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Published: July 14th 2011
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New Orleans!
By Rachael
I was really excited to arrive in New Orleans, it is a city I have heard amazing things about for a long time, and after the cultural bleakness of Orlando it felt like the perfect antidote. We weren't dissapointed. New Orleans is a city full of history, with a unique culture and character. It has everything - amazing food (po' boys, red rice and beans, jambalaya, gumbo etc), cool bars with amazing cocktails, spontaneous street music (it is the birthplace of jazz after all), quaint colourful streets, friendly locals. It is the largest city in Louisiana and we could tell we were in the South straightaway. I loved the accent, 'how y'all doin'' etc.
Not to go on about the buses, but to get to New Orleans we had our first experience of the Greyhound buses. Since we have travelled widely in South America on buses which were mostly pretty impressive we had visions of fabulously comfortable buses now that we were in the States. How wrong could we be...We have since realised that in the US everyone drives their own cars, everywhere. Hence the only people you will find on a Greyhound
bus are the lowest sectors of society, too poor (or crazy I would say in this case) to own a car - plus the occasional unfortunate student or traveller. Furthermore our bus was an overnighter, which are always more challenging anyway. We did at least have Chris and Natalie to protect us from the 'interesting' characters!
We lucked out with our hostel...we had booked 2 double rooms but actually ended up getting an apartment to ourselves with a large lounge and kitchen area. All for less than we were paying for a bed in a dorm in Miami. This was a sign of things to come...I think we all loved New Orleans.
We were staying on a street conveniently placed between the downtown French Quarter, the main area, and the stunning uptown Garden district. To get around town we hopped on the Streetcar, a novel mode of transportation and bringing to mind romantic images of Tennessee Wiliams' 'A Streetcar named desire'. The French Quarter is an eclectic area full of character and energy. It is the oldest area of the city and the centre. The most distinct feature of the streets in this area are the intricate ironwork
balconies. We spent a lot of time in this area during both the day and night, in the restaurants and bars and wandering the streets soaking up the atmosphere. The Garden district is the uptown area of New Orleans where the wealthier live. The ante-bellum (or pre-war) houses are the typical white houses with porches outside were beautiful. The whole area is peaceful and amazingly green - hence the name. I could only imagine living there. I felt very jealous of the University students whose campuses are in the area and saw many of them on their way to class or the gym. A bit different to our experience as students in the squalor of Portswood in Southampton... Happily I found an actual book shop!! The States had so far been devoid of these in our experience...
On the Sunday morning that we were there we decided to partake in the very American tradition of brunch, it seems to be the one situation in which Americans are willing to wait in a queue. Chris took us to this very nondescript looking building which appeared to be part of an old gas station, from the outside it looked very unpromising.
However it turned out it was the place to be and inside was buzzing with New Orleans locals. We were all starving and read the menu eagerly as we waited. The menu was full of the typical American diner type favourites - pancakes, waffles, eggs etc. It was completely overwhelming! Having been in the States for a few weeks we thought we were used to the food. But when we came to order it became obvious we didn't have a clue. Each time we ordered anything our waitress would fire a series of complicated choices at us and when our food came we were entirely bewildered. I ended up with 3 huge pancakes which took up an entire plate as well as a portion of scrambled eggs. Chris had been the most ambitious - he had eggs, sausages, bacon, hash browns as well as Louisiana staples - grits, and biscuits and gravy. We had seen these items on various menus and Chris decided to try them. Grits turns out to be a cous-cous like grain served in a watery mush. It is absolutely tasteless. Given the huge portions we were baffled as to why anybody would want to further stuff themselves with this unappetising paste. We asked our waitress who explained it was very popular with butter, salt and pepper and that some people even liked it with shrimp in. We were unconvinced. Now to explain biscuits and gravy - a biscuit is a scone-like food, and served with gravy which is not the gravy we are used to in England but a thick creamy bechamel sauce. It was tasty but entirely unnecessary with the rest of the food. Feeling rather ill we eventually all waddled out of the place and went on a brisk walk to try and counter the effects.
Given that the city is the birthplace of jazz we decided it was only right that we should go and experience a taste of it ourselves. So one evening we got a cab to Frenchman Street which we had heard was the right street to go to if you wanted to escape the tourists. We stumbled into the first bar we spotted that looked interesting and we weren't dissapointed. A band was playing later on and we had to pay a small entrance free. At first we didn't have very high expectations, the place was pretty nondescript and dead. However it turned out to be one of my favourite nights of our trip. We got some drinks (I decided to sample some Southern Comfort to get in the mood) and settled down on some seats around the stage. We weren't sitting down for long...soon we were up on our feet dancing around crazily. The main guy of the band, the singer and trombonist, was ridiculously talented he sounded like Otis Redding or Louis Armstrong. He had an amazing presence and energy. We were totally out of our depth - everyone in the crowd knew all the words to the songs and just got the jazz thing but we were totally new to it. The funniest part was when the singer handed out white paper napkins to everyone in the crowd and made us all wave them around in the air. My favourite line out of all the songs 'I'm gunna melt your ass like butter'. There was such a sense of community and togetherness between everyone there. In fact I felt this strongly in New Orleans in general - this is a city which people are proud to belong to and very protective of.
New Orleans is an incredible city and I was sad to leave. It is so lively and there is always something to do, even if that is just going to one of the many bars and ordering a cocktail or going to listen to a bit of jazz. The food was so interesting we enjoyed sampling different local dishes. For most of our time in the city the weather was beautiful and sunny but very hot. One afternoon without much warning a thunderstorm hit the city and we got a taste of how crazy the weather can be. We had to seek refuge in a coffee shop to wait it out. It brought to mind Hurricane Katrina, whose effects are still felt in the city. For instance when we were at the jazz gig another singer complimented the main guy on his willingness to stand up for the people of the city and urge the authorities to do more. When on a steamboat tour down the Mississippi we saw the areas where the hurricane had hit which was very moving.
Our next stop was Texas!
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