We’ve only been here less than a day and love this place already (see photo 1 streetscape).

The Prytania Park Hotel is out of the city in a nice area and has a real heritage feel with its lovely architecture. This morning, while waiting for Jamie and Gary to arrive from Houston, we took a streetcar ride down to the French Quarter and wandered through the French Market. Now that’s what you call a cultural experience! Lots of local Cajun food and plenty of knick knacks to remember New Orleans by. As it is home to the Mardi Gras there were some “out there” tshirts and souvenirs!!!  There is even a place you can tour through that makes most of the Mardi Gras floats and costumes – we just missed a tour!!!  Bugger!!!  There are numerous souvenirs with masks and feathers – now they could be popular, but luckily for all you at home, they would have been too difficult to get back looking in their original condition!!

People are so friendly here you just feel so welcome. As with San Francisco we have found ourselves in a very cosmopolitan city, but the difference here is that most people seem to have some sort of American accent J.Of course no trip to a market would be complete without us buying gifts for all and sundry – and we found some pretty good stuff people!

The streetcar took us along the banks of the mighty Mississippi. It was fascinating to watch how small ferry-like boats manoeuvre huge barges around very efficiently. We also caught a glimpse of the Natchez, a beautiful paddle boat typical of those that used to ply their trade on the river in bygone days (see photos 3 and 4). We are waiting for Jamie and Gary to arrive within the hour, and enjoying the rest before we all become “energiser bunnies” all over again!!!

Just back from dinner at Lola’s….and what a night we have had.  It is a quaint little restaurant off the beaten track and holds no more than 50 people. (Jamie had worded the waitress up and when it came time for sweets she said they had a “Wombat Special”!!!  I am not sure what she is up to, however she and Phil have been having some whispered conversations…  Who knows what they are scheming…but it will involve wombats, hence the card when they arrived.) The clientele were all locals, except for us.  Jamie and Gary had been there before, and the owner recognised them.  She even hand wrote the recipe for their Garlic Soup!!!  It was like sharing dinner with your family. We all had a good night (except when Jamie tripped on the uneven sidewalk), and it is now past our bedtime!!  Will continue the saga tomorrow…..

Day 2

This morning we headed over to the west bank of the river to view the city from a different perspective. Jamie and Gary took us past the site of her job when she worked here some years ago. The firm crashed during the recession following the Global Financial Crisis, as did many others in that industrial area, and it was very sad to see the devastating effects the collapse had on that part of New Orleans … and that was on top of Katrina’s destruction of so much of the city in August 2005. We lost count of the number of times we would be driving through a particular area and Jamie would say it was under water after the hurricane. But it must be said that New Orleans has obviously made a great recovery from both events.

We drove to Algiers Point on the west bank to get a great view and photos of the city across the river. It was also a good opportunity to see some of the river traffic up close. We then went to lunch at the Parkway Bakery for our first taste of a local delicacy – poor boys, which are often written and usually pronounced ‘po’ boys’ in the local accent. The po’ boy was created at this very bakery in 1929 to help feed striking streetcar workers. It is like a subway role with roast meat or seafood filling and salad with crusty French bread, which is the special distinguishing feature. Phil could only eat a little of the bread, but Sue ate the lot and we both agreed that the filling was to die for. The restaurant is on the top floor of a two level building and, amazingly, it was under two metres of water after Katrina hit! That flood must have been so scary.

After lunch Phil and Gary visited the National World War II Museum while the girls went shopping. The museum is pretty impressive for its size and covers the different theatres of the war quite comprehensively with very good video presentations and displays of arms and equipment.

At night we first went to Pat O’Brien’s on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. The place was packed with all sorts of people and has bars with unusual ceiling decorations – like Civil War guns and huge colourful German beer steins. Weird but fun. Their specialty drink is called the hurricane. Phil tasted one and nearly did a triple backflip. I wonder if NASA could use it for rocket fuel? … Pina Coladas from now on!

Our dinner stop was an up market place called the Pelican Club. Jamie had been many times before and it had always been reliable. The food was great and really lived up to expectations ….. when we got it. The service was absolutely awful. It was university graduations day and they seemed completely overwhelmed by the number of people coming in. Our booking was for 8.00 pm but our table was not set for ages and we didn’t eat till well after 9.00. Not a good end to what was otherwise a really great day. The upside was that we didn’t pay for drinks and our entrees, but paid for mains.  Not such a bad outcome!!!

Day 3

This morning we went out for a breakfast of canolis and beignets (pronounced ‘benyays’). Beignets are a light sweet fried pastry covered with powdered sugar (what we call icing sugar) and were originally created for immigrant workers to have with their café au lait.

We headed off for Houston on what must be the longest straight road in the world. It just goes on and on with almost no curves for hundreds of kilometres, and when it comes to swamps it just flies over them on the longest bridges we have ever seen.

We stopped on the way to do a tour of Oak Alley Plantation, which dates from the 18^th century. The plantation house was not as big as we thought it might be, but we thought the same three years ago when we visited Mount Vernon (George Washington’s home) and Robert E Lee’s home in Arlington. No doubt Gone with the Wind has left an impression that these places were all huge when in fact they were not so big. Mind you, they left the slave quarters for dead. Two families would have to share little huts with little floor space for sleeping. Quite an eye opener. Photo 2 is a view down the avenue of oaks from the house.

We had lunch at Oak Alley and took the opportunity to sample a lot of different Louisiana creole food, including chicken gumbo (a meat and rice thick soup), crawfish (the local type of yabbie) and red kidney beans with Andouille sausage. Delicious! These people really know how to cook. We picked up genuine Mexican tamales on the way to have for dinner (do you get the idea of how important food is to us?). YUUUUUM!!  Jamie and Gary have a lovely house, and we feel like we are quite at home.  Her 3 girls (her 3 “puppies”) have accepted us as part of the family, so all is bubbling along.  It is a good chance to catch up on laundry and repack the bags before leaving here on Thursday as we head to Miami and then on to San Juan and the cruise. 

We miss the family at home, but skype and the internet are wonderful inventions!!  It helps keep us up to date with the day to day goings on at home as we browse through the Canberra Times.  We even keep up with the Brumbies matches!!