New Orleans, Louisiana

Hanging Flowers

Visiting all of these places and many others in just two days was exhilarating. When we (Brian, Joy, Travis, & I) arrived early Saturday afternoon, we made our way to the French Quarter to check out Johnny's Po'Boys for lunch. After a true Cajun meal along with some exposure to the eating habits of visitors and natives alike (the line was out the door at 2:00), we meandered through the French Quarter admiring the beautiful flower boxes hanging from intricate wrought iron balconies on brightly colored homes. We stumbled upon the Jazz National Historical Park where an outstanding band called the Jazz Vipers was performing; none of us had ever imagined a national park might exist in a one-room building. We stayed for the rest of their amazing performance and then purchased their CD. As we made our way back to the Hyatt, we dreamed about dinner, which we would not be eating until 9:00 to avoid long lines, and about the pool, which we knew must be cooler than we were.

Jazz National Historical Park: Jazz Vipers

Per the recommendation of a friend, we decided to visit K-Paul's (Paul Prudhomme's) Louisiana Kitchen. He is one of many chefs who is quite famous and has his own restaurant in New Orleans; Emeril is another. Our fried green tomatoes with shrimp prepared our taste buds excellently for our main course, stuffed pork chops. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal, which is more than I can say for the next part of the evening.

Bourbon Street

As does anyone visiting New Orleans, we made our way over to Bourbon Street to get some free beads. :-) Or NOT! We did, however, want to experience the Bourbon Street culture at least once. I was under the false impression that some of the strange behaviors typically associated with this street were reserved for special occasions, like Mardi Gras. This was also not the case. Beads flew out of balconies left and right. People swarmed the street and paused in large herds by balconies with bead throwers, making it virtually impossible to make our way to the end of the street. Some members of our group were definitely more happy about the slow moving traffic than others. :-)

Muffalettas

The next morning, Brian and I had a great workout at the hotel athletic center before heading to Café du Monde with Joy & Travis. Can you say powdered sugar? The newspaper article's advice was right on: "Don't inhale while eating your beignet." Sorry dad, guess you won't be able to enjoy a beignet! :-) The French pastries were magnificent, very hot and completely blizzarded by powdered sugar. The lines, which wrapped around both sides of the building, made it quite obvious that our tastes were not alone. After our beignets (3 each), Brian and Travis were still hungry. We wandered through the Farmer's Market and ran across Guatemalan bananas (very tiny), snowballs (a fancier version of a snow cone), and corn on the cob with yummy Cajun spices. Afterwards, we headed to Central Grocery for a muffaletta. I have to admit I doubted I would enjoy the Italian sandwich because it is topped with a pickled olive sauce; however, the tantalizing pastrami, cheese, and bread outflavored the olives. Next time we'll have to split a whole sandwich rather than just a half.

River House

After lunch, we toured the Garden District on a street car. Joy and I made the mistake of calling it a trolley, which is what it looks like, but we were both corrected vehemently each time we uttered the word. :-) The Garden District had many beautiful houses with amazing landscapes; we only saw the portion of the district visible from the street car, but Joy informed us that there was much more to it than we were actually seeing. Guess we have something to do next time we visit.

Street Performers

Finally, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner with Sherwood Collins, a friend from college, at a local home-cooking joint called Mandinas. Fortunately, Sherwood was kind enough to pick us up in his truck after our attempt at riding the street car backfired. After an excellent dinner, we got the tour of the city that the tourist usually isn't privy to, - the view from the back of a pick-up truck! :-) More importantly, we had the opportunity to visit parts of the city to which we would not have ventured without a native. Sherwood drove us through City Park, which has many amazing gardens ranging from a story tales garden to a sculpture garden. Along the way, we passed grave yards that were all above ground due to the high water table in New Orleans. What a crazy use of land. We then headed back to town in search of bananas foster.

If you've never tried bananas foster, you definitely should. Brian and I had this dessert for the first time the night we were engaged; so, when we heard the dessert was created in New Orleans we went searching for restaurants which served it. Although we had no problem finding restaurants which served bananas foster, we did have a problem finding a restaurant which was willing to serve us bananas foster if we didn't eat dinner there. :-( This was probably due to the fact that these restaurants were all VERY pricey; most customers probably walked out paying over $60/person. Therefore, our $10 bill looked rather small in comparison. We found that the only way to get dessert at these places was to wait until all the dinner customers had been seated (10:00-10:30), and then they would seat you. The hassle was worth the wait; bananas foster was just as good as we'd remembered it to be.

The next morning, Joy & Travis were off to California bright and early; we slept in and then headed back to Athens. What a fabulous way to spend Memorial Day weekend.

-- Molly & Brian Lawrence

French Quarter