Homeward Bound

I'm back from NOLA. We flew in last night. It was a pretty packed 6 days (two of which included travel).

Monday was out touring around the city. We drove through the 9th ward, which was the hardest hit by Katrina. Since R lived there, he felt the need to visit, which is understandable. Such devastation. There were a few streets where Habitat for Humanity started new construction with rows of brightly-colored new houses and every once and a while you'd see a few peppered rebuilt homes. There is still an exceeding amount of boarded up and condemned buildings with spray-painted signs indicating a building's state upon discovery and inspection.

Afterward, we toured Tulane and the surrounding area, which was nice. There's some beautiful architecture in that city (incidentally, our hotel was built in the 1700s-- you don't really see a lot of that where I'm from).

We had lunch at the Camellia Grill. You go for the ambience and history, not the food. The food was perfect greasy-spoon fare, though (and I think the only meal outside of beignets that didn't contain some form of seafood). The servers and cooks are very entertaining. It was worth the hour in line (and that was nearing 2pm!- imagine the noon crowds) for a small bit of counter space. Go for the atmosphere, stay for the chili fries.

Once back at our hotel, we set off for a walk along the river. There are some very nice views and you can see the old river boat ferrys still very much in operation (they hold both cars and passengers). We spent some time in the casino. It felt very much like Reno or an off-strip Vegas, except there weren't any table games in sight. I pretty much broke even on video poker. R bought us dinner with his winnings.

The aquarium was closed, sadly. It's on the list for next time.

That night, we hit Pat O'Brian's again and got in some quality time with the hurricanes (yes, plural). We then wandered the French Quarter a bit, hearing random bands as we walked around. There was one band doing AC/DC covers that sounded pretty good. I love the fact that there's music in varying styles pretty much at every turn-- jazz, rock, funk, blue grass, country, whatever your thing is you can probably find it in close proximity. We even ran across breakdancers that had taken over the middle of the street (they're blocked off on Bourbon).

In addition to the places we visited and things we did, the people were by in large extremely sweet. Things run a little more slowly down there, but everyone we met was nice as can be, perfectly polite and amazingly hospitable. Almost every time we went to a restaurant (as well as in shops, etc), we ended up chatting with our neighbors. My very obvious Yankee accent made no secret of the fact we were visitors :)

I haven't quite snapped back yet. I was in a post-vacation fog much of the day while I played catch-up. Thankfully, it wasn't a heavy day. I'm sure by tomorrow I'll be back to my same energetic self. Hopefully my skin will recover as quickly after all the fried foods ;)