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Published: November 1st 2008
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Musicians
Some of the many buskers in the Quarter Wanderlust was growing so we decided to do a weekend in New Orleans to bridge the gap between other adventures...
Always wanted to visit here; the music, the food, the culture, and for the most part we weren't disappointed! Arrived around noon to a wonderful blast of heat and humidity (starting to get cold here in Canada) we made our way down to the French Quarter and our hotel, the Andrew Jackson. Perfectly situated on Royal St. in the heart of the Quarter, it was a great launch point for all the activities...
First on the agenda, pint! Okay, we did a bit of walking; checked out Royal St. and the antique shops and art galleries, took a stroll down Bourbon St. to get our bearings and then ducked into the great courtyard at Pat O'Brien's for a liquid refresher. Next stop was the mandatory Po'boy sandwich, which I must admit I didn't really dig at all (greasy mess, to each their own...). Spent the rest of the day checking out the Quarter while waiting for friends to arrive. Night one consisted of crawling along Bourbon St. looking for fun, but to be honest it's pretty tourist-tacky, most of
the better joints are elsewhere in the Quarter...with the exception of Fritzel's European Jazz Pub, fantastic place! Touristy but with smokin' jazz combos playing every night (we ended up here a couple of times), exactly what I was looking for!
Day two included the mandatory cemetery tour; we checked out the Saint Louis Cemetery #1, home of the voodoo queen Marie Laveau and where they filmed some of Easy Rider...crypts were very cool, and after hanging out in the blazing midday sun we ducked into a cool little bar for pints on the patio...very civilized! The evening started with an Absinthe Happy Hour in the courtyard across from our hotel, where Paul and I certainly imbibed, most yummy! And that night we headed to the Preservation Jazz Hall, one of my must-sees on this trip: Fantastic, rustic room, no P.A. or mics, just a bunch of us crammed in to catch this amazing old school jazz band, what a treat! No bar or washrooms, we brought our own pints (have I mentioned what a civilized place this town is? Haha...) and caught two sets, great for the soul...
Swamp tour was next on the agenda, again a must-do...
Strike up the band!
Another wedding procession, man those were cool... It was great; went out on one of those airboats into the Bayou with some other friends that were down, our guide was a lot of fun and really knew his stuff (having grown up in the area). Managed to see a bunch of 'gators and even learned something along the way, who knew? If you're ever in the Big Easy, highly recommend doing one of these tours, the Bayou is absolutely beautiful...
Cafe du Monde, voodoo museum and temple, hat shopping, Mexican wrestling masks and the best head shop I've seen in a while (hello new belt buckle!) rounded out most of the rest of the trip, with many pints-to-go in between. All in all a great trip; the people of Louisiana and New Orleans are arguably some of the friendliest on the planet, can't say enough about them.
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