Cafe Du Monde, and a Stroll through the French Quarter

Well, so I now also know, another place that one must go to while in New Orleans is Cafe Du Monde.  This is THE place to go for beignets and coffee.  The place is really big, probably three or four times bigger than this photo here shows including an indoor seating area. There is also a to-go window.  There wasn't any seating available that we could see, and the line waiting for seating was pretty long, so we decided to get into the 'to-go' line.  This was pretty long too, but we were willing to wait.  We had no more gotten into line, when a waiter approached us and asked us if we wanted to place our to-go order with him. Why sure! :)

If you have never had a beignet, as I had never had one, it is a freshly deep fat fried dough square, still hot, and thrown into powdered sugar.  Our bag was half-full of powdered sugar for our six 'doughnuts' (basically).  It was at this time that I was especially glad to be wearing a white coat, because most everyone is dusted with white powder when they are finished, not to mention the poor floor :).  

Upon leaving Cafe Du Monde, we went walking along the streets of the French Quarter.  There are many street performers along the streets, whether playing instruments, alone or with others, or such as this man, performing a type of street mime.   It was fun watching Allison watch them. :)  This guy was really good.

And...here it is...Bourbon Street.  I need to be about 20 years younger to really appreciate Bourbon Street the way it needs to be appreciated....and without a child in tow.   In fact, it was about 5:30 in the evening, and we wanted to go into an establishment and listen to some jazz, but when we walked in, we were told that we couldn't bring Allison in.  I understand why, it's a law that no one can be in them who is under 21, but that did make it really difficult for us.  We did finally find a place that had an outdoor "garden" area, and there was a little jazz group performing live, so that worked out really well.

While we were in the garden area listening to the band, Allison worked on her postcards to her grandmas and to her class at school.

Bourbon Street was an experience...people can drink while out on the streets; there is just a loud mix of different genres of music exuding from the many different bars and drinking establishments; there are touristy trinket shops mixed in with voodoo and dark arts; and the adult shops intermingled in was something I wasn't prepared. I was glad that Allison didn't really discern some of these things, or at least she didn't mention them to me.  I cannot even imagine what it must be like during Mardi Gras.  The streets are very narrow thanks to the age of the area, predating automobiles, etc.  I cannot even fathom all the people and craziness.  


Yes, I guess I'm getting too old....

Katrina Exhibit at Louisiana Historical Museum

The Louisiana State Museum is in Baton Rouge, I believe. However, there is a small 'branch' in New Orleans.  We had seen that there was an exhibit on Katrina, so we decided to go by and see what it was all about.  We had about 45 minutes to an hour before it was going to close, and there was an exhibit in another building around the corner that was on the structural construction of New Orleans, and that was of more interest to Bruce. This was of more interest to me. So, we split up for this part of the afternoon.  

This was a really pretty well done exhibit. It had one large area that was set up with video monitors and audio stories from different viewpoints of folks affected by Katrina and the aftermath, i.e., hospital personnel, emergency personnel, folks in the Superdome, residents, etc.  There was a lot of really good, touching information. 

I took this one picture of an exhibit because it really affected me on what terror must have begun to feel like to someone who had not evacuated and was still in their home when the flood waters started to rise.  This is a picture taken from inside the house, looking at the front door. You can see through the glass side window the level of the water outside of the door.  The water is starting to flood in the side of closed door and from underneath the door.  I cannot even imagine the feeling of "Oh my goodness!" that must have been felt (putting it mildly).

This definitely changes the subject from Katrina, but on a lightpole just outside the museum was hanging a string of beads.  I wanted, but never got, a good picture of a "bead tree".  These are special trees that only grow in New Orleans.  We saw the majority of these bead trees along St. Charles Avenue while we were in New Orleans. You see, bead trees are trees that have strands and strands of Mardi Gras and Carnival beads hanging from them, leftover from the float parades to celebrate the month to two-month long event. They are pretty funny.

Central Grocery -- Muffaletta

When in New Orleans, this is one of the two primary food items that one must partake in, so I hear....

Central Grocery Co. is the home of the "Original Muffaletta"....what is a muffaletta?  Good question.....

The bread is similar to that of what you might find on a Schlotzky's sandwich...with olive oil, meat and cheese, etc., .... that part I liked fine.  Add to it, however, some type of huge pickled green and black olives, along with pickled cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, etc. mix.  THAT was interesting, to say the least. I ate the most of it I could, but I must admit I picked some of it off! :)

New Orleans Audobon Aquariaum

One of my favorite outings on the trip was to the Audubon Aquarium.   As being a person who does not swim, and definitely is not a water baby, it is surprising that I am so fond of underwater aquarium life.  I truly enjoy visiting aquariums.   The animal life and plant life underwater is just simply amazing...I don't know how anyone can view underwater life and still believe that there was no Divine Creation, that there is no God...God's hand is clear as day when one views all of the different shapes, colors, moves, etc. 

When we walked into the aquarium, the entry way was primarily a full size aquarium that visitors are able to walk through with an archway in which the fish and rays swim right over top.  I totally think it is cool that you see the bottoms of the rays as they swim over top of our heads. 

There was, of course, a rain forest.

Allison wanted a photo of her 'swimming with the sharks'.

I thought this fish looked an awful lot like Dori from the movie 'Finding Nemo.'

Seahorses are one of the most amazing underwater life there is, in my opinion.  It is sooooo cool to watch them navigate through the water, waving back and forth like a horse galloping down the road.  It is amazing seeing them propel themselves without the benefit of fins.  When they want to rest, they hook their tail around the plant life, normally with several other seahorses.

This was cool.  Allison was able to crawl under the aquarium and crawl up into the tube in the middle so it looked like she was inside the aquarium. 

An albino alligator....he was huge!

Allison and her daddy posing by a replica of a deep sea diver.

Another favorite of mine are the jelly fishes...how cool are they?

Santa, Christmas Trees, and River Walk

There were, of course, many things advertised around the city of New Orleans pertaining to Christmas and the holiday season.  We've usually traveled around this time of year, and New Orleans seemed to have the least amount of specially focused Christmas activities, etc.   I don't know if that has to do with the fact that the weather just doesn't feel like Christmas....not that anyone but me would even think of that probably. 

This day was cooler, however, and the wind was a little bit breezy and chilly. We headed down to "Miracle on Fulton Street"....I think I thought it was more than it was going to be, not that I had any idea what it would actually be.  It ended up pretty much just being a whole bunch of identical trees decorated the same way under a long white tent.  It was pretty, I will give it that. 

We moseyed on over to the River Walk area.  Didn't really see anything that drew us down to the bottom area, but we did go on over to the ferry.

The ferry is free any runs over to Algiers (sp?) and back, so we rode on it.  There really wasn't anything over there but we did stop for a hot chocolate before heading back over.

Trolley Cars, The Confederacy, and Katrina

New Orleans does offer several trolley lines through its public transportation system.  They are pretty user friendly, especially during the daytime hours, as they run about every 15 minutes or so; they cost $1.25 per ride, but you can buy day passes or three-day passes.  They probably also have something for the locals, but I don't know that for sure.  This line ran right past the hotel.  Allison got a kick out of it.  We rode it a few times, especially before Saturday night; however, we were planning to ride it back from the French Quarter -- it is to run like every 30 minutes.  Well, we had just missed one...inconvenient, but okay.  But, instead of 30 minutes, it was more like 60 minutes...somehow it had gotten held up, and there were enough people waiting at the stop to fill 2 trolleys...oh look, here comes a 2nd trolley! :)   So, this annoyed B enough that we haven't been back on.....:)

 While in the South we must study the Confederacy, right?  It was a nice little museum dedicated to the Confederates...there were a lot of artifacts, flags, uniforms, items used by soldiers, etc.,and lots of guns...not big into guns, but that's a big part of the civil war, huh....

 Grey Line Tours are always something that we try to do when we are in a big city.  Some are usually better than of others, of course, and it normally depends on the quality of the tour guide....how well they present their city obviously.   We took the "Katrina" Tour, and all the Grey Line tours started from the lighthouse pictured below.  The tour guide was a lady who had lived through the experience, actually was an evacuation bus driver, and came back and took more people out of the city; had her own home experience damage as well as family members, and I believe a relative of hers even may have died, although I think it sounded like of a heart attack or something like that.  She had passion toward this subject, and she was a very very good guide.  I enjoyed her tour very much.  Unfortunately, I was not able to really get any good photographs representing any damage still visible today.  Actually that is probably a very good sign though. It's been five years, and there are a lot of vacant homes still but it is not a city of shambles as one might expect, at least not the parts we were shown.  It is a city that is trying to get back on its feet.  

 This was either in St. Bernard's Parish or the 9th Ward, I don't remember which; but it is a monument/sculpture built to represent what happened with Katrina, the blue showing the water, and the reddish depicting the homes.