Blogs from New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, North America - page 53

Greetings from New Orleans, Louisiana! Less than 48 hours from our mission travel to Liberia in West Africa, I headed down to New Orleans with Halef. We flew into Gulfport/Biloxi, Mississippi, within 40 minutes driving from the New Orleans city center, and stayed over Hilton Riverside in the French Quarter. We spent most of our Saturday in the French Quarter, checking out the St. Louis cathedral (the oldest, continuous operating cathedral in North America), St. Louis cemetery number One where Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau was buried, and Café du Monde for its famous beignet. It was a fun time, as usual, knowing that the city will thrive after the devastating Hurricane Katrina two years ago. We closed out the night with some Mardi Gras celebration, as everyday is Mardi Gras in New Orleans. We flew out ... read more

On our drive down the Great River Road toward New Orleans, we stopped at a couple of plantations. The first, Nottoway, was a beautiful structure built by a family that bought up all kinds of land when they arrived in America and spent many years building it. The home was interesting for a few reasons: the first family were pack rats, so their heritage was completely known (as well as everyone who lived in the house after them), the house was now a bed and breakfast, so you could stay in the house and have breakfast there, in the actual bedrooms and dining rooms that belonged to the families, and the windows. Yes, the windows. There were 365 windows in the mansion, and even every closet had a window. And those didn't just overlook the ... read more

we have arrived! we are sitting around the table with cici, our tiny neighbor, eating shaved ice and blue bubblegum flavor. the city is golden and smells of summer honeysuckle. the heat is high but the breeze from the mississippi keeps us from sweating in the morning time. we are biking everywhere. down esplanade to the french quarter, skirts are all i can handle. shorts and jeans are too hot for legs. the mosquitoes are biting bad and we all have bites around our ankles. in the neighborhood there are kids everywhere! they come to the door around 9 in the morning and rarely leave until 10 at night. they are all boys. there are 10 of them that ride in a pack in this neighborhood and hang out with us on the porch and in ... read more

Day 19 – Friday – New Orleans, Louisiana Our first "real" full day in N'Orleans!! In good form, we had a bit of a snooze in and convened for a southern breakfast at the local cafe across the road from the hotel. I had woken up with a runny nose and fuzzy wuzzy sore head (and it wasnt even hang over related hrmmph) but was happy to find that John too wasnt in the best of shape. As it turns out, I was able to soldier on, but unfortunately John was taken ill with what is commonly referred to as "the man flu" a much more viscious strain than what us women are afflicted with (LOL!). So Jen & John headed back to the hotel for some R&R and Dean & I headed out for ... read more

Day 17 – Wednesday – Orlando, Florida Today's theme was NASA and we visited the Kennedy Space Centre...where they do all the shuttle launches from. It seemed to be right up John & Dean's alley - they had a ball!!! For once we were actually in luck, and the Shuttle Launch Simulator that wasnt due to be open to the public for another few weeks was in testing mode - so we were able to be NASA guinea pigs hehehe. On the flip side, we were unlucky enough to be able to see the transportation of one of the shuttles and all it's pieces (18 million tons worth) roll on down the crawler way in to position for a launch in a few weeks time. Ah well. They had lots of interesting videos and displays ... read more