I'm runnning a little behind with my blog- but seeing as I have started my journey home will have plenty of time to catch up while cooling my heels in airports!
We started out on Saturday morning by boarding a bus for a city tour. The tour guide gave us a lot of detail about New Orleans and local history, and some insight into how Hurricane Katrina impacted the city.
Along the way there was a variety of architecture we saw, from tiny 'shotgun' homes barely wider than the front door to grand homes in the garden district.
As we drove around the 9th ward there were sobering reminders of the devastation suffered by residents of New Orleans with some homes still rotting and falling down, and many level lots of land where homes were demolished and never rebuilt. Search and rescue markings were also still visible on many front walls, marking where teams had been to search for survivors after the flood caused by Katrina.
Our next stop was at a local cemetery, where we took a walk amongst the tombs. As New Orleans sits on a high water table and much below sea level, normal graves are of no use. Instead family tombs are used with coffins placed on a shelf above ground level for a year and a day to decay (ugh!) then the remains are intermingled in the base of the tomb and the shelf left clear for the next person.
We did have a laugh looking over some of the names, there was one family who had a member with his own separate tomb right next door- obviously didn't want to mingle together forever. It was a surprisingly beautiful place, and some of the dates went back hundreds of years.
After all that culture and insight, it was of course time for another meal. You could never go hungry in this town, or anywhere in the US from what I've seen so far!
We headed to Deanies for crawfish, and Baz and I shared this crab claw entree. The tasty morsels were small, about the size of my little finger at most and I couldn't help giggling at the image of lots of teeny clawless crabs running around. Their bodies would have held no meat at all so wouldn't be worth killing!
The lure of Bourbon street called again, so we took of in search of live music and cold beer. We settled in at a bar with a band playing soul music and happy hour drinks and spent the afternoon dancing, laughing, people watching and drinking beer!
I had to share a photo of this guy, his beer jug cost him $5 and was $5 for every refill and would fit 5 1/2 standard beers at a time. He was so pleased with himself, but as it was mid afternoon we couldn't help but think he would end up wearing himself out early and not enjoying his mega beer for too long.
Peaches was the next stop for dinner, it's an award winning restaurant specializing in seafood. Of course the meal was great, and we even managed dessert. The meal sizes are over the top for me and I haven't managed to have room for dessert too often yet!
We then took off for Frenchmen Street to listen to some Jazz music. The club we would up in was the Spotted Cat and a narrow intimate place heaving with punters. The whole street was alive with people out enjoying music and drinking beer, it was one big party.
Finally on the way home Baz and I walked though a local art market- still humming at just before midnight.
All in all a huge day! There is something for everyone to see and do here and even walking the streets home late at night the crowd seems happy and people friendly.
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