ByLayla
As Roz and I prepare to leave after a four day New Orleans mini break over Thanksgiving, I can only say: what a revelation. A really fascinating experience.
As Roz and I prepare to leave after a four day New Orleans mini break over Thanksgiving, I can only say: what a revelation. A really fascinating experience.
We were a little horrified to find that our hotel Le Pavillion, while lovely, was smack bang in the middle of the commercial business district, as opposed to the famed French Quarter, where everyone tends to stay when in New Orleans. Indeed, apparently many tourists never stray beyond the French Quarter's charming-balconies-and-copious-alcohol confines at all. Luckily it was a mere 10 minute walk from our hotel, and upon arrival on Wednesday evening, we wrapped up as warmly as possibly in the unexpectedly freezing night, and headed straight to the heart of it all. Our destination: The Green Goddess, one of the very few restaurants in the city that welcomes vegetarians. It wasn't a very glamorous joint, but its rag tag clientele gave a forewarning of New Orleans style. Think steam punk. People wear top hats, other big hats, sticky out black skirts, big black coats... There is a serious, unique style and identity to New Orleans' inhabitants as a whole that is quite unlike anything we've experienced elsewhere in the US.
After dinner we walked across the famous Bourbon Street just as it was getting ready for its nightly drunken extravaganza of neon and strong cocktails - including 'cocktails to go' as the norm! We popped round to a quiet corner and drank some amazing cocktails (not to-go) at French 75. Then we went to another cocktail bar, the Swizzle Stick bar, and found even better craft cocktails. This was amazing: that New Orleans is famed for its cocktail finesse had somehow eluded us both. We got back to the hotel just in time for free hot chocolate, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - and a very good first impression of New Orleans.
Bright and early the next day, we headed to The Camellia Grill for a delicious if simple local Thanksgiving breakfast amidst the boisterous New Orleans regulars, before joining a free walking tour of the French Quarter. The streets feel like nowhere else we've been in America. All the buildings are brightly painted. There is wrought iron everywhere, beautiful balconies, uneven pavements - a bit like being in Spanish colonial cities in central and South America (think Cartagena). Sure enough, despite being called the French Quarter, the city was briefly given from France to Spain - during which time the city pretty much burnt down and was rebuilt by the Spanish. It was soon thereafter demanded back by Napoleon, who later sold it to the US (the famed Louisiana Purchase - though Louisiana in those days was a third of the size of the whole US).
The walking tour was excellent and gave us a real feel for how the city has evolved. Lots of fascinating detail around the slave trade - New Orleans originally treated their slaves comparatively ok, eg Sundays off to do what they wanted, unsupervised, the opportunity to choose to work more for pay, and the option to buy their own freedom. Hence the city was full of free black people, including some who owned slaves themselves. Everyone was fine with this. Then when the Jim Crow laws started to emerge, New Orleans, long before Rosa Parks, was scandalized, and protested by having a respected man who was 1/8 African get a ticket for the white carriage of the segregated train and after boarding, announce his racial origins, leading to a Supreme Court case that brought the segregation to general attention... But sadly had the opposite effect from that intended - it reinforced The laws. The New Orleans folk seem extremely proud of their heritage, and being Creole (being descendants of European settlers), with African blood. The city feels very racially diverse, and separate from the rest of the US. And a key thing that seems to unite them is feeling disparaging about everyone who isn't from New Orleans!
After lunch in the pleasant, slightly stuffy Cafe Palace, we took our first streetcar. Apparently New Orleans once had loads of streetcars, including a streetcar named Desire! (Indeed, we visited the house where Tennessee Williams wrote that play. We also heard that the proper pronunciation was Desiree, after the daughter of a plantation owner...). we were on a mission: our walking tour guide had told us that the thing to do in New Orleans on Thanksgiving afternoon was to go to the racetrack. So off we trundled, by streetcar and then a walk, and there it was. Sure enough, everyone was out, and in their best steam punk style finery - including some very fine hats. This was clearly the cool local thing to do. we joined eclectic locals in viewing the horses, then we muscled in right down to the finish line and joined the cool-hatted-spectators in shouting for the horses. We failed to formally bet, but Roz was smug when 'her' horse won... At which point it was so cold we installed ourselves in the grandstand inside without chocolate, and cheered vigorously. What a cool Thanksgiving tradition - and an excellent first horse racing experience.
Upon returning to town, we installed ourselves in Cafe du Monde, a New Orleans tradition, were we had the obligatory beignets - delicious churros/donut type items which were delicious, if not diet-friendly. We sat outside, right by the route of the Thanksgiving parade, and cheered along with everyone else as Marching Bands and like like put on a fine display of US-style parading. According to our tour guide from earlier, there are over 500 festivals in New Orleans and most of them involve alcohol and parades. So they're very good at it! After the parade we walked up to the Mississippi River for a riverside stroll before a pleasant dinner in a Spanish restaurant, looking out at the twinkly lights of the river.
Next up we hopped in a taxi to Rock 'n' Bowl. This was absolutely brilliant. There was live music, and everyone was up dancing. And during the dancing, the waiters handed out hula hoops. Roz and I seized two, and we spent a happy time twirling - Roz for the first time! (The next day our waist muscles were agony!) Then we played bowling - which Roz won. Grrr. And ping pong. And finally we joined the dancing - what a fantastic night out! If that was nearer my home, I'd be there every week!
The next morning, despite it still being freezing, we started the day with a swim in the heated rooftop pool, to earn our delicious brunch at Ruby Slipper, one of the first new businesses since Hurricane Katrina, and immensely popular. Afterwards, we strolled down to the warehouse district for some gallery hopping along Julia Street, before taking the old and scenic St Charles streetcar out of the French/Creole part of town and up into the Garden District, the American part of town - in fact the streetcar tracks are historically considered 'neutral grounds' as when the 'Americans' tried to move in after the Louisiana Purchase, they found the Creoles did not welcome them. After a delightful potter in a local bookshop, we took a second free walking tour, around the local cemetery and beautiful huge old houses. I was intrigued to hear that Louisiana has the biggest revenue from the movie industry outside of Hollywood as it is so often used in film settings! In fact lots of celebrities also live in this area. We passed by John Goodman's house, and Sandra Bullock's house, and heard how post-Katrina, Brad Pitt set up a charity to build houses for families who had owned and lost theirs, leading to a campaign for Brad Pitt to be mayor of New Orleans. It was also interesting to hear about all the mad societies people from New Orleans belong to, and how being eccentric/insane is very much appreciated and nurtured and celebrated in the city. It really seems a culture like no other...
After the tour (and tomato soup...in an ice cream shop) we walked to our next destination: Freret. It was remarkable and disconcerting that 2 blocks from the amazing stately homes there was a big rundown housing estate. We walked rapidly and reassuringly got to Freret before nightfall. This is a small but funky area with some cool bars and coffee shops. We idled reading in a coffee shop, then had more superlative cocktails - and cheese to match - in a very cool bar which I think was called Core. Next some adequate Japanese food in Origami, and thence to the event of the evening: Comedysportz. This comedy/improv show happens every weekend and involves two comedy teams 'competing' in various improv games. It was a bit weird, not blessed with extravagant audience numbers, but cute and well meaning and surprisingly funny. We had a fun time.
We'd planned to return to Core for another cocktail but in our absence it's loveliness had transformed into a very loud and packed party ambience, so we walked back to the streetcar stop and headed into the French Quarter to a bar called Carousel that was modeled on a carousel and hence sounded very cool. However, if we had been trying to flee party ambience, we'd done it wrong! The bar was just on the outskirts of the French Quarter but it was nuts. The streets were seething with partiers, each clutching a cocktail-to-go, in huge plastic, novelty-shaped receptacles, often with a special strap to tote it round their necks. Music blared. Neon flashed. Everyone was dressed like an Essex girl. There was no hope of getting a seat at the bar. We had a quick and disappointing cocktail before returning, feeling both relieved and old, to our quiet and grown up hotel.
Amazingly, after two days of shivering in coats, gloves, and every layer of clothing we could manage, it was a lovely sunny warm day on Saturday, and we had booked a bike tour! A quick breakfast, onto our cruiser bikes, and we were off. We've never done so many tours, but New Orleans is so palpably about the history of the people who have lived there since the French times that it seemed somehow right - and really fascinating. The guide the day before had joked she had only been in New Orleans for most of her life and was thus not really qualified to run a tour; today's guide gave the impression that her concerns were justified. Apparently many people in New Orleans will never leave it in their lifetime - it's a flat city and they built a hill artificially so that children would know what a hill was. It's that sort of place. The bike tour took us to see yet another side of New Orleans - the Creole bit. We crossed Esplanade and suddenly the vibe was different- more bohemian, poorer, different architecture, lots of houses that had been submerged during Katrina still bearing the brands that indicate they were searched during the rescue operations, and whether any dead were found. We went through Faubourg Marigny, then Bywater, where we peeked into a path leading to a voodoo temple. Then up to City Park and along the Bayou water, and through Congo Square, the birthplace of jazz (the place where slaves once congregated on Sundays). It was an enlightening tour.
After a delicious and excessive Lebanese lunch, we headed back up to the beautiful City Park, the weather now glorious, wandered through a very cool sculpture garden, and played a round of mini golf - very fun! And then returned to Swizzle Stick Bar for more delicious cocktails. We spent that evening seeing The Book Thief at a cool cinema where the seats are huge leather almost-armchairs, there's a comprehensive snacky food menu, and you can summon a waitress by pressing a discrete button. And polished it all off at WINO, aka the Wine Institute of New Orleans where we fled the growing Saturday night chaos of the French Quarter (the streets surrounding it were lined with waiting police vans, which seemed a bad omen). WINO was very cool - we were issued with a wine card which we could insert into machines and pour ourselves variously sized measures of huge numbers of wines. Great fun. And I was pleased to end the night with hot chocolate in our hotel!
On our final day, after an early morning swim and another delicious brunch at Ruby Slipper, we took the streetcar up to City Park again for some paddle boarding. So bizarre: two days ago our teeth had been chattering with cold; today we stepped onto paddle boards with bare feet and t-shirts! It was a beautiful day, and the Bayou is perfect for paddle boarding. We had some thrills floating under low bridges on our stomachs, and enjoyed the cool scenery and general paddleboarding cheeriness, and afterwards retired to the New Orleans Museum of Art. We've been to better art museums, but there were some cool things to see, and a lovely cafe for lunch... A final stroll in the beautiful sculpture garden and then it was time to call a taxi. What a cool mini break. Miss you, New Orleans!
