The City of New Orleans
Hi all, we hope you all had a happy and safe Easter. Our first night in the campgrounds just outside New Orleans was nice a quiet and we decided to have a nice home (or RV) cooked meal a picnic pork roast with roast vegetables (potato's and sweet potato's). After preparing the meal and pre-heating our gas oven (it runs on propane or LPG) we put the roast in with the vegetables and kept a close eye on it all as the pilot light seems to go out without warning for some reason or other. So after re-lighting it several times we finally got our dinner cooked, and it was pretty much perfect. We had bought a Shake'N'Bake at a Walmart on our last shopping trip and decided to use it on the pork roast, if you ever get the chance I'd say definitely try because it was pretty good.
Once dinner was over, as I said in our previous post we had some laundry to do so we were off to do that but got caught up watching Pretty Woman. Once we bit the bullet and went and did all of our laundry we tried to call our families but just got message banks so we left messages saying we would call them at a later date. While waiting for our washing and drying to be done Kate and I played card games with the deck of cards that were provided by the campgrounds in the laundry room and that kept us amused until all our laundry was done.
After the laundry it was pretty late so we both called it a night and went to bed so we could have a good sleep before going into New Orleans the next day. The next morning we got up and got ready for the campground shuttle to take us into New Orleans. On our way in the driver told us a lot about the history of the different area's we were passing through. She told of the devastation of hurricane Katrina and that a lot of houses haven't been rebuilt and there have been a lot of insurance issues. Apparently if you didn't have specific flood insurance you weren't covered at all and a lot of people lost out and haven't come back after losing it all. At this point I leaned over and asked Kate if our house had flood insurance and the answer was yes so that crises was averted. The tour guide talked about the style of houses and the Mississippi river and the different types of flowers in New Orleans. We were dropped off right next to the Mississippi river right near a paddle steam boat that does nightly Mississippi river cruises.
We walked down the street looking for a good place to start wandering and exploring New Orleans and the first thing we came across was a very long line to get into a cafe. Seeing as it was only 9:30am I thought it might be the breakfast rush, but it was not, it is just a cafe that serves beverages and something called Bigetts which is french for some donut-ty thing with a mountain of icing sugar on it. We didn't know what it was all about at first and seeing as it seemed so popular we said that we would come back later when the line had gone down and try then.
Just after that cafe, we came across the New Orleans market and spent some time there going up and down and looking at all the stalls. From there we started down a road and looked at all the shops, the first shop we walked into was a praline candy shop. Kate and I had never heard of these so called famous New Orleans pralines, but they were offering free samples so who are we to say no? Pralines are like a very sugary biscuit shaped lolly with pecan nuts in them and they are very very very sweet.
With the praline mystery solved we again were on our way to explore the city, wandering up and down the streets walking into shops that caught our eye and the like as well as a lot of voodoo and black magic shops which were really cool to look at. It was about this time that Kate and I were getting hungry so we were looking at all the restaurant menu's that they put outside to see what we wanted to try and we came across a really cool restaurant with a live jazz band (as many restaurants in New Orleans have) when we were looking at the menu the band started up with a really funky rendition of "When the Saints go marching in" when Kate asked me how many times they get asked or have to play that song. American football is a big thing in America (well duh I know) but the Saints are the New Orleans football team and they also happen to be the 2010 Super Bowl champions so everywhere you look in New Orleans there is Saints memorabilia, people wearing football jersey's, hats, t-shirts, coffee mugs, sunglasses, basically anything that can be branded. But this jazz band replaced the lyric "Oh when the Saints go marching in" with "Oh when the Saints win the Super Bowl" which gets a rousing response from the crowd and the passers by. It wasn't quite lunch time when we looked at the menu so we decided to come back in about a half hour or so to have lunch. Down from where we were was that cafe that I mention earlier. The one with the really long line that I thought would die down after the breakfast rush, well I was wrong the line was still as long as it was when we first saw it that morning. So I then presumed that it was now the lunchtime rush and to try again later that afternoon, so we went back and got seating at the restaurant we had decided to eat at and we got a shrimp po boy (a shrimp foot long sandwich) and some alligator pieces to share. Alligator taste really good I must
After lunch we went wandering again and signed up for a cemetery tour of New Orleans, and as it looked like rain was going to fall soon we went and bought a cheap umbrella just in case it decided to rain while we were on the tour. We went and lined up for the tour and it looked like we had record numbers as I don't think they expected such a large group of people, but once they got organised and split us into three groups, each with a tour guide we were on our way. Our tour guide knew her stuff, she was funny and informative and I would say knew what she knew from an interest in history not a spiel that she had memorised for the tour company. She told us a lot of things about the town regarding when and why it was colonised its different types of architecture, the diseases and epidemics it went through, wars, ghosts and heaps of other stuff. Our tour guide told it all straight up and didn't try fill in with useless information where urban legends and myths come from. As it was a cemetery tour our final destination was the New Orleans cemetery, where she told us all about why they bury there people above ground and other such things concerning the burial techniques and ceremonies of New Orleans. Kate got dead people dirt on her feet, as it had been raining and the dirt was muddy, and she was wearing thongs. Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust is real when walking through a cemetery that used pine coffins in a swamp...
Once dinner was over, as I said in our previous post we had some laundry to do so we were off to do that but got caught up watching Pretty Woman. Once we bit the bullet and went and did all of our laundry we tried to call our families but just got message banks so we left messages saying we would call them at a later date. While waiting for our washing and drying to be done Kate and I played card games with the deck of cards that were provided by the campgrounds in the laundry room and that kept us amused until all our laundry was done.
After the laundry it was pretty late so we both called it a night and went to bed so we could have a good sleep before going into New Orleans the next day. The next morning we got up and got ready for the campground shuttle to take us into New Orleans. On our way in the driver told us a lot about the history of the different area's we were passing through. She told of the devastation of hurricane Katrina and that a lot of houses haven't been rebuilt and there have been a lot of insurance issues. Apparently if you didn't have specific flood insurance you weren't covered at all and a lot of people lost out and haven't come back after losing it all. At this point I leaned over and asked Kate if our house had flood insurance and the answer was yes so that crises was averted. The tour guide talked about the style of houses and the Mississippi river and the different types of flowers in New Orleans. We were dropped off right next to the Mississippi river right near a paddle steam boat that does nightly Mississippi river cruises.
Just after that cafe, we came across the New Orleans market and spent some time there going up and down and looking at all the stalls. From there we started down a road and looked at all the shops, the first shop we walked into was a praline candy shop. Kate and I had never heard of these so called famous New Orleans pralines, but they were offering free samples so who are we to say no? Pralines are like a very sugary biscuit shaped lolly with pecan nuts in them and they are very very very sweet.
With the praline mystery solved we again were on our way to explore the city, wandering up and down the streets walking into shops that caught our eye and the like as well as a lot of voodoo and black magic shops which were really cool to look at. It was about this time that Kate and I were getting hungry so we were looking at all the restaurant menu's that they put outside to see what we wanted to try and we came across a really cool restaurant with a live jazz band (as many restaurants in New Orleans have) when we were looking at the menu the band started up with a really funky rendition of "When the Saints go marching in" when Kate asked me how many times they get asked or have to play that song. American football is a big thing in America (well duh I know) but the Saints are the New Orleans football team and they also happen to be the 2010 Super Bowl champions so everywhere you look in New Orleans there is Saints memorabilia, people wearing football jersey's, hats, t-shirts, coffee mugs, sunglasses, basically anything that can be branded. But this jazz band replaced the lyric "Oh when the Saints go marching in" with "Oh when the Saints win the Super Bowl" which gets a rousing response from the crowd and the passers by. It wasn't quite lunch time when we looked at the menu so we decided to come back in about a half hour or so to have lunch. Down from where we were was that cafe that I mention earlier. The one with the really long line that I thought would die down after the breakfast rush, well I was wrong the line was still as long as it was when we first saw it that morning. So I then presumed that it was now the lunchtime rush and to try again later that afternoon, so we went back and got seating at the restaurant we had decided to eat at and we got a shrimp po boy (a shrimp foot long sandwich) and some alligator pieces to share. Alligator taste really good I must say, and the shrimp sandwich was also pretty good.
After lunch we went wandering again and signed up for a cemetery tour of New Orleans, and as it looked like rain was going to fall soon we went and bought a cheap umbrella just in case it decided to rain while we were on the tour. We went and lined up for the tour and it looked like we had record numbers as I don't think they expected such a large group of people, but once they got organised and split us into three groups, each with a tour guide we were on our way. Our tour guide knew her stuff, she was funny and informative and I would say knew what she knew from an interest in history not a spiel that she had memorised for the tour company. She told us a lot of things about the town regarding when and why it was colonised its different types of architecture, the diseases and epidemics it went through, wars, ghosts and heaps of other stuff. Our tour guide told it all straight up and didn't try fill in with useless information where urban legends and myths come from. As it was a cemetery tour our final destination was the New Orleans cemetery, where she told us all about why they bury there people above ground and other such things concerning the burial techniques and ceremonies of New Orleans. Kate got dead people dirt on her feet, as it had been raining and the dirt was muddy, and she was wearing thongs. Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust is real when walking through a cemetery that used pine coffins in a swamp...
After the tour was over Kate and I went back to walking and checking out various shops, we also went along the infamous Bourbon Street which has a lot of bars as well as walk up window service, Bourbon street is also classed as the red light district of New Orleans. We then made it back to the little cafe that I have mentioned twice previously, the line was still as long as it was at 9:30am and it was now 5pm so we decided to bite the bullet and line up (there are two lines one at the front of the cafe for table service, and the other around the other side for take away service, both the same length basically). Kate lined up to grab some take away Bigette things while I went across the street to grab a box of those pralines. I got back and got in line with Kate and slowly made our way up to the take away window and got to serves of the Bigetts things, we went and wandered down the street making our way back to the pickup point for our shuttle to take us back to the campsite. These Bigetts things are basically square donuts with a mountain of icing sugar on them, they are baked fresh (due to popular demand, you remember the lines I mentioned before?) and are piping hot when they put the icing sugar on them. The resulting snack is a really hot fresh donut with melting icing sugar on it... very nice to say the least.
Once we were at our pick up point looking at the big paddle steam boat and waiting for our ride to arrive a man was on top of the paddle steam boat and cleaning, or so we thought. He was actually wiping down a steam calliope which is a piano powered by steam, and what better place to have it, then on a steam boat? He played a few tunes that we hummed along too and we got some footage that will try and post if we can at some stage. Our shuttle rocked up and we went back to our RV for the night, when we got back we both finally got in touch with our families and got them up to speed. The next morning the Easter bunny came, and we didn't do much just relaxed and went for a walk and hung out at our RV. The first game of the 2010 baseball world series was on and we watched that (the Red Sox beat the Yankees if you want to know) and Kate has said that she is backing the Chicago Cubs to win the world series this year. For those who don't know the Cubs have not won a world series for the last 102 years so we will see how the season pans out for the cubs. As always stay tuned comment or ask any questions you may have, update soon.
Hope everyone had a great Easter :) Little Regan did (the alien in the picture, we picked him up in Roswell, he is hitchhiking around America, his flying saucer crashed).
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