Stepping into the Past

For anyone who says America doesn’t have history the way Europe does, I recommend they come to New Orleans. I have been to a few cities on the East, but none of them felt like they had preserved their history as well as New Orleans, especially the French Quarter. I can’t imagine how amazing this city was before Katrina hit, because I was already impressed as is.

We started our last full day in “Nawlins” at Café Du Monde – famous for their Biegnets (fried dough covered in powdered sugar) and coffee. It was packed! I can’t imagine the line/wait on a Saturday when everyone comes out for brunch. The beignets were delicious, but very very messy! I’m glad KT warned me not to wear black, otherwise I would have looked even worse.

Once we cleaned ourselves off a bit, we did a walking tour that was in my Lonely Planet: USA & Canada on a Shoestring book. We walked around the French Quarter learning about the history and trying to survive the humidity. After walking by the old house of William Faulkner, the oldest surviving French Colonial Building, Ursaline Covenant, and more, we headed to the St. Louis Cemetary.

Because the watertable is so high in New Orleans, bodies don’t stay buried for long. Early settlers realized this after a few storms starting making the bodies resurface. So, they started making above ground cemetaries with vaults & masoleums. The only other cemetery I’ve been in like this was in France and architecturally they are very similar. A huge difference to me though was the skyline in the back. In Europe, it was like stepping into the past, but here it was nice to see the juxtaposition of the old and new.

After the cemetery it was too hot to keep sightseeing, so we just went back to Kenny’s place and played Mario Kart until the gang was ready to hit Bourbon Street for our last hurrah. Of course, just as we step outside a huge thunder/lightning storm starts. We waited it out and luckily it was all over after about 30 minutes. I’m so not used to rain like that! It came out of nowhere and just started pouring!

Bourbon St. was crazy and so much fun. It’s just bars and clubs for blocks down this one street. It was pretty busy, but definitely wasn’t packed since it’s the off season and it had just rained. I can only imagine how insane it gets during Mardi Gras and Spring Break.

After we got some drinks, including a Hand Grenade, we headed over to Frenchmen, which is a less touristy version of Bourbon. This street was even busier! I guess since there aren’t many tourists out now, it would make sense that the local bar area would be more lively. We wandered around there and eventually headed back. Overall, it was a great night and definitely a highlight of the trip.

New Orleans is so far my favorite city we’ve been to, but we have so much left it’ll be hard to stay at the top. The French Quarter was beautiful and quaint. While it’s a tourist attraction, it never felt like it was maintained for that purpose. I think I would have loved NOLA even more if it weren’t for that darn humidity! We usually could only hand a few hours of sightseeing before we had to head back to take a cold shower and bask in some air conditioning.

Today consisted of a 9 hour drive from NOLA to Bowling Green, Kentucky. We passed through Mississppi (where I was born!), Alabama, and Tennessee. That's 5 states in one day! We’re visiting KT’s brother for a couple days before we head over to Elvis Week in Memphis, TN. Apparently, there are usually around 100,000 people there for the event! It’s going to be madness, but I’m really looking forward to it.