New Orleans

I realized that I had never written about my trip to New Orleans. I Facebooked it, but I didn’t blog it…sorry.

I think it was Sunday, February 8th that I went to the Big Easy. We had to go to Houston that day, but we were only 40 minutes from New Orleans, so we made time. We drove into the city on I-10 after church. As soon as we crossed Lake Pontchartrain the destruction from Katrina was still evident. I did a week of relief work in Biloxi a few years ago and this looked exactly the same! The hurricane hit about three and half years ago and people are still gutting and rebuilding. It was so sad. I could nearly feel my heart break as we drove through there. I have no idea what I would do if I was faced with such a life altering event.

We passed through the destruction and headed for the French Quarter. We ate a local place known as Cafe Maspero. Here I ate muffaletta and I have no desire to eat it ever again. Jack and I went to the Moonwalk on the banks of the Mississippi River while we waited for our food to arrive. We saw a lady playing steam whistles on top of a ship in the river. I have no desire to ever do that again either…I think someone needed to tune the whistles. After lunch we went to Cafe du Monde and had beniegts for dessert. Beniegts are kind of like small funnel cakes- it’s essentially fried dough covered with powdered sugar.

Since it was Jess’ birthday, Jeff bought us a mule drawn carriage tour. Mickey, our tour guide, told us that all carriages are mule drawn because it was city ordnance. No horse drawn carriages in New Orleans. We didn’t have much time so we just got a quick tour of the French Quarter. I learned a lot and saw many cool places. This tour has been the best history class! Mickey told us that all of the land in the Louisiana Purchase cost about 3.8 cents per acre. She told us that as she pointed out the building in which it was signed. We asked her what all flooded in the French Quarter. She said none of it did. The French Quarter is actually a few feet above sea level… so not all of New Orleans is low.

Jackson Square is beautiful and the Saint Louis Cathedral is even more stunning. It kind of looks like the Magic Kingdom at Disney World. We really didn’t have much time to explore there…maybe next time…

We were nearing the beginning of Mardi Gras during our visit and much of the city was decorated to reflect that. There were no parades when we were there, but I think there was going to be one that night and some of the shrubbery along the streets had beads in it. All of the balconies and iron work in general were very impressive. New Orleans is a very European city and it really was like stepping into another world. I had a great time and hope to go back when I have more than three hours to spend there.