Voodoo in New Orleans

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Happy Birthday to me

From Brazil I went directly to New Orleans to attend the ALA. The last time I was here (almost exactly a year ago) I had a full afternoon and managed to get some funny pictures. My schedule this visit was compressed and I had to content myself with a quick sweaty walk the afternoon of my departure.  

The Brits sent the Acadians to Louisiana after kicking Montcalm's butt at the plains of Abraham, thereby condemning Nova Scotians to cold potato soup and helping along the development of a Southern US Cajun culture.

Among other things the Acadians brought doughnuts.

One of the results was Cafe Du Monde.

Originally established in 1832 in the French Market it still serves coffee and Beignets (French donuts).

Its open everyday but Christmas day.

You're supposed to eat the doughnuts with Cafe O lait.

Dunk em in the Cafe O lait.

I don't drink anything coffee-like except BLACK coffee.

Black, hot and strong.

The day I went it was 94 degrees F ( that's something like 37 C to you Europeans and Brazilians).

I had a sip, a bite and decided to move on.

Nibble, Nibble, Sweat Sweat....drip..... drip.

S

Given I just got married I couldn't resist.

From Rio to New Orleans to New York. In a case of Serendipity I saw the van above in the meat packing district promoting the joys of cachaca.

That's it for today.

Its taken some time to finally get this post up and I'm a year older having turned 48.....

The slow slide to 50 is picking up speed.

The picture below is one of the first I ever took with a digital camera and was what inspired me to start this blog. Birthdays tend to make you mark time and reflect on stuff from the past so posting it is kind of a manifestation of that. Next stop on my travels is Lima  next Thursday.

I'll try and get some pics.

Love to all
T

More New Orleans

Just a few bits and pieces to wrap up.
Though New Orleans is ranked as 8th on the top 10 dangerous cities in the US I can't say I felt any sense of menace over the past 5 days.
Granted I didn't stray into the projects, but the constant warnings and wringing of hands felt a bit hysterical. I think the city has changed dramatically since Katrina and many of the less fortunate have permanently relocated to Houston and Atlanta.
Those cities have experienced a sharp uptick in violent crime.
I'm sure there is still a problem in New Orleans, but it doesn't feel like a place of random violence so commonplace in Detroit or Jo'berg.
That said, I did listen to warnings and didn't tempt fate, so apart from an occasional cocktail induced headache. I escaped pretty much unscathed.
I ate well in NOLA but I think my favorite place was a restaurant called Mothers. In a single year Mothers serves:

• 175.000 pounds of Baked Ham
• 40.000 pounds of Turkey
• 30,000 pounds of sausage
• 90,000 pounds of Jambalaya
• 250,000 pounds of cabbage
• 150,000 french loaves
• 1,500 gallons of hot creole sauce.

This is comfort food southern style.

Its not for veggies.

Its been serving hearty meals since 1938 and I opted to scarf down the "Famous Ferdi Special Po Boy sandwich" Damn good.
A democratic, no nonsense place to fill your gut.
While I was in the city the temperature pushed or exceeded 100 degrees with humidity hovering around 90%. There was a thunderstorm and everyday there was a flood.
Over a foot of water from a 45 minute thunderstorm. Its easy to see how Katrina devastated the city. Within an hour of the rain stopping the flood water had drained away. No trip to New Orleans is complete without a visit to a grave yard. If you bury a body below ground in New Orleans, the low water table pops the airtight casket back up to the surface within two weeks. This was disconcerting to the transplanted Acadians so they buried their dead in crypts above ground. I went to Lafayette cemetery no 1. This was recommended as its considered the only interesting vampire lair type collection of old bones where I was unlikely to be mugged visiting alone. Scenes from Interview with a Vampire were filmed here but I didn't think it was that spooky. The REALLY spooky graveyards are Louis 1&2. As they're both on the edge of the French Quarter (the bad edge) and EVERY guidebook said NOOOOO! and the concierge turned pale when I said I planned to go alone, I opted for the vanilla version. The spookiest graveyard I've visited was High gate Cemetery in London. You can read see the pics here.
I've tried to play with the exposure and texture, but its pretty hard to disguise that at 7 am in the Louisiana sun there's not much to be afraid of.
That's it folks. Not sure what the next post will be as the travel is slowing down for the summer.

Love to all.

T

New Orleans

Its 100+ degrees and humid as hell.
I managed to get down to Bourbon street for a couple of hours and I'm still scratching my head.
Its a frat party on steroids.
You walk down the street and watch the creme of trailer park society eat, drink and vomit.
Coctails with names like "Hurricane" and "Handgrenade" are sold in bright green takeaway containers.
Shuffling, weaving white people bump tatoos as they lurch from bar to bar.
Its 2pm on a Friday.
"Yeeeehaaa!"

It was 4pm and already the paramedics were busy.

The street has live music in every third or fourth bar, and apart from the prevailing 1970's and 80's redneck theme, (think Lynyrd Skynyrd) there IS Jazz on Bourbon Street.

Away from the French Quarter (not very far away) I took a sweaty, melting walk through the "warehouse district". The condos are popping up here and there but it still has a kind of broken down interesting vibe.

Not much more to report.

I don't really have much time to look around but I'll try and carve out a couple of hours over the next couple of days.

Stay well everyone.

T