Today we woke up to VIP breakfast in bed, two plates of eggs benedict, chocolate covered strawberries, a bagel with cream cheese lox, tomato, onion, and capers, OJ, water, and coffee. It was a great way to start off an eventful day.
We decided to rent a scooter for the day to travel around NOLA, even though the forecast called for scattered thunderstorms. It’s about the adventure, not playing it safe! The rental place was about 4 miles away so we decided to walk a little along the riverwalk toward the rental place then get a cab. It was a HOT day already and it was only 11am. We went past a steam powered paddle boat that started playing music using the steam in what can be described as a steam organ on the top of the boat. It was really cool.
Once we got too hot to walk anymore we hailed a cab and went to the scooter store. We wanted to check out the ninth ward to see the rebuilding and how much is still in shambles. On the way we got stuck at a railroad crossing, and a drawbridge, both really cool when your on two wheels, and not in a car!
Much to our disappointment, there is still a lot of ruin in the ninth ward, 5 years after the devastation. We rode around for an hour or so, videotaping the area, and commenting on what we saw. Everyone on their porches smiled and waved to us, and one gentleman was very helpful getting us to a gas station (which only cost us $2.21 to fill up, yes please!)
Seeing the rescue workers hieroglyphs still on houses was a sobering experience, if you haven’t seen them, i’ll try to describe it. It’s an X spray painted on or near the door of the house. the top space of the X has a date, which corresponds to when the rescuers reached the house, the left side is what group went into the house, the right side changes depending on who tagged it, sometimes its how they went into the house, other times its what contaminates were found, and sometimes it a number that we don’t know what it means, and the bottom of the X is a number denoting how many bodies were found. 5 years later there are still these markings, and serves as a daily reminder of the disaster to those who see them.
All the while we were riding around the sky was getting darker, so once we felt the first few drops we decided to head back to the hotel. We weren’t that far away, but storms develop quickly. we got caught in a huge rainstorm. Once the rain started to hurt we pulled over under a Family Dollar overhang and waited it out. We were watching the sky and once it cleared up enough we headed back out. We got about 5 or so blocks from the hotel and i hear from the girl holding onto me say, “Where are my glasses?” Turns out she left them on the ledge back at the Family Dollar, so we turn around and head back, grab the glasses, and then get caught in some more rain, so this time we pull over under a random overhang and wait it out again. We aren’t to terribly wet at this point, just a little past damp. We waited about 20 minutes for it to ease up, and when we got back to the hotel, it was really coming down, we found a place to park, got all of our stuff out from under the seat, and walked into our hotel soaked clear to the underpants. I literally poured water out of my shoes. It was an amazing experience, and i wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
We took a hot shower to warm up and put some dry clothes and by that time the weather cleared up, so we met up with a friend from high school, Josh, and went to Yo Mama’s Pub for some food. We both got a burger and had some Dixie Beer. The burger’s were amazing. I don’t know what they did to them, but the were so delicious, Erin said it was the best burger she’s ever had.
We bid farewell to Josh, and walked around the French Quarter some more. We went into a bunch of great shops on Royal St, and found a lot of great local art and NOLA kitsch. We decided that one of the local art galleries had 2 things we loved and we’d go back later to decide which we wanted. We walked down to Cafe Du Monde to get my first beignet. We sat right down and got a few orders. All i can say is Cafe Du Monde must had stock in powdered sugar! The beignets were good, but not necessarily my thing, i’m glad i went though!
We went back to the art gallery and decided to get a one of a kind piece of wall art made by a local artist that is made with found objects from NOLA, that says “Vieux Carre” which means French Quarter. We made our way back to the hotel to rest till dinner. We had reservations at Broussard’s, which is one of the top old restaurants in NOLA. We were the only one’s in the dining room for the first 20 minutes of our meal, granted it was a Monday night. We had a bottle of Cotes du Rhone, Oysters 3 ways, i had grouper, and Erin had Redfish with lump crab meat. It was a fine meal, with incredible service, we had 4 people waiting on us, and never went without something we wanted or needed.
After dinner i asked our server where we could go to hear some good NOLA Jazz. He told us to go to Frenchman St. We got in a cab for the mile journey, and went into this one club that had a show going on, but it was $15 per person, which would have put us over our budget, and was a crap shoot on whether it would have been good, so we put that on the back burner and walked across the street to the Spotted Cat Music Club where there was a 4 piece local jazz band wailing away. We ducked in and knew instantly this place was legit. We found a couple empty tall chairs got a few drinks and spent the next couple hours listening to killer jazz keyboard, sax, bass and drums interspersed with vocals, and sick solos. It was heaven, we both had good food in us, a great buzz going, and didn’t need anything else. I didn’t want to be anywhere else, with anyone else, i was in love with NOLA, and even more in love with Erin.
We left when the band was done, and decided to walk back to the hotel down the length of Bourbon St. The whole time were were in the French Quarter we saw people walking around with a drink called the hand grenade, so we obviously had to get one. It tasted like a mix between a Pina Colada and ecto cooler. But it came in a fun cup, and helped keep the buzz going. Then we got persuaded into doing a few test tube shots, and then finally made it back to the hot tub.
It was a full day. i loved every second of it. I can’t wait to go back.
No comments:
Post a Comment