What a fun weekend! New Orleans is a very cool city. We stayed with my friend Beverly just a few miles from the French Quarter. Our first night there we wandered around the Quarter and saw the big Harrah’s Casino and the Mississippi River, and then Beverly took us to a Daiquiri shop (that’s a big thing there- there are no open container laws, so you can drink in the car, on the street, it’s like Vegas but worse) and then we went to Frenchman’s Street, the place where the locals go to hang out for a night of cocktails and dancing.
New Orleans is pretty much the way it’s depicted in media. There really are bands just wandering around the street playing music, there are tons of people wandering around, throwing beads off balconies, and the architecture is very, very cute. We were lucky to go at a time when the humidity wasn’t too bad.
Our second day there, we explored the French Quarter and Bourbon street in depth. First, we ate at the famous Cafe du Monde for their beignets and coffee with chickory. Beignets were a big disappointment- they basically taste like a funnel cake at the fair. Not my sort of thing. And the coffee with chickory tasted pretty much like coffee without chickory to me. On the bright side, it’s a cheap breakfast.
We spent the rest of the day just walking up and down the quarter, looking at the flea market and the cute little stores, and eating a lot. My favorite store was this AMAZING antique store (you should look at their web site). It was more like looking in the treasury of some palace in Europe. HUGE diamonds. Intricate wood inlay pieces. Gold clocks and candelabra. China. King Louis XV’s personal plans to invade England. It was insanely beautiful stuff, and most of it was selling for $300,000 and up. Here are some things we saw:
We also found this cool hotel that had a carousel bar- the bar seats literally spun around, and the bar itself was the carousel. It would probably make you sick, even though it turns really slow, but it looked way cool.
The French Quarter was strange, because parts are really nice and cute, but then parts get pretty sketchy quickly. Like Bourbon street. It’s dirty. It’s full of voodoo lounges and bars and strip clubs (and even a live sex show). But go one street over, and it’s antique shops and art galleries. It’s a very eclectic city!
The food in New Orleans is supposed to be really great, but it’s not really if you’re a vegetarian. Everything we had was pretty mediocre, and all of the famous dishes have meat (crawfish, gumbo, jambalaya…). We did eat at Emeril’s restaurant, but only for dessert, and it was truly one of the worst desserts I’ve ever had.
As for Katrina stuff, we didn’t see any of it. I heard that most of the damage is farther outside of the tourist areas. We also didn’t go to the famous cemeteries (although we drove past them), because they are near the projects and we were warned by several people that they are very dangerous. New Orleans as a whole seems pretty dangerous if you wander into the wrong parts. Beverly was telling us about all of the murders and theft that take place in the city.
We were going to go on a swamp tour, also, but they canceled it, so we didn’t get to. Next time! It was a really nice weekend, but then we had to drive 8 hours back to Austin. Ugh. At least I saw my first armadillo (road kill).
Check out more of my flickr photos of New Orleans here.
That’s a place I’ve always wanted to visit, but the gritty crime stuff always turned me off. Maybe I’ll reconsider since you say it’s outside the touristy areas… Glad you had fun.