, where my husband and I watch all of our Patriots and Saints games when in DC. With two other couples, dressed in our team jerseys (none of us being fans of either the 49ers or the Ravens), we talked about our hopes for next season. There is always next season … And there is always next weekend to head to New Orleans, not for the Super Bowl, but for Mardi Gras!