The Big Easy

After the storms of last night, the day was bright and sunny. A little cooler today - top of 25 degrees and low humidity. 

We slept well despite the noise. We're on the 5th (4th to Australians) floor but the sounds from the street are pervasive. The revelry in Bourbon Street goes on til the early morning, then a couple of hours of peace, then they start cleaning the streets with high pressure hoses. 

It's a beautiful hotel and the location is worth the slightly disturbed sleep. If you need a recommendation for a less authentic experience whilst sleeping, the Sheraton and Westin both have big hotels walking distance from the party, just at the edge of the French Quarter. 

We set out to ride around the city this morning, but found it a little more difficult that in Washington, as we were negotiating traffic and narrow streets. Some of the pavement is quite damaged, either from age or from the water that soaked the city for 4 weeks after Katrina. 

It was fascinating (and sad) to see the mix of beautifully renovated, and abandoned houses and businesses. Some properties were boarded up with plants growing out through the boards and roof. Katrina caused the greatest loss of life and biggest damage bill of any natural disaster in history. It's hard to contemplate what the locaks had to go through to be where they are now. 

Blackened Catfish Po-Boy

We cycled past a town cemetery, to the old-school-wide Canal Street with street cars running down the middle. I like that modern businesses like Starbucks and H&M are all hidden in the original buildings. 

People are in general very pleasant and helpful. They can't tell the difference between the Aussie and NZ accents, which is understandable, but they all seem to think Australians are great. 

After lunch of catfish po-boy and gumbo (spicy seafood soup with rice) we returned the bikes and walked back to the hotel to clean up. 

We scored a verandah table upstairs at a craft brewery where we enjoyed a first dinner course of seafood cheesecake (yes, I'm trying to be adventurous) and étouffée (spicy seafood soup with rice!) and beers. 

We wandered the streets, looking at the shops and bars and people. The town is full of tourists from all over the world and there are many street artists displaying their talents. Dancers, statues, eight foot tall fluorescent aliens....

Bourbon Street, 7pm on a Tuesday

On our last day in town we wandered down to the French Market for breakfast. If I haven't mentioned this already, breakfast is quite different to what we get at home. Bacon is streaky and fried to dead straight and crispy, eggs come in a hundred ways, potatoes are always served on the plate, and very often grits (porridge with harder pieces in it) are available instead of or as well as toast of many sorts. Lots of decisions to make.

And coffee is a disaster. I think that we're resigned to the bad coffee here, but I am ever hopeful that someone, somewhere will make us a nice one. At the moment we have two types of coffee - drinkable and undrinkable brown water. 

Dom went off to see the WWII museum which was an interesting work in progress. It should be fabulous when it's all finished. Like any museum here, going early is the key. 

There is a Cafe du Monde, a New Orleans tradition, in the Riverwalk. We'd been avoiding the beignets (square donuts) but gave in, in the name of an energy hit, and they were awesome. Even the coffee was good! Square donuts piled high with icing sugar. Mmmmm. 

We did a little shopping at the outlet mall and then stopped for lunch at Huck Finns, where they served alligator. It was very tasty, but mostly due to the spices. It was a little hard to tell what it's natural flavour was like. 

We enjoyed watching the traffic on the Mississippi. The paddle steamers, enormous barges, container and bulk carriers.