New Orleans - October 2007

When I got off that plane in New Orleans I was almost jumping out of my skin.  All I wanted to do was get in a cab and get over to the French Quarter as soon as possible.  I didn't want to wait for the other people I'd traveled with - nothing against them but I was finally in my city and didn't want to waste any time.  And frankly, all airports kind of look the same to me...San Francisco's airport is kinda artsy-looking from what I remember, Newark is small and intimate whereas O'Hare is massive and insane...but they're all airports.  You simply can't feel the essence of a city from standing in their airport, and the cab couldn't get me there fast enough.

But I did finally touch my feet down onto the flagstoned pavement in the Quarter around 11 am.  Check-in at my hotel wasn't even until 3 that day, so we asked the hotel to hold our bags and then walked the couple blocks down Bourbon to Iberville where the Acme Oyster House already had a line waiting to get in for lunch.  The wait (at that time) was only about 15 or 20 minutes until an offer came up to sit at the bar to eat.  Acme is busy and loud, kind of dark even for early afternoon, but SO worth the visit.  Starting out with the raw oysters - which are amazingly fresh!  Then I really wanted a plate of the crawfish but they weren't in season  :(  so instead I had the crawfish étouffée (a Cajun dish typically served with shellfish or chicken over rice, similar to gumbo) - which was very good.

As the plane's engines began to rev up and grow louder and louder, my excitement grew and grew as well...

After lunch, we headed out down Bourbon Street to just take in some of the sights, stopping into a few shops, and wandering about a bit.  We also stopped into Old Absinthe House for a couple drinks.

Check-in took a bit, and the first room I was assigned already had someone in it, which was interesting...I unlocked and opened the door to discover a bed already in disarray and the tv on.  Luckily, the guy whose room it was was right behind me in the hall and he was cool about everything.  So I had to go back down to the front desk to get another room.

After a shower & change of clothes I was ready to hit the Quarter again, however, most of the people I came with were napping - so I headed out alone.  Walking down Bourbon Street however isn't exactly like being alone.  Granted, it wasn't as packed or crazy as it would get in a few hours, but there are people everywhere - bars, restaurants, music, and gift shops everwhere.  It's almost sureal, like a Disney Land for adults - very decadent feeling.

Around 8 pm I had to head over to Royal Street - a very pretty strip with antique shops lining both sides of the street.  I was meeting my "ghost tour" at the Royal Blend Coffee House. 

A nice thing about taking tours in New Orleans is that the guides HAVE to be tested and certified.  It's comforting to know there has to be some knowledge & consistency with the information we're receiving.  (In most cases anyway - will explain later.)

Our ghost-tour guide was very nice and was down to earth.  He wasn't one of those who dress like a victorian vampire or who hire people to jump out at you, thankfully.  I'm sure some people might enjoy that kind of tour, but I think I'll just go for the kind where I don't feel like I'm in a cheesy haunted house.

A funny thing happened to me while on the tour...

It was in front of the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum (http://www.pharmacymuseum.org/)

1315 First Street in the Garden District
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while hearing the supposed paranormal accounts pertaining to this building, I felt a little weird.  So I leaned against a parked SUV (guess those vehicles are actually good for something, lol) hoping that would help me to feel a little better but I actually felt worse.  I got that tingly, sparkley feeling all over & then everything started to go dark on me.  I felt myself going down to my right but couldn't stop - luckily a passerby said, "Camera!" refering to the digital camera that was in my right hand & was at this point dangerously close to hitting the ground.  This pulled me back from fully fainting, luckily, and I don't think anyone else in the tour group even noticed which was nice.

Now, logically, I'm sure this was a combination of the excitement of finally coming to a place I'd always wanted to see, lack of sleep the night before, and a local drink called "The Hand Grenade" (1 1/2 oz Gin, 1 1/2 oz Grain Alcohol, 1 1/2 oz Melon Liqueur, 1 1/2 oz Rum, 1 1/2 oz Vodka) sneaking up on me.  However...if you look up the Pharmacy Museum online & read some of its ghostlore, you'll find accounts of women feeling ill and fainting in front of this place - a fact I didn't know until after my experience when I decided to look it up just for the heck of it, and also because of the fact that I'm not exactly the type of person who faints much in my life.  LOL.  And I didn't feel like I was reacting to the Hand Grenade, it was like I was fine then suddently felt ill.  Pretty freaky if you're into that kind of stuff - gotta love New Orleans.  :)

Moving along with the group to a few more "haunted" locations like the La Petite Theatre du Vieux Carre, St. Louis Cathedral, and the Cabildo (the site of the Louisiana Purchase Transfer ceremonies in 1803).  At this point tho I still wasn't feeling too great and decided to ditch the tour & head back to the hotel. 

It had already been a long, exciting day, and it was time to get some sleep myself (seeing how I skipped the nap that most of my friends took).  

We got Lucky Dogs on the way back to the hotel - these vendors are on every other corner in the Quarter, and I really didn't want to have any hotdogs down there, but it was fast & easy, and I wasn't feeling well.  A couple of the friends traveling with us really love these Lucky Dogs...personally, I didn't care for them.  I've had worse, I suppose, but being in a city that is known for their food I have no idea why someone would want to eat just a hotdog. 

We had a big day planned for Saturday (actually, I had quite a bit planned for each of our days in New Orleans) and I wanted to get some decent rest & feel refreshed in the a.m.

And that we did.  Up early, we found a restaurant across the street from Cafe Du Monde where we could order a real breakfast.  It's called River's Edge Restaurant and it's on Decatur.  The people in there were very friendly and the food was good. 

After breakfast we walked over to the "lighthouse" - which is the ticket office for the Grayline tours.  There we met up with our Garden District tour.  It was actually a walking tour, but it took you via a small tour bus to the Garden District where you then got out & began walking.  I really wanted to see the Garden District.  All these huge, beautiful, mostly antibellum homes - one in particular I've always been in love with was the Carroll House at 1315 First Street.

Our tour guide was a lady from New Orleans who was very charming and very southern-like.  She told us a lot of great stories about the people who had built and lived-in these homes.  Many of them were just as majestic as I had assumed and hoped for, but a lot of them were in need of some work as well.  She pointed out a couple that had been damaged in Katrina, but they weren't destroyed like homes in other areas during the Hurricane or it's aftermath.

We went past the house that Anne Rice lived and wrote in for many years.  Anyone familiar with her Mayfair witch series might feel as if they know this house intimately - I know I do.  Rice sold the house however after her husband of many years passed away.

As it was getting towards the end of the tour we still hadn't gone past my house (1315 First Street) so I asked the guide if we'd be going past the Carroll House.  She wasn't familiar with it which blew my mind because there's a hefty amount of information on it online and in books written on the Garden District.  She asked me which one that was & I gave her the address.  Then she asked me what I knew about it so I told her that one of the things I knew was that Edward Degas used to party there.  When we got to the Carroll House she announced to the group:  "And this is the Carroll House," as if it was part of the tour all along.  That kind of surprised me, but hopefully she's since looked it up & will add it to the homes she talks about on the tours she gives.

After the Garden District tour we met a friend of mine who lives in Slidell, Louisiana.  We ate lunch with him and then walked over to the Aquarium of the Americas.  They've got lots of sharks, a white alligator, stuff like that.  Lots to look at & a very cool place.  We spend a cool couple hours there but by that time my feet were hating me pretty badly because of all the walking.  We parted ways with my friend & headed back to the hotel to rest for awhile.

Around 7:30-ish we hit the streets to find somewhere for dinner.  Ending back on Iberville (where the Acme Oyster House is) on the corner of Bourbon there's a restaurant called Bourbon House.  Fancier than Acme, but we decided to try it out.  We had to wait about a half hour for a table but the bar was fine tho a little crowded.  When we were seated & began our dinner we (seafood lovers) were in heaven!  The food there is truly amazing.  Everything from the Wild Alligator Piquante soup to the raw oysters, to the dinners we had - everything was incredibly good.

When we were done with dinner - being the Saturday night before Halloween, Bourbon Street was insane - as you can imagine.  We walked around a little bit but headed back to the hotel to rest after awhile.  It was a long day & the following day was going to be another long day.

Sunday morning we headed out towards the river front area again.  Stopping for the manditory 'tourist' breakfast at Cafe Du Monde.  :)  The beignets were warm and buried in powdered sugar and although messy, very very good.  And the cafe au lait was very good as well.  The place was packed - even tho it was only about 7:30 am and seems a little crazed when you're in there.  It's not exactly the cleanest place to eat at between the abundant powdered sugar that ends up everywhere and the constant flow of people in and out.  Tho the waitstaff does wipe down the tables for you they're still sticky.  But I will say this - for a place that's as famous as Cafe Du Monde their prices are very reasonable.  They could totally charge a heck of a lot more and get away with it - hell, Starbucks does, but they don't and I give them a lot of credit for that.

After trying to rid our clothing of all the powdered sugar we headed over to the Grayline office once again for our Katrina Tour.  This is where I started to freak out.  I had never gotten the final confirmation emailed to me for the Katrina tour that I booked online (as I did all the tours we took).  I did have a confirmation number, but that number was for the company that I booked the tour with NOT Grayline.  So they basically had no proof that I paid for the tour.  I tried to call the main office where I had purchased the tickets for the tour but they are in San Francisco & weren't awake yet, basically.  I was screwed.  I left them a voice mail, figuring it was a moot point tho & that I was out of the money I paid for the tour, and I bought new tickets because I really didn't want to miss the tour.  Later in the day I got a call from San Francisco telling me that they faxed over the confirmation information to Grayline's office.  And then the Grayline office also called me to tell me that they got it and to come on by for my refund.  I was so happy that this worked out ok and I give them credit for going above and beyond.

The Katrina Tour was very depressing.  And let me add here that every tour guide we had, regardless of what tour it was, was pretty bitter about the whole Katrina fiasco.  They all prefaced that they would try not to be too negative but that they lived thru this entire disaster so it was difficult.

We drove thru neighborhood after neighborhood where the houses are destroyed.  Unless you live in Louisiana, most people seem to think that everything down there is fine (more than 2 years after Katrina) but it's SO not.  Even your typical tourist who visits the city but stays in the touristy areas like the French Quarter, the river front, and the Garden District - they might also assume that everything is back to normal now, but that's only because these areas weren't badly hurt.  About 70% of the city is still in ruins.  Only a little over half the population has come back into town, and it's not because there aren't jobs - there are LOTS of jobs available, but there's no where to live.  Police stations are still working out of FEMA trailers.  Some people are rebuilding and renovating their homes but most aren't, or simply cant. 

Pretty much everything that could go wrong with Katrina did, and now that I've seen what a mess it is down there two years later I want everyone I know, at least, to understand things down there aren't ok.  The media tends to just move on to the next big news story - right now here in America, of course, was the fires in southern California.  And not to downplay that tragedy, but keep in mind that there are other places that are still hurting, and for long periods of time after the initial disaster.

Later that afternoon we had a van pick us up and drive us out to Honey Island (about 5 miles from the Mississippi border) for a swamp tour.  THIS was my favorite part of the vacation.  It was so peaceful on the swamp and so pretty - something I didn't expect.  And we saw a few different gators - one of which was 15 feet long!  The Spanish moss hanging from the trees and holly growing wild were things I'd never seen in person before...it was a great experience.

Back in New Orleans we decided to go back to Bourbon House again for dinner.  Ordering completely different dishes this time, everything we ate this night as well was amazing.

On Monday we had breakfast again at the River's Edge restaurant.  The waitstaff actually remembered us.  (That doesn't happen at some of the restaurants that we go to on a regular basis here in Chicago.)  And again the food was very good.  I'd never had crab and shrimp in an omelet before & it was yummy!

We then went over to St. Louis Cathedral & spent some time on the inside of the chapel.  It was beautiful & other than some workmen in there we pretty much had the place to ourselves most of the time we were in there.

Then later that afternoon we went on a cemetery tour.  On our Garden District tour we stopped into Lafayette Cemetery briefly, but this tour was in St. Louis #1.  Remember I had mentioned the consistency thing earlier?  Well, we got some pretty different takes on things from this tour guide as we did the Garden District tour guide.  It was a neat tour tho.  Ashame tho to see some of these crypts in ruins and some of which - like Marie Laveau's (the famed voodoo priestess) that are written upon constantly.  (This tour guide said that Laveau wasn't into voodoo - that she was simply a herbalist - nothing more, by the way.)

That evening, we went to Pat O'Brien's for dinner.  And sad to say we were all pretty disappointed.  Two of our party really likes the drink the Hurricane, which Pat O's is famous for.  I however don't care for it so I just ordered a Miller Lite.  I was shocked that the waiter brought me the beer in a CAN and without a glass - I had to ask for a glass.  Pat O'Brien's is a pretty place and what one would consider a 'nice' place to eat/drink...getting my beer served to me in a can was pretty tacky.  The serving sizes of the dinners were really small as well.  And we had to ask for things like butter, ketchup, and an ashtray a couple different times before they were brought to us.  If all you want to do is drink Hurricanes and sit by the famous fountain then Pat O's is the place to go - but for dinner or for any other kind of drinking absolutely not.  There are lots of good (really good) restaurants in New Orleans, and in the French Quarter alone.  Don't bother with this place for dinner.

After dinner we all walked down Bourbon to the quieter end over to Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop -  a wonderful place to sit out in the courtyard with friends - drink and talk, and be away from the noise and insanity of the more congested side of Bourbon Street. 

The following morning it was still dark when we left the hotel - and it was drizzling a little.  We were lucky the weather held out nicely for us while we were in town.  I was sad to leave New Orleans, and I look forward to going back.