Bourbon Street

Saturday, June 04, 2016
Bourbon St, Louisiana, United States
I decided to go to New Orleans!

There was nothing in particular that pushed me, just that I had personal vacation days to take from school, and the slots were becoming full fairly fast . I got lucky enough to take them after a Bank Holiday Monday, so that gave me a weekend and most of a week to go somewhere. Yippee!

Now, I left myself a little short of time in booking, and I didn't know where to go. I looked up a few different European cities, sun holidays and the likes, but they seemed quite expensive. But then a song from Disney's Princess and the Frog popped into my head... "In the south lands, there's a city, way down on the river..." And when I looked up the prices for NOLA (New Orleans, LouisiannA) they were pretty much the same as the prices to any random European point (that wasn't: 1- a Ryanair stop 100 miles from anywhere; or 2- Only flying at times that gave me the least amount of touring and the most amount of headaches). So, off to New Orleans!

I made a playlist on Spotify, and I actually got myself a little bit sick of that Princess and the Frog music in the end...

On Friday after school I headed up to my darling sister in Dublin, and she let me stay the night with her, so I had a reasonable night's sleep for my extra-long day ahead. We did a little walking tour of Dublin, and one particular bar had loud swing music emanating from within. "That'll be me tomorrow!!!" I yipped. My poor sister rolled her eyes, knowing that she was about to drown in a flood of Leaving Cert exam papers (so much for summer holidays for teachers ...)

In a change from the last time I stayed up with her before a flight to the US, I got no notifications about delays. This was so encouraging that I nearly left too late, and got a bit stuck trying to find parking. I had pre-booked my parking in the cheapest parking lot online, but by the time I'd navigated to the "Final Payment" page, they were so desperate to hold me close, that they begged me to park in the easiest access car park for only €4 more. DONE. 

More time was wasted in a GINORMOUS queue for Aer Lingus check in, until they announced that my flight was closing and anyone left to book in had to go to counter XYZ. I happened to be at a bend in the queue that was right beside it, so I nipped under the elastic barrier with my new, posh, Swiss-designed, 4-wheel-drive, medium sized suitcase, and my single carry-on backpack (because I LOVE TRAVEL PACKING, and I'm getting really good at it. It's a challenge I readily accept .) This really irritated a bunch of people that had been further up in the queue, but had one hundred more bags than I did, but I got checked in super-fast and left them to eat my dust.

Next obstacle was security, and I won't even go there. It's depressing.

Next was US pre-clearance, which took a while to queue for, but I'm in the US citizens line because I'm a Canadian. I don't know why that hasn't been made clear to the Irish organisers of US queues, but it's a problem. Canadians have an even specialer relationship with the US than Ireland does, especially when it comes to passport control. You scan your passport on a machine, smile for a photo, take your printout to the Immigration Officer and confirm a photo of your checked-in luggage and BOOM. You're on US soil.

I accidentally ended up at the top of the aeroplane queue (among other confused passengers), and decided to stay there while people from other seats marched angrily past me, muttering threats that I didn't take too seriously, but that made me wonder how they got past all the other queues with the non-humorous officials . Only one single American realised that they were filling the plane from the back to the front, and that really cheered her up. Another was so fed up of queuing that she announced to everyone in the vicinity that "THIS IS MY LAST TIME EVER FLYING COACH, IT'S NOT WORTH IT FRANK, IT'S JUST NOT WORTH IT. NEVER AGAIN."

Now, I HAD booked a particular seat, at no extra cost, but Aer Lingus saw fit to put me in the middle of the middle section. Puke. I stayed there and watched all the Irish short films on the screen, and then some film I've already totally forgotten, and then I either dozed or read my kindle. I have to say, despite being so uncomfortable, it was a totally fine flight.

There was a nice old grandmudder on my right, who loaned me her pen for something, and then fell asleep. I only chatted to the guy on my left when we landed. He was pretty sunburned and I was wondering if Boston was his final destination or if he was travelling further . It turned out he had take his two week vacation in Ireland, but he was originally from Portland, Oregon, and he had NOT been prepared for our annual fortnight-long heatwave. He was very sunburned. Bright red. Poor guy.

As soon as I left the plane on Boston, someone phoned to see if they could pop in for a visit. The goose was out of the pudding at that stage, so I elaborated on my current location and took a raincheck on the visit. My parents were in South Africa or Abu Dhabi or somewhere, so I thought I'd better let them know where I was too before they found out through other sources, and had simultaneous conniptions if they couldn't contact me mid-air on the way to NOLA.

It's more difficult than I'd have imagined to maintain a stable two-way call between Boston and Abu Dhabi. Whether through wifi apps, data apps or regular old mobile networks. In the end a picture of a Dunkin' Donuts was proof that I was in Boston, USA, not Boston, Co. Clare, and they went off to bed and I went off to catch my next flight.

This was a JetBlue flight to NOLA, and I don't know whether I was supposed to have left the inner part of the airport or not, but I found myself having to go back through security again (though no immigration, because now I was domestic). Electronics out, shoes off, liquids in a bag, x-ray-type machine, all back into the bag again, shoes on, off you run to the plane .

No loading from the back this time, we all just "lined up" and first come, first on, even if that was the old woman with ten carry on bags who couldn't walk, lift or fit in a seat. Much more suitable than "load from the back", eh?

There was a great air hostess on this flight, and she entertained us all with bubbly and dramatic interpretations of the safety messages, and wittily highlighting the rudeness of people blocking the aisle to put stuff overhead, or to flick through their book to find out what page they were on, which obviously is necessary to do while standing in the aisle. the American on my right said he remembered her from some other flight he had been on. The Frenchman on my left went to sleep.

Flight was great. I got through a few episodes of some TV shows, because once again, I was in the middle and couldn't realistically fake being asleep due to my discomfort in the seat showing that I wasn't actually sleeping. And the American guy was too into looking at all my stuff. There were some drunk girls behind us, with almost no clothes but a lot of fake tan to make up for it. They were Americans. At some point we were passing over the magnificence of America's largest river and this conversation transpired:
  
"Ew, is that the swamp?"
"I think it's a river."
"Well it looks wet. Gross."

Poor Mississippi .

Having only a limited time in NOLA, I had taken a page out of my friend Grace's book, almost literally, and designed a rough little timetable for "Stuff I Want To Do". This included one trip outside the city, and a well thought-out list of other things I wanted to see, based on how long they would take to tour and how far they were from one another. I eliminated things I was not interested in, or not spending time on during this trip. One of these eliminees was a Riverboat tour, because you can get a city skyline view from the river on the $2 ferry, you can get food and music literally everywhere in the city, and I've already been on a steamboat in Disneyland (I don't know or care whether it was real or not. It's done.)

There was wifi on the plane, but it cost something ridiculous, and I had enough entertainment packed on my electronics to keep me going (I still haven't finished most of it, in fact). The American whipped out everything electronic though, and linked them all up and spent time on facebook and twitter and powerpoint and a whole load of other stuff I didn't watch, because my shows were really interesting . My shows were also well timed, because I used up most of the flight time watching them, and only had a short waiting period before we landed. Unfortunately this is when the American guy chose to ask me to go on the riverboat cruise with him the following day.

"Oh, I actually have plans for that day, but thanks."
"Well I think they do it every day."
"Uh...yeah, it's a tourist attraction I suppose."
"They do food and music and everything. It sounds pretty cool!"
"Yeah, I hear food is very important in New Orleans. I want to go to lots of different restaurants."
"But they do food on the boat."
"Well enjoy that."
"We could go another day."
"I kind of have plans for most of my days there, and it's only a short trip, so I need to sort of stick to my outline."
"They have shorter cruises."
"NO NO NO, WILL YOU GO AWAY"

Fortunately, the Frenchman woke up around that point. I started speaking to him in French, but he kept responding in English. Ugh. Turned out he lived in Boston with his wife, and was just meeting her at some conference in NOLA for a few days . We talked a little about France, which was enough to get us to the airport, where I immediately joined a nice long queue for the women's toilets and gave that other guy plenty of time to go away.

Bag collection was quick, and despite a small amount of confusion over the difference between an Uber pickup point and a Taxi pickup point, I was on my way out of the airport pretty fast.

Interestingly, NOLA airport is named after Louis Armstrong, and if you think me shortening "New Orleans" to "NOLA" all the time is annoying, imagine how it feels reading documents from the "Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Aiport (MSY)" must feel. It was only named after him in 2001. Stick with me for a minute here, because I'm finally going to figure out the IATA code - MSY. 

John Moisant was born to French-Canadian immigrants in Illinois in the mid 1800s (in Kankakee, for anyone who can hum City of New Orleans in the head) . In France, as a grown-up I presume, he built the world's first all metal aeroplane. He was the 13th registered pilot in the USA, and the first pilot in the world to transport passengers A) over a city, and B) across the English Channel. One of these passengers was his mechanic; another was his cat - Mademoiselle Fifi.

He died in Kenner, LA (which is where NOLA airport is) because he was preparing for some competition in his plane, when a gust of wind caught him, threw him out of the plane, and landed him on his head. HOW GRUESOME IS THAT! Deadly. You might say. He is buried in Los Angeles, for some reason. I suppose at that point it didn't matter if he got blown out of a plane again, so they could pretty much bury him anywhere they wanted.

In the end, the field upon which he landed was named "Moisant Field", and it must have become a feedlot to raise beef cattle, because MSY comes from Moisant Stock Yards. Which is shorter than LANOIA, I'll admit, but not as lyrical .

ALSO, MSY is the second lowest-lying airport in the world. And I have also been to the lowest lying, which wasn't even a Top 10 list I was aware I was already checking off. Can you guess what the first lowest-lying airport is? I'll tell you: Schipol, Netherlands. Boom!

So. I was in a taxi now, watching big, fluffy, ominous-because-it's-not-an-Irish-climate clouds rolling in from the horizon. Taxis are $36 into the city from the airport, and unless you're a star at operating Uber, they're the easiest way to get in. I had great views of the Superdome along the way, and MY GOD that thing is huge. HUGE. It is incredible to think that Katrina ripped the roof off it. Also that anyone thought it was a good place to put up to 20,000 people at that time.

My hotel was very central. I was very pleasantly surprised, because I had gotten a deal online, and it was a Best Western, so I didn't have high hopes, but it was actually lovely. It was originally built in 1882 from bricks and pine timber as headquarters for a dry goods company. It fell into disrepair in the intervening years, but was done up in the late 1990s, and the bricks and timber were preserved and exposed. So my room had a lovely brick wall and a timber column, and then the plug sockets were from the 90s. I brought a US extension cord though, so everything was fine . And it was perfectly clean, had pillows and towels, and soap. I also was highly unlikely to go on fire, because there were at least five fire alarms/sprinklers that I could count when I was lying on the bed.

Since it was Saturday evening, still, I had planned to see Bourbon Street in all its glory on this night. I showered, changed and headed out into the lovely heat, and off up Canal Street. Bourbon Street was easy to find, but I just loved that Canal Street is quite American, with the palm trees and trams and mega-hotels and Walgreen's, but that the French Quarter is very very European - narrow and colourful and quaint. It's not totally European, because the streets are in rectangular blocks mostly, and who wants to be that organised, seriously. But it does well.

Bourbon Street was rocking. I wasn't too far off when I'd been excited back in Dublin and Temple Bar. It was full of (mostly domestic) tourists, partiers, drunkards, hawkers, buskers, music and 3 for 2 drinks. I was overwhelmed with restaurants and smells, and suddenly realised I was starved. I quickly google mapped a well-reviewed restaurant and headed off. I don't particularly care if things are highly reviewed or not, as long as they look clean, welcoming and I can get a seat. I went to Pier 424 Seafood market - which upholds the proud New Orleans tradition of giving things really long names - got a seat nice and fast and initially thought I'd just have the entire starters menu, but the girl thankfully put me off that because it was A LOT . I got a cocktail, an endlessly refilled Sprite (in a plastic cups, which confused me originally), Popcorn Shrimp and Spicy Crawfish Lettuce Wraps.

My god. My mouth is watering right now. They were sooooo goooood.

A Canadian girl sat beside me and annoyed me with questions while I was trying to stuff my face. In the end I managed to shock her into relative silence with the fact that I was not from Arlington, Virginia, and I was travelling on my own. And do so frequently.

Back outside, music was everywhere and I realised that everyone was carrying plastic cups and straws. Everyone. Like, at home, we don't get outside that much, but for particular events like Race Week, the pubs give you plastic glasses (it may be an oxymoron, but it's not a 'cup' either, actually) if you're in the street, or between multiple pubs. In New Orleans, everyone just takes a plastic one in case they go for a walk. And then they take a new plastic one for each new drink. And then you get poor turtles with plastic straws up their sinuses.Surely there's a better way...

I wanted to try a Hurricane Cocktail, invented in Pat O'Briens's Irish pub, and I wanted to take the glass home with me as a souvenir. On the way in, I was IDed, and handed over my Irish drivers license, which I had chosen to do on this trip . I was just about to point out my date of birth when the bouncer chanted "Number three...number three..." This is the only place in New Orleans where anyone was so familiar with Irish driver's licenses that they knew the exact number for the DOB. I had to actually just look it up myself now to be sure.

I ordered my cocktail in a glass glass, and admired their fire water fountain while I waited. I took a picture of it when I came in, and after a very short while I realised that they actually have a waitress designated to take photos of people in front of the fountain. She did this for a LOT of drunken groups, some of which I made friends with briefly. The cocktail is ENORMOUS. It is 26oz, which is over three quarters of a litre. And it's red and sugary and it took a long time to drink. I could hear thunder rolling in as I sat there, and eventually was able to distinguish the sheet lightning from the camera flashes. I don't even think there was that much alcohol in the drink, but I really wasn't able for much else after it all.

I headed off for a walk and ended up in Jackson Square, in front of the St. Louis Cathedral. I sat on the steps and listened to the end of a ghost tour, and when they had gone I just rested against the gates of the park, and took some really cool photos of both night-sky and lightning-sky behind the cathedral. It was lovely to sit and stretch my legs and be outside in a t-shirt and skirt and not be cold .

I made friends with a couple from Texas and we had a lovely long chat about all sorts of things, including the Irish 1916 centenary and what to do in a flash flood (this guy is a friend of theirs they recommended I look up). There were a few drops of rain as we sat there, but all of a sudden the heavens opened and a torrential downpour descended on us. I've been in torrential downpours at home. This was one of them, but it was warm, and it immediately started flooding the streets. I ran off into a restaurant that was closing the shutters against the wind, and once I'd convinced myself I wasn't actually going to drown (and I'd used the toilet - the cocktail was huge, remember) I ventured out under the balcony to watch the flooding. It was mad.

After a while, I really wanted to head back to my hotel, and though I was already soaked, I had only flip flops on my feet (by accident - and they were my rubber ones in case the hotel shower was gross, which it wasn't). I chatted for a while with a drunk, homeless guy who was also sheltering from the rain. When we sorted that I wasn't from Arlington, Virginia, he insisted that he, too, was Irish. From Cork no less. Well I'll let him have that.

Eventually I decided to just go. Everything was wet already, so there wasn't much damage to be done. A few indoors people winced as I sloshed past and wished me good luck. One chef who was having a cigarette at a door said "Damn, girl, you're soaked!" which was an astute observation. But I have to say that I was never hassled or bothered or uncomfortable on the streets. In Chicago last year, I was a bit. Some homeless people would follow you asking for money, or guys would comment on you going past. Maybe I was just really lucky, but everyone who spoke to me was friendly, or at least polite, people smiled in the streets just because they were passing you, and I just really liked it there. Douze points, New Orleans.

Back at my hotel, I dripped in through the lobby, up in the lift, and I honestly think I dried off a bit when I stepped in the shower. 

Comments

Una
2016-07-31

You packed a lot into your first evening Mary!And the rain must have made you feel at home!!

2025-02-14

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