I moved to New Orleans in 2010, but I'd been drawn to the city long before then. Growing up only three hours north, I spent many weekends here, mostly doing the typical tourist stuff--Bourbon Street, the ghost tours, the aquarium, the riverboat rides. Living here is, of course, an entirely different experience, one filled with moments of pure joy (marching down St. Charles in a Mardi Gras parade, beads littering the pavement, or walking along the banks of Bayou St. John, when the jasmine blooms all at once all over town), and moments of sheer anxiety (prepping the house for a category four hurricane, corralling the cats for last-minute evacuation, fighting the city over an outrageous water bill, popping a tire in one of the city's infamous potholes). 

I love it. It's got its claws in me. I can't imagine living anywhere else in the world.