Day 4: St. Patrick's Day

We're not going to talk about St. Patricks Day in New Orleans.

Day 3 - Plantation Nation

Today we got a car rental and took off!!! We had the funniest little Chevy Aveo, just a tiny bit bigger than a SmartCar, and it zipped us to Vacherie, LA via the Great River Road.

Before the fun started, we wanted to do right by New Orleans, and view the damage done by Hurricane Katrina in the Lower 9th Ward.  Closest to the levy breach, they have already cleared out most of the damaged homes, and one whole street is part of Brad Pitt's foundation "Make it Right", which is building sustainable homes, complete with solar panels.  We saw construction workers, and it gave us a little hope.  Mixed into the neighborhood were homes that are still abandoned, left with the spray-painted X's, done by aid workers in the weeks after the storm as they were searching for bodies.  Most had 0's for the number of bodies found. Some had "1 dog". They were all really sad.  Scattered throughout the abandoned homes are the resilient residents who don't want to leave.  They have rebuilt, or are in the process of rebuilding their homes.  We also saw the site of the levy breach.  It has since been repaired, but it was hard to imagine such a thing could cause so much damage to so many lives.  The whole experience felt almost surreal, and caused for great introspection. 

Moving along, leaving New Orleans, and heading up the river, LUNCH.  And man, did we eat... We stopped at a tiny little "diner" off the Mississippi River called B&C Seafood.  We were the only Yankees there, and EVERYONE stared at us... pretty much the whole time we were eating.  But don't worry, we stared at them too, as they devoured 20 pounds of crawfish out of a bucket.  They generously showed us how to eat them, as we ordered our 1 pound to split. They were delicious!! We also enjoyed seafood gumbo with garlic bread, catfish, alligator nuggets, hushpuppies, and crab stuffed jalapenos - all fried.  We tried, but didn't enjoy crab legs and boudine. 

What is boudine, you ask? We wondered too. Especially after Lara took a bite and almost spit it out. Cara was not brave enough to try it after seeing Lara's face.  When the owner came over and saw that we hadn't liked it, we asked him what it was.  He asked if we had ever heard of "Scrapple" (Cara had, Lara hadn't) and told us that it's something like Scrapple, except with pork parts.  (Scrapple, in case you don't know, is all the meat left-overs, ground up.)

After that, it was off to Plantation life at Laura's Plantation.  This was a typical Creole family plantation, nothing like Miss Scarlett's Tara.  It was very simple, just 6 rooms total, and painted bright yellow, with red and blue trim.  At one point the plantation had 14,000 acres, but now they just have 14.  The rest of the land was sold, lost in gambling debts, and given away over the years.  There were even 5 slave quarters still upright that we toured.  It was an interesting view of previous Southern life. 

On our way back to return the car, we stopped to fill up for gas.  This was one of the best gas stations Cara has ever been to.  She had to go in to get my receipt.  They sold fried chicken - fresh - in the market.  In line ahead of her were 2 guys selling a Cadillac Deville (white), and a man buying a 40.  And then a policeman buying fried gizzards and chicken.  The whole time she was in there she was afraid that Lara was going to get shot while innocently sitting in the car. 

We read about this convent that supposedly had really great handmade Christmas ornaments, so we thought we'd go. When we got there, they were just okay. But the nun was REALLY hilarious and they were also selling pralines, which were made by Sister Mary. They were delicious.  

Tonight is try #2 for Preservation Hall and Italian food... hopefully we are more successful!!!

Much love,

Cara and Lara

Day Two-The Rain Continues

Day Two began with Lara and Cara skipping the Cafe du Monde line and going for a N'awlins breakfast at River's Edge in Jackson Square. Rajun' Cajun omelet, yummy grits, and Crawfish Po'boys readied us for walking around the French Market. Lot's of other tourists were going through there too and their Go Cups only made us a little nauseous...

We mostly saw alligator heads and feet, beads, bad knock-offs, jewelry, and voodoo dolls. Then we sat in the sun and listened to a band play the blues. And tried to ignore all the cigar smoke. and Go Cups. Then it rained again. A lot. But it stayed warm, so we didn't care.

We went to the Famous pralines shop and tried their goods. Cara liked them but they were too sugary for Lara. She gave her sample to Cara. 

Then we went to William Faulkner's home which is now a special little bookstore.  While we were there, a man came in looking for a book we never heard of, and the woman that works there knew immediately and asked if he wanted hard-back or soft. The hard-backed was a first edition and was exactly what the man was looking for and bought the book for $140!  There were MANY first-editions of famous books: Wuthering Heights, To Kill a Mockingbird, and lots of Faulkner books.

When we left, it rained again. A lot. But it stayed warm, so we didn't care.

Then we were ready for dinner.  So we walked all the way down (past Brangelina's house) to this Italian restaurant that keeps getting really good reviews in guide books, only to find it closed on Sunday's.  As we were standing there, this "nice" man came over and told us other Italian restaurants to go to, since that one was closed. And then he asked us for money!!!!! Feeling annoyed, and incredibly hungry, Lara gave him a dollar.  After that, we walked to one of his recommendations, only to find that that one was closed too!! What is it with Italians on Sunday in the French Quarter? Don't they eat?  Out of pure desperation, we went to a restaurant that was always crowded.  Later we found out that the building it was housed in used to be a slave auction house.  Interesting piece of history.

After having bellies full of food, we walked up to Preservation Hall, legendary for great jazz. We waited in line for almost 1 hour, and then gave up.  We found out (too late) that it was a "Special Performance" by one of Fats Domino's musicians... it would have been nice to see him, but we were just too exhausted. 

For our late-night snack we (again) enjoyed delicious beignets and cafe au lait. Cara had chocolate milk, and was promptly chastised by the waiter.  What can she say, she likes chocolate milk.

Then off to bed... early morning tomorrow with car rental and heading out of the Big Easy!!

Day 1 - The arrival

Hey y'all!  So we arrived in Nawlins, and found each other, even after Cara hid from Lara in the baggage claim! We went straight to the hotel, got our really cute room, and then went out in search of food.

Our food introduction to the Big Easy was Mother's Po'boys.... yummmmm!  We split a fried shrimp po'boy and a Ferdi's Famous Po'boy.  We both agreed that Ferdi's was far superior. It had their WORLD FAMOUS ham, roast beef, and debris. 

What is "debris" you ask?  Well good thing Cara watched the Travel Channel, otherwise we never would have known that it is all of the gravy and bits of meat left over from roasting beef.  Sooo delicious!  

Then we walked to Cafe du Monde, and had our requisite beignets and Lara had a cafe au lait.  The mountain of fried deliciousness and powdered sugar was completely what we had been hoping for.  And we decided that all of the waitresses there must hate their jobs because they were really sticky and one was crying. 

On our way home we stumbled upon a parade for St. Joseph, the patron saint of the working class, whom is celebrated mostly by Sicilians.  The first part was these girls riding on floats, but since it was raining they all had white plastic ponchos on and runny mascara, and the hoods made them look like it was a KKK parade.  I wonder if anyone thought of that when they were all getting dressed.  The second part of the parade was much better. Handsome Sicilian men giving out beads, silk flowers, garter belts, and lots and lots of kisses. All in red, green and white. 

We finished our first day celebrating on Bourbon Street. 

These are the things we did/saw:

- Danced to a live band playing the Temptations

- Made guys lift their shirts off and threw them some of our beads (that we did NOT have to flash to get)

- Laughed

- Were welcomed to "The Dirrty South" by men

- Danced to hip-hop

- Saw 2 girls flash for beads (someone should have told them that you don't have to flash anymore)

- Drank a REALLY bad hurricane

- Laughed

- Lara ate veggie pizza and gave one of her 2 slices to a homeless man

- Got wet in the rain

- Listened to very good jazz (live) coming out of every door

- Drank in the street - yay Go Cups!

- Laughed