New Orleans Day Three: Jesus Sees Everything on Bourbon Street

Greetings, gentle readers, and welcome to the third post in my action packed recounting of the recent trip the Long Suffering Wife and I took to New Orleans! Let's get started, shall we?

As we prepared to leave our hotel, we saw a commotion across the street. There were a number of trucks, lots of people, and general bustle evident nearby, where we were told there was a crew "making a movie or something."

The closest I'll ever get to the Big Time.

When the Long Suffering Wife heard about this, she begged me to let her go be an extra in the "movie." I assured her that it was probably not a movie, and that, more likely, it was the convention and visitors bureau filming a "come to New Orleans -- we swear we're working on that vomit smell thing" video. The LSW persisted, but my resistance was adamant, especially when I saw this sign:

"Fliming"? Gross!

She might have gotten her way, had not some foolish bureaucrat in the city planner's office made a heinous spelling error on a semi-permanent sign. As it was, that was enough to reinforce my resistance, so the LSW and I set out for the day's planned adventures.

Mass transit cutie

We caught a streetcar near Canal St. and St. Charles for a destination in the Garden District. The first event for the day: a walking tour of the district, where the "Americans" made their homes in the late 19th century, as well as some cemeteries and a very famous eatery, the Commanders Palace.

Bone ovens.

The first stop on the tour was the Lafayette Number 1 cemetery, home to the traditional above-ground crypts that everyone associates with New Orleans. Our tour guide -- the same guy from the previous tour of the French Quarter, oddly enough -- told us how the crypts work. Essentially, there are two levels inside for two caskets. When someone new is buried in the crypt, the workers take the front panel off, open up the crypt, and remove the older of the two caskets inside, dumping what's left of the bones and stuff into the bottom of the crypt. The second-oldest casket is moved down a level, the new one is put on top, and the crypt is sealed back up. Over time, the 120+ degree temperatures inside essentially reduce the body to a pile of dust and ash. Pretty effective, if a bit gruesome.

Firefighters' group crypt

Wealthy families and benevolent groups could afford larger group crypts, like the one seen above, which was constructed for a group of firefighters.

After scoping out the permanent homes of the dead, we moved on to some fine examples of 19th century homebuilding by touring the magnificent homes of the Garden District. I took literally dozens of pictures of dozens of homes, but I'll spare you all of that and just show some of my favorites, like the so-called "Swiss Chalet" below.

Oooh, lacy!

And, what would a tour of the Garden District be without a look at the homes of the rich and famous, right? In addition to several of Anne Rice's houses, we also saw one that I was most excited to see: the erstwhile residence of one Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame, seen here:

Trent's digs

Some more walking brought us to the home of what our guide described as one of the bigger jerks who owns a house in the District: Nicolas Cage. Our guide said that the house was once a Catholic church and was owned by Anne Rice, who sold it to Cage. Since he moved in, Cage has been very douchy about not letting people take pictures or get tours when he's in town, so I kind of took this picture out of spite.

"This house was paid for by Ghost Rider -- I hope you're happy, America."

After a pleasant tromp through the Garden District, we ate lunch at Dickie Brennan's Palace Cafe, a swanky little joint on Canal Street.

Nice curves!

It was here that I had the second in a series of three bread puddings, this time the Palace Cafe's signature white chocolate bread pudding. And before you ask, no, those weren't some kind of rodent droppings on top, they were chocolate shavings. At least, I hope to God they were...

Hello, puddin'!

Up next: The Audubon Aquarium of the Americas. This was by far the Long Suffering Wife's favorite stop on the whole trip, thanks to the neat surroundings, the escape from the heat, and the penguins.

Aquatic oasis from the NO heat

The LSW was super stoked we made it just in time for the penguins' afternoon feeding, as you can see below:

Enjoying the spectacle

The staffer that fed the penguins knows each one by name and identifies them based on the pattern on their bellies. The interpreter also told us that penguins will not overeat, so the staffer counts how many fish he gives each one and they track that number to make sure each penguin is in good health and not ready to start doing something crazy like molt or have penguin babies.

Quite possibly the world's cutest job

The Aquarium offered a great deal of aquatic excitement on three floors of exhibits, including the chance for a photo inside a giant alligator skull, which I convinced the LSW would be cool (and it is, as you can plainly see below):

My, what big teeth you have!

We also enjoyed the seahorse exhibit, but only the LSW was caught on camera doing so.

I love candid photographs, don't you?

For good or ill, there were a number of PR opportunities presented to visitors at the Aquarium, including a really nice exhibit of Mississippi River wildlife sponsored by the Curmudgeon's dad's employer (and Evil Oil Company), ConocoPhillips:

Paid for with windfall profits, no doubt!

One of the coolest exhibits was a huge tank filled with dozens of species of fish, all living together in harmony around the base of an offshore drilling platform, another exhibit conveniently sponsored by America's petroleum producers.

Schooled by fish.

For the record, I think it's cool that the oil companies sponsored these exhibits -- they have every right to participate in our nation's museums and aquaria, and their money is often used for conservation and research efforts that help protect our natural resources, so good for them, I say! (And before you ask, no, I'm not on Big Oil's payroll, though I could use the cash, ahem*call me ExxonMobil*ahem.)

After an unremarkable dinner at the River's Edge restaurant on Jackson Square (I don't recommend it), we continued wandering the French Quarter, wherein I was snapped in one of the few solo shots you'll find of me from the trip, seen below.

The Really Big Easy

We found Preservation Hall, another New Orleans landmark, almost by accident. If you didn't know exactly where to look for it, you'd probably walk right past it. Turned out there wasn't any live music that night, but I snagged a pic of the LSW standing outside the door nonetheless.

Jazzy!

As darkness fell, we found ourselves wandering Bourbon Street for a couple of reasons: one, there wasn't much else to do, and two, we figured if we told people we went to New Orleans and didn't go at least once, we'd be roundly criticized and derided by almost everyone we knew. And just what did we find once we got there? Well, one prominent thing is pretty much summed up by this picture:

"Hey, how big are your beers? Oh, wait ..."

And the other thing we saw plenty of (literally) was partial female nudity. I'm not talking the drunken housewife on Mardi Gras kind, I'm talking the "hey, big fella, come on in and check out the girls on the poles" kind. There were strip clubs everywhere, and just about every one had a half-dressed girl outside beckoning people to come enjoy the, um, artistry on display inside. Even the guys outside the bars were pretty pushy; one grabbed the LSW's arm and steered her toward the door of a joint before she was able to shrug him off, and another guy told us he was from the "Fun Patrol" and that we were being cited for being too sober. (Or something equally ridiculous -- I kind of lost track of their gimmicks.)

What Bourbon Street looks like to 90% of the people who go there.

After walking up and down Bourbon a couple of times, we finally wandered into the Maison Bourbon, where we spent $25 for two drinks in order to hear about 30 minutes' worth of jazz. But it was the good kind of jazz, not the crappy experimental kind, so I thought it was worth it. We enjoyed it almost as much as the busload of Japanese tourists who occupied a long table on one side of the club. All the women smiled ecstatically and bobbed along to the beat, while the men's expressions ranged from stoic to downright uncomfortable, except for one guy who flailed and grinned with the best of the ladies.

As we headed back toward our hotel that night, I happened to glance back toward Jackson Square and saw the backside of St. Louis Cathedral. In the garden there stands a statue of Jesus, which someone decided should be spotlit so that its shadow is projected onto the back of the church, producing this vaguely unsettling image:

"Quick, it's Jesus -- look sober!"

And that pretty much sums up most of the New Orleans experience for me: a dramatic blend of the sacred and the profane, with a populace that fluctuates crazily between mourning and celebrating, all with an omnipresent smell of centuries-old vomit. Oh, yeah, and beignets!

Well, one more day's adventures await you next time, gentle readers, so keep an eye on the old bloggy-blog, and we'll be back before you know it!

New Orleans Day Two: Vive la French Quarter!

Greetings, gentle readers, and welcome back to my blog-tastic rendition of our recent trip to the Crescent City – New Orleans, LA! If you missed my recap of day one, feel free to jump down the page a bit and get a feel for what went down on day one, and then join us as we present …

Day Two: Where The Streets Have A Vomit Smell

We decided to start our first full day in NOLA like any good tourists would: with a walking tour of the French Quarter. Even for people who’ve never been to New Orleans – and may or may not have any intention of ever going – you’ve probably all heard that the Quarter is where the action is. It contains the oldest buildings in the city, lots of restaurants (including the mind-blowingly awesome Café du Monde) and, of course, Bourbon Street. On our way there, I had the Long Suffering Wife stand for a mandatory picture at the corner of Bourbon and Canal Streets.

The Long Suffering Wife, ready for adventure

We met our tour guide and the six other intrepid souls who would join us on our tour in front of Café Beignet, located almost smack dab in the middle of the Quarter. After a brief overview of the city’s founding, layout, etc., we set off for a very frank, honest, and interesting tour of the Quarter.

"And over there: something old and, probably, vomit-stained."

Our tour guide was a native Louisianan, with Cajun ancestry on at least one side of his family tree. He gave what was probably the best description of the Cajun drawl I heard on the entire trip: Southern Bronx. That pretty much summed up the Cajun accent for me, a strange combination of rapid speech and mush-mouthed drawling, it was actually pretty tough to understand some of the people we encountered on our trip (including one memorable scammer I’ll talk about on day four).

A big part of our tour included our guide’s personal take on what happened during The Storm. You see, Hurricane Katrina is always referred to with implied capitalization: always “The Storm,” never “the storm.” I am going to avoid adding my own commentary to what he had to say about The Storm and its aftermath, but his take on it was a lot different than what you’ve probably heard via our super-accurate, never-in-it-for-ratings national media. Our guide basically said that people were given at least three days’ worth of warnings before the storm, including a “get out or you will drown” warning the day before the storm. He said the people who didn’t/couldn’t get out were in the worst economic straits in the city already, and they lived in the part of the city that was developed most recently: the lowest-lying ground with the worst-maintained levees in the area.

Our guide said that the people hardest hit by The Storm – like the residents of the 9^th Ward, for example – were already prone to living a sub-standard, day-by-day existence beforehand, and that many were living “off the system” on government subsidies and charitable donations. While he felt sympathy for them – his own house had flooded severely, and he was still working to get it back to normal three years later – he said he also felt angry with the ones who refused to help themselves. He also expressed anger at the media for focusing on the relatively small number of people who acted terribly in the aftermath – the looters, people who shot at the police helicopters, charity scammers, etc. – and for not telling of the almost 1.5 million people who have come to New Orleans over the last three years to help the city rebuild.

Regardless of how you feel about the Katrina debacle, it was interesting to hear a native’s take. However, what wasn’t cool was the one lady in our group’s insistence that the whole thing was George W. Bush/FEMA’s fault, and the other lady who basically said the poor people got what they deserved. While it was aggravating to hear them both spout their theories endlessly over the course of the tour, it pretty much encapsulated the whole national debate on what happened before, during, and after this country’s most expensive natural disaster.

Moving on! As we came to Jackson Square, our guide told us the interesting history behind the Cabildo, St. Louis Cathedral, and the Presbytere. I won’t go into detail here, as there is plenty of info available on all three online, but I will say that our guide mentioned that lots of people over the years have said that St. Louis is one of the “ugliest” cathedrals in the country, including the Frommer’s guide we bought before the trip.

Don't hate me cause I'm (arguably) un-beautiful

While the exterior may not be up to the Gothic excess of some European cathedrals, I didn’t see anything wrong with it at all. I thought it was a nice example of balanced symmetry, understated exterior design motifs, and a nice use of spires. Plus, the interior was a nice mix of religious iconography and history, with a nicely painted ceiling and flags from Louisiana history hanging along the gallery.

St. Louis Cathedral -- Pretty on the inside

As we exited the cathedral, a funny scene caught my eye: a young man in shorts was doing his best to angle a blonde girl in a blue dress perfectly parallel to the cathedral, in front of a small fountain. As he got down on one knee, it became clear what was going on – a proposal was in progress! Although I was too far away to hear how he phrased this most important question, the answer was obvious, as this photo illustrates.

I guess she said "yes"

It was a neat little personal moment during an otherwise standard walking tour, and it showed that this city is still full of the moments, large and small, that give a city its human heartbeat, and it was nice to see something to offset some of the negative side we’d heard about during the course of the tour.

You know I couldn’t talk about New Orleans without mentioning food every chance I get, and I think we actually peaked pretty early with lunch on day two at the Gumbo Shop. I had the absolute best jambalaya I’m ever going to have, and some fantastic shrimp Creole and some red beans and rice to kill/die for. And to top it all off, there was this:

Bread pudding #1 (series of 3)

Whiskey sauce never tasted so good.

Our next stop was Blaine Kerns’ Mardi Gras World, a workshop/museum located across the Mississippi River in Algiers where Kerns’ family has been making props and floats for Mardi Gras for half a century. Before watching the introductory film, the tour guide encouraged us to try on some of the costumes. Thus, you will see pictured below the King of Mardi Gras.

King Me.

Over the course of the tour, a number of famous, infamous, and not-so-famous peoples’ severed heads were prominently displayed, including:

Alf!

"Bring me the severed head of ALF!"

The Three Caballeros!

"Have you ever been in a copyright infringement lawsuit, Donol?"

Willie Nelson/Ross Perot!

So THAT'S where Ross Perot's been hiding!

And, of course, the King and Queen of Mardi Gras!

Anyone know a good Jester?

After a thoroughly enjoyable tour and a free ferry ride back across the Mississippi, we caught one of the city’s historic streetcars for a ride back to the French Quarter. The Long Suffering Wife actually didn’t want me to take the picture below, due to my little “run-in” with the Union Pacific Railroad’s police officer back in Lubbock, but I figured it was safe to grab a quick shot without risking the railroad Gestapo’s wrath.

Pictured: jailbait. The streetcar, not the girl, you pervs!

Besides, how else could I provide the context for this next sweat-drenched, awkward perspective, slightly sunburned photo?

A Streetcar Named Perspire

We arrived in the French Quarter around dinner time, so we decided to try Rotolo’s Gourmet Pizza. This was our first encounter with what is a hidden cost of The Storm’s wrath: a lack of waitstaff at area restaurants. Because so many of the people who did these kinds of jobs have not returned to New Orleans, some of the restaurants we visited seemed to be chronically understaffed, which was definitely the case here. One guy was working the whole floor, and the slowness of food delivery led me to believe there was a shortage of kitchen help, as well. But it was worth the wait, as the barbecued chicken pizza was quite tasty. I complemented it with an Abita Restoration Pale Ale, a beer created by a local brewery that was giving 5% of the proceeds back to restoration efforts. In a way, I was just doing my part to restore NOLA to her former glory … and enjoying an adult beverage at the same time.

The absolute least I could do to rebuild New Orleans -- literally.

Tune in next time for Day Three, wherein your intrepid blogger and his Long Suffering Wife venture into the Garden District and spend a wild night on Bourbon Street – well, as wild as the Curmudgeon gets nowadays, if you catch my drift. Adieu!

The Curmudgeon Does New Orleans, Day One!

Well, gentle readers, I know it’s been a couple of weeks since I enhanced your lives with any new content, but I hope the wait will be worth it thanks to today’s super-enhanced, super-long, super-exciting entry: New Orleans, Curmudgeon Style!

Day One: Getting There Is Half the Fun!

Having spent the first day of our vacation attending a wedding in the Houston area, the Long Suffering Wife and I were a few hours closer to New Orleans when we left that Sunday morning for what would be our first extended outing to the Crescent City. After a thrilling jaunt across the city of Houston on I-10, we stopped for lunch in Orange, Texas at what I now affectionately refer to as The Taco Bell at the End of the Universe/Taco Hell.

Artist's conception or actual photo?

This joint hadn’t seen a coat of paint in 15 years, was staffed by surly teens and harried harridans, and there was a sheen of grime on almost every conceivable surface. We hurriedly bolted down our burritos and returned to the road, happy to have our immortal souls (well, what’s left of mine, anyway) intact.

After a delightful (read: Eric screaming because he’s afraid of heights) drive across several river-spanning bridges and some long stretches built above the swamps, we arrived at our first stop: New Iberia, Louisiana. Now, I know what most of you are thinking – Eric loves him some food, and he most likely loves him some Tabasco sauce, so naturally, they must have been there to tour the Tabasco plant, right?

Wrong. This is why we drove two hours out of the way:

Awwww, yeah!

That’s right, baby – Shadows-on-the-Teche! What, you’ve never heard of the Shadows? One of the best-preserved plantation homes in the south, with its wealth of original artifacts and tons of documentation? Still nothing? Would an awesome picture of me standing in front of it help?

Ladies and gentlemen, the Shadows!

Unless you’re a Grack, this probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but trust me when I say that there was something pretty sweet about touring a historic site you spent a goodly chunk of the first year of graduate school studying.

As we resumed our trip to NOLA, we stopped in Baton Rouge for dinner at what can only be described as the Long Suffering Wife’s idea of the perfect restaurant: Raising Cane’s, a joint that sells only chicken fingers.

I think she likes it!

I’ve never seen her happier (including on our wedding day). As the LSW put it, for the first time in her life, she could order chicken fingers in a restaurant and not be embarrassed.

Yup, I'd say she'll go back.

Some more time on the road finally led us to New Orleans, where we checked into our hotel and took the first of several pictures of the two of us scrunched together while one of us holds the camera at an awkward angle, seen here.

Cheese!

It was around 9:00 p.m., so, naturally I was thinking about food, which led us to our first excursion into an area of town we’d be spending a LOT of time in for the next three days: the French Quarter. Because what’s open 24 hours a day, is located on Jackson Square, and sells food that I’ve heard compared to crack? Café du Monde, baby!

A glimpse of Paradise

As we made our way through the quarter, I was a bit “concerned” (the LSW says “freaked out”) by the number of sketchy characters flitting in and out of the shadows along the way down Magazine Street, but there were enough tourists and street performers around to off-set the scariness. You must remember, friends, I grew up in a town with about 14,000 people in it, so seeing a teeming mass of humanity wandering around in the dark, historic confines of the French Quarter after spending all day in the car, hepped up on caffeine and sugar was enough to put me a bit on edge. So what better way to cure all that than by eating even MORE sugar and caffeine, right?

Pictured: crack.

Abso-freaking-lutely. Folks, I don’t wax rhapsodic about food very often (cough*that’s-a-lie*cough), but believe me when I say that there is nothing in this world that can match the awesomeness of a fresh, hot beignet dusted in powdered sugar and accompanied by a hot cup of chicory-infused coffee. For those of you who’ve never had a beignet before, it’s essentially a dense funnel cake that’s roughly sopapilla-shaped, fried, and then topped with enough powdered sugar to choke a drug mule. But no description really does it justice, so the only way to know for sure is to drive to New Orleans, walk straight to Café du Monde, and lose yourself in a piece of culinary wonder. You will not be disappointed.

Pictured: crackhead taking a hit.

After one last look at Jackson Square by night, we headed back to the hotel for some much-needed rest before the adventures of Day Two, which will grace this blog soon. See you then, ma cherie!

Jackson Square by night