Atlanta and New Orleans November 16-22

On Monday morning November 16 I traveled to the USA to attend the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, held this year in New Orleans.

But first I arrived Monday evening in Atlanta to visit Hamida Hudda, a friend from India days, who now lives in the suburb of Decatur, in a South Asian neighborhood.

A store front in the South Asian neighborhood of Decatur, Georgia

Then on the morning of Wednesday November 18 I traveled to New Orleans by Amtrak train. I have gotten used to the excellent train service in Germany, so the remarkably slow, once-a-day 12 hour-long train trip to New Orleans was a disappointment, not helped by the train leaving Atlanta an hour and a half late. That trip marked the first time I had been even briefly in the states of Alabama and Mississippi.

But in any event I arrived in New Orleans in time for the opening reception of the ASOR annual meeting. The following Thursday morning, I attended the meeting of the editorial board of the journal Near Eastern Archaeology and then for the rest of Thursday, Friday and Saturday I attended various conference sessions and receptions, and spent a lot of time chatting with people, some of whom I had not met in years. The last time I had attended an ASOR annual meeting was 1993, except for a day I spent at the 2006 meeting.

On Saturday afternoon I went to the nearby Insectarium, a new insect museum. Curiously, at the time a group of Hindu Hari Krishna devotees were pulling a juggernaut down the street.

The juggernaut

Then on the morning of Sunday November 22 I traveled back to Germany, arriving in Frankfurt early Monday morning.