Nawlins
The first thing we did this morning was to head for the Grey Line tours ticket booth. Their schedule didn't leave us long for breakfast, so we grabbed a pastry at a food court, then got on the garishly painted "jungle bus".
Our tour guide was excellent. I think this was a sideline for him, so he was able to willfully ignore the operator's guidelines on, say, ignoring slavery -- so he was full of fascinating information, about 80% of which I was able to understand through his accent.
The tour took us to one of the famous "cities of the dead", where we got to leave the bus and wander around a little.
The route demonstrated how New Orleans is mostly well below sea level. The ground floor of our hotel is entirely below sea level, and there are residential streets on the outskirts containing houses that are not only below the water level metres away over the levee in their entirity but also are sinking into the swampy ground. Some believe that within 50 years these places will be lost to the river, but I suspect man will intervene.
After the tour we returned to the hotel to get on the Internet and communicate with the bank: some Visa transactions have been rejected, and we wanted to know why.
Back on the street, we sought out a late lunch, and got some tourist-oriented feeding. Debbie had a roast beef po' boy (a sandwich containing a sloppy filling: gravy added slop to this one), while I had gumbo, which wasn't as spicy as I was expecting. Tasty though.
We spent a few hours strolling around the French Quarter, enjoying the architecture and exploring the market. Debbie observed that there are only three non-consumable things for sale in this town: masks, beads and tat. If you allow consumables, there is an awful lot of hot sauce with "comedy" branding available too. I really want to replace my dear departed "Dan T's Inferno" sauce, but there was none to be found.
We took a jaunt through the Mardi Gras museum, which confirms that under that cheery exterior, carnival culture is weird. Sinister. Be very careful around these people.
We decided we needed a sit down and a drink, and found ourselves on Bourbon Street -- but not before our way had been blocked by a mini carnival procession.
These Americans are very big on the Easter Bunny. People have giant inflatable rabbits in their gardens. We haven't spotted any giant inflatable effigies of Christ on the cross yet. Maybe the nails or the thorns puncture them.
We'd been warned about Bourbon Street, but what we found seemed very pleasant: we drank margharitas while listening to some trad jazz played, as it turned out, by a bunch of Swedes.
We moved on after a while, having successfully dodged a shower of rain, and went down Bourbon St. in the opposite direction. This would be the part of Bourbon St. we'd been warned about, and there were indeed a lot of of establishments ill-suited to a nice grown-up couple like ourselves. We dropped into a bar where the music wasn't too loud and there were seats. I left Debbie buying drinks while I went to the loo. On the way to the loo I observed two things. One, the duelling pianos act that was playing was terrible. Two, sharing the same restrooms, was another bar playing rather good jazz. So I did my business in the restroom, fetched Debbie and we carried our drinks into the next room.
Most of the band left, leaving a clarinetist and a pianist, and after they'd finished, they were replaced by an R&B band, Rooster and the Chickenhawks. Rooster played the role of a venerable old bluesman, in a white suit and hat. They rooted down for a 5 hour set (at 9PM, Rooster announced "Showtime! We're going to be playing until Monday morning". Rooster said "showtime" a lot.)
Rooster did spent rather a lot of time sitting down and letting his band to the business, which was mostly fine except when the keyboard player, "Spring", tried to show off his soulful singing style. On "Try a Little Tenderness" he decided that Otis Redding had undercooked the egg, and that Spring could embelish it a little more. Too much, Spring. Too much. No, I would not like to buy your CD.
A group at the table next to us kept shouting out "Saint James Infirmary", and eventually it worked for them. No such luck with my repeated calls for "Creep". I didn't bother trying for "Idioteque".
By the time we left, the joint was jumping, but we were tired and hungry, so we staggered out, got some pizza slices and some frozen daquiri, ate them, drank them, and returned to the hotel, tired but happy.