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Published: February 22nd 2007
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City Tour with a GIANT beer
What a great way to do the city tour - only problem was I was busting to have a piss every 20 mins. Didn't make me real popular with the other guys on the tour!! We recently returned from a fantastic trip to New Orleans, and it came about from Fi having to do a course for work, which just happened to be conducted at New Orleans. All the guys that Fiona work with who should complete the cause baulked at it so it ended up falling into Fiona’s lap. So basically the US Navy was paying for Fiona to fly over to New Orleans, pay for her accommodation and hire car and then fly her back. So I paid my way and although the course went from Monday to Friday, we flew over on the Saturday and back of the following Sunday.
We arrived on Saturday only to realise that it was Mardi Gras season. This is about a 3 week long period that attracts thousands of tourists and turns the place into a party town. Now it’s not the ‘Oh darling you look super in those arse-less chaps’ Mardi Gras we are familiar with. It’s basically just an excuse to get pissed up, and it is aided by possibly the greatest local government rule in the entire universe both known and unknown - It is legal to drink on the streets 24/7, as
Water line on the roof of the houses
If you look carefully at the red brick house on the left you can see the water line halfway up the roof!! long as it is out of a plastic cup. Basically you can walk into any pub and ask for ‘drinks to go’ and they serve you in a plastic cup and you can go from pub to pub. This has given rise to ‘hole in the wall’ drink distributors who have shops little bigger than a bathroom and sell ‘drinks to go’. As the drinks from these places are quite cheap a lot of people don’t even drink in the pubs so pretty much every weekend just turns into a massive street party with the music from surrounding pubs drifting onto the street. ‘Bourban Street’ pretty much turns into a pedestrian mall and it would be insane to try and drive down there….its a pretty amazing place. People (including Fiona) just dancing outside the pubs enjoying the free music and cheap drinks…..we even found a pub that sold $1 beers - jackpot, you were loosing money if you didn’t buy a beer…..or 12.
Anyway we arrived and checked into our accommodation on the navy base and it was pretty much a 3-4 star hotel. It was serviced everyday, had double bed, own toilet/bathroom, TV, fridge etc it was really
City of the Dead Cemetary
All the Cemetaries in New Orleans are above ground like this because the water table is too shallow - if they bury the bodies they just come back up! quite surprising, and we were just across the Mississipi from the centre of town - about a 10 minute drive at most. So we headed into town and wandered around the ‘French Quarter’ which is the centre of town. This is the old original French/Spanish settled area and pretty much every building was finished before the first fleet arrived in Australia, so it has a lot of charm and history. We decided to wander until we found somewhere to eat and accidentally got our first taste of Mardi Gras as we stumbled into a street parade. Next day we took a City Tour which although touristy was really great. It took us around the French Quarter and then out to the suburbs still affected by the flood. It was really amazing - you could see the waterline on the roofs of first floor houses and spray painted marks halfway up the second floor of houses where rescue crews entered houses from boats and recorded that they had searched the place. There is still a heap of deserted suburbs, although the historical areas weren’t affected as they are in the old part of town which is on higher land. We then
New Orleans Yacht Club
Some damage and destruction still remains at the yacht club. drove along the old wealthy area which was just full of old 200+ year old mansions. I’ve attached some photos because words don’t really describe how grand they are.
After the first weekend Fiona had to start her course which left me to explore by myself. We were lucky enough to find out that there was a free ferry which docked about 2 miles from the base and took people across the Mississipi into town. This was a really pleasant way to get into town as there is quite a bit of traffic on the Mississippi so you could just sit and watch huge tankers roll past as you waited for the ferry. During the week I visited the National D-Day Museum which is in New Orleans because all the Higgins Boat Landing Craft used for the invasion were built there. Really amazing museum and was interesting to see the war from the American side and the influence Pearl Harbour had on them. Even better was that they actually had some photo’s of Australians in there!! I also visited the New Orleans Confederate Civil War museum which was very unique. The curator was a Civil War History Buff and
St Charles Road
St Charles road is just lined with houses like this. The architecture varies from revised Greek to Elizabethean - it is really quite amazing also a member of the 144th Washington re-enactors Battery. This was one of those crazy dudes who dressed up in civil war garb and fought pretend battles in his own time - bit of a strange dude, but very learned, he’d actually heard of Gallipoli!! Whilst I was at the museum I ran into Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols fame - he was filming a new documentary called ‘Rotten on the Road’ for MTV.
One of the great things about New Orleans is the music. It was easy to head to Jackson Square in the centre of town (surrounded by the oldest buildings in the city) and just lay on the grass in the sun and listen to buskers. And boy do they know how to busk here - most of them were brass bands with 3 - 6 piece brass sections, double basses, banjos, and drummers with a small drum kit. They were really quite talented. The food is also a unique attraction and pretty much every night we dined we tried some new - Cajun and Creole cooking was born in New Orleans and it was really an amazing place to eat.
The second weekend we
More of St Charles Street
Another amazing home - this time revise Greek architecture were there we drove out of New Orleans and visited a couple of the Plantations - these were amazing. They didn’t hide from the slave history of these places and highlighted it as part of the life style of the deep south in that era. The plantation homes were amazingly impressive, and we’ve attached some photos that try to capture how impressive they are. After this tour we visited a Voodoo museum (voodoo is practised quite extensively in New Orleans) and then headed to the weekend parades.
One of the strange traditions of the Mardi Gras is bead necklaces - all the floats throw them to the crowds and everyone is walking around wearing brightly coloured plastic beaded necklaces - those who really get into the spirit are wearing up to 50 of all different colours. I actually found it really disturbing to see fully grown men wandering the streets wearing purple, gold and green beads by the truck load around their necks. Anyway - as you walk along the streets people of the second floor balcony throw beads to passers by who catch their eye, so obviously with my stunning looks we were getting showered with them (it
Bourban Street
This is Bourban Street at about 8pm on a Saturday night - this street is supposed to be open to vehicle traffic had nothing to do with the fact that I was walking with Fiona…..). It was really a crazy crazy place - like New Years Eve every night, just an amazing party town with great music, great food and you can drink on the street - what a combination!!!
Unfortunately we had to leave before the big Parade (known as Fat Tuesday), but it was a pretty amazing place to be and if anyone is coming over to visit, New Orleans should be on the must-see list.
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