New Orleans

Erin and Devon
see all photos »

Repeat breakfast at the Old Coffee Pot and this time we ate outside and Pearl was there.  Over to the Historic New Orleans Collection on Royal St (http://www.hnoc.org/) for the Michael P Smith photo exhibit. He documented the city from roughly 1968 to 2000. When purchasing the catalog I found out the woman went to Cambridge Rindge and Latin while her mother went to Episcopal Divinity School. She loved Cambridge but then moved to New York for 10 years, got tired of it and moved down here.

DSC06821.JPG
see all photos »

Rick and Donald headed over the aquarium, where they got to pet sting rays and a baby nurse shark; I was going to go over to the galleries on Julia St but then it started raining hard so I just stayed in for a few hours. When it was over I went back out but the humidity was by now almost unbearable. Wandered around for a while then met up with Rick for lunch at the Royal Cafe on Royal and St Ann. A young woman named Devon recently bought and renovated it and just re-opened it two months ago. Her sister Erin was our waitress. The veggie burgers were perfect and a welcome food addition to the neighborhood. As she took our plates away, instead of asking if we wanted dessert, she asked if we needed a beer to go. We talked to Devon for a while and she said she also has a veggie po-boy sandwich as well, but not this weekend. On the counter was a cookie sheet filled with penis shaped cookies for sale. The conversation between four or five of us kind of devolved into bad double-entendres so I took a few pictures of them and Rick bought one as a gift for Tom.  Knowing we’d be walking down the street with it on a plate it was hard decision to decide on walking down Royal (to rile up the older conservative crowd) or down Bourbon (to rile up the wilder crowd). Bourbon it was. Within 20 feet of turning onto Bourbon St a couple asked where they could get one so we sent them on their way. 

DSC06854.JPG
see all photos »

Dinner at the Gumbo Shop, another standby. Food was fine, but the meal was just a meal and for down here that’s a disappointment. We went by the Royal Cafe again to say hi and pick up a few beers for the street. Unlike on Bourbon St where the beer is limited to Bud or Bud Light (Why? Why? Why? Money.) they had a good selection so we had  an Abita Amber and an Abita Pecan. The streets were busy but nothing too interesting until we were between Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo and Napoleon’s Itch. There was a group of five guys around 20 who were dancing. They were really good--very in sync with each other and a combination of hip-hop and old-timey vogueing - video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAk9d9eG2TU. They had a huge crowd around them and when they passed the box, they had lots of well-earned cash. Made us sweaty just watching them. Rick had his picture taken with them and told them they were all skinny bitches, which they loved.