It may be as good a
depiction as any to describe my time in New Orleans by the food and
drink I consumed. So, drinks ranged from the great (although at $4
you'd expect them to be!) smoothies from “King Smoothies”,
Garry's home-made brew and margaritas, a Blue Moon beer at the oldest
pub in the States, snowballs at the park and many a Daiquiri/hand
grenade as we were walking through the French Quarter. On the food
front, I was also spoiled with a range of delights: oysters,
crawfish, lunch at Margaritaville (Jimmy Buffet's chain restaurant),
Chicken Creole Jambalya and a number of delicious dishes made by
Garry - guacamole and nachos, homemade beef burgers with macaroni
cheese, crawfish pasta and flamed bananas in rum. If meals had been a
little bland in the 5 months of travelling through South and Central
America (barring some excellent meat in Argentina and some good
street food here and there), 5 days in New Orleans was making up for
it.
Garry and Krista were
great hosts. They took me everywhere they thought a girl new to the
Big Easy should go, including to Cafe du Monde to have breakfast, to
the French Quarter to get merry and track down Brad Pitt's house, on
New Orleans' ghost tour, and to the Maple Leaf Bar to listen to
Walter “Wolfman” Washington and experience my first crawfish boil
(crawfish cooked in a huge pot along with sausage, corn, boudin,
potatoes and barbecued hog's head ... all to be thrown straight onto
a long wooden table while jazz was being played. I found it
hilarious.)
It was also great to be
able to do some “normal” stuff like go and watch Garry play
football on Sunday morning (everyone on the team had been at a
wedding the night before so I was very impressed that they actually
won the game!) and take the adorable Iggy (Garry's dog) on a walk.
Iggy and I ended up getting completely lost and when we eventually
got back to the house after a detour through one of New Orlean's
poorer neighbourhoods, Garry had set off in the car to look to us!
The French Quarter is a
particularly special part of New Orleans. You'll start of just
walking down Bourbon Street to soak up some of the atmosphere but
before you know it you'll have a hand grenade in your hand, a po'boy
sandwich in the other and someone will be bringing you a packet of
crisps, the accompaniment to your sandwich, on a plate. With bands
playing in little bars at all hours of the day and night and
cocktails pretty much constantly on promotion, there's always a
lively atmosphere. Krista and I had a great afternoon there dancing
to songs like “I Love My Tractor” while Garry was at work.
I went to bed on my last
night in New Orleans at 12:30am; a little crazy when I had to be up
at 3:15am to get a flight to Washington. Still, I've been travelling
like that for eleven months now so I don't know why I even pretend
I'm going to get a good night's sleep before a long journey. New Orleans had been a lot of fun and it had been great to catch up with Garry and meet the lovely Krista.
