The French Quarter

Day two of our trip to New Orleans, and it was time to check out the town. First to Cafe Du Monde, the famous cafe that serves coffee with chicory and pastries called beignets (pronounced bin-yays). Lee had arrived late the night before, so he joined us on the incredibly long walk from the hotel to the cafe. Looking over my many pictures from our trip, I see that for some reason I took only a few crappy pictures of the French Quarter. No matter. I will download pics from the internet to show what we saw while we were there.

Cafe Du Monde:

The beignets:

The beignets were excellent. Many compare them to donuts. They are more like funnel cakes to me, but better. More moist. The coffee...eh. Wasn't crazy about the chicory part of it. It gave the coffee a chalky texture.

Ellie had a bit of a meltdown in the cafe of the monde and we could all tell that she was quite tired. (Though in fairness to Ellie, her dad ordered her a Sprite and then drank the whole thing himself.) So we cabbed it back to the hotel and Lee and Greg went off to work while Ellie and I rested in the hotel.

After a nice rest, Ellie and I headed back to the French Quarter for a horse and buggy ride through town. The buggy driver let us sit right up in front with him, though we had to wait for other passengers before we could start the tour. The driver had to stop everyone on the street to ask them if they wanted to take a tour and we couldn't go until we got at least five adults.

We picked up the tour right outside of Jackson Square, which is lovely:

Soon enough, an older couple joined us. The husband was drinking a beer out of an enormous beer bottle with a straw sticking out of it. And it was noon. They were from New York originally, but they were retired and lived in Virginia. We chatted merrily about places we'd visited and about granddaughters, but there were a few points when the wife leaned in to talk to me that there was suddenly a terrible odor and I thought, "Good Lord, that woman has bad breath," until I realized that I was actually smelling the back end of the horse in front of me. That was a relief, because I was starting to worry about her health. Ellie didn't seem to notice the smell of the horse, which is strange because she's in that stage when everything around her is disgusting and the smallest thing offends her delicate senses.

It seemed to take forever, but we finally got enough people to start the tour. It was so much fun to ride through the streets on a buggy. So relaxing. The history of the city was interesting and not at all kid-friendly.  The tour guide did a good job of euphamizing, but much of the discussion was about prostitution and how the "working girls" helped to build up the city. It was fine for Ellie--she didn't understand what he was talking about. I felt bad for the other people, though, who had to get a watered down version of the tour because there was a kid along.

Here are some shots of the french quarter:

I love the architecture. The buildings and the narrow streets seem so European, and everything is old. I love old. One of the things I didn't like about California (and anywhere west--Denver is the same way) is that everything is new. It doesn't have a history. New Orleans has a history. Its history is all still there, underneath the restaurants and bars and the neon lights and the mass of tourists. It's easy to see why people believe that it's a city filled with ghosts. You can practically see the ghosts sitting at the cafes or ducking down a narrow corridor or lounging on a balcony above your head.

Ellie loved the tour even though she didn't understand a thing the tour guide said. The woman we talked to told us that she had bought her granddaughter a doll at the French Market, which is an outdoor flea market down the street. Ellie was excited to check it out. We walked down to the market and Ellie sought out those dolls with her typical determination and focus until we found them at the last booth in the market. They were harlequin dolls with painted faces and colorful clothes and bells hanging off their hats. She wanted one desperately and they were eight bucks, so (of course) I got her one. They were pretty cool and seemed to have the flavor of New Orleans, even though they were stamped "Made in China."

After the French Market, we had a quick lunch (jambalaya for me---yum!) and went back to the hotel to rest.

I will pick up the next adventure anon...