Rolled into New Orleans to a genuine question from the bus as to whether “New Orleeeens” and “New Orlins” were 2 different places?! To be fair pronunciation is not their forte here, they blame the mash up of French and Spanish culture which is evident everywhere in the city.

Hotel nice, room was massive so we changed for dinner and had some “pre-lash” tinnies in Alex and Lisa’s room.

Went to a traditional looking place just off Jackson Square (after Andrew Jackson who fought for the city at the Battle of New Orleans). I had a little plate of Jambalaya and Creole shrimp, was yummy. The waiter was such a nice man, full of catchphrases and proud reminders that they were famed for the “best and number 1 gumbo in the city!”…he said it 9 times!

Like most of the places weve been, artificial Hollywood / Disney sheen has meant that we have had a smack down to earth when we’ve actually arrived, much grimmer and grittier than we expected. Everywhere is just a little bit dirty, full of tramps and people pissing in the street (China?! is that you?!). Big night out ahead so we embraced it….well not the pissing in the street bit, got some standards to maintain! I did however manage to fall flat on my ass completely sober, before we’d even got there! which makes a change for me!!

 

Bourbon street is the centre of the madness and lovingly lined with neon signs and drunk people. Two poisons of choice this place is famous for: hand grenades & hurricanes. Pat O’Brians is the place to get the best Hurricanes in New Orleans so, it would’ve been rude not to. Having failed to learn our lesson from Memphis we all got one and embraced our inner pirate….essentially just a pint of rum and a bit of grenadine! You can drink in the street in New Orleans too so we took them to go and went out to play

 

Watched some more great jazz music and a cool live band playing everything from The Four Tops to Bruno Mars. I got acosted by a drunk man at the bar who had no concept of personal space and who’s opening gambit was “Hi, I’m Adam and I work for a company that’s a bit like Wolf of Wall Street”……I think I was meant to be impressed?! Made polite “get away from me” small talk and lovely Jess did the classic “dance your mate away from the weirdo dance”.

Unfortunately into the path of another, this time weird old bloke in his late 50s im guessing, who came over to say “Anyone ever tell you look like Jennifer Lawrence? I thought you were her…” Cringe! #stillgotit

We decided to move on from there and that more drinks were in order if this was to be the flavour of the evening, so went in search of ‘Hand Grenades’ to complete our Bourbon Street drinks duo. Turns out a hand grenade is actually delicious, they come in an enormous plastic funnel shaped like a grenade at the bottom and taste dangerously like fruit juice. Further hungover consultation of the recipe shows its actually double shots of Gin, vodka, “local grain alcohol” similar to tequila, Rum, midori all mixed together with a bit of colouring……explains why we felt like we’d been hit in the face with a frying pan when we woke up! I believe the technical term is “rough as a badgers arse”!?

Lesson well and truly learned. Not before we did a lot of drunken dancing, threw a tantrum because someone had bagsied Spice Girls before we could at Kareoke and accumulated some mardi gras beads!

Felt like shit the next day, but it was my 5 minutes peace from the madness as I’d decided against spending our one free day here on the Swamp tour in favour of a visit to the New Orleans School of Cooking. Arrived just in time to reduce the average age of the group by 30+ years and headed in to watch the demonstration. Miss Harriet was our chef, in her 60s, lived in New Orleans her whole life and completely mental! Had us all in stitches recalling stories related to the traditional dishes and advisised “y’all got a doctors appointment in next 3 weeks CANCEL IT you need maybe a month to get rid of all the laaaard I’m gunna feed ya!!!

Finished up around 12.30 so had some time to myself to wander in the French Quarter, lots of cool back streets and beautiful “southern mansions” to marvel at. It’s a beautiful city but very faded glamour and has a real air of ‘underworld’ about it. Poverty is present on every street corner and homelessness a poignant reminder of the consequences of the Katrina tragedy, even 10 years on.

Sky got ominously dark despite the 30 degree weather forecast so I headed back to the hotel, best decision I’ve made so far. Ducked into the Lobby just as the heavens opened to one of the craziest storms I’ve seen. Thunder and lightening roared and the rain water filled the streets to ankle deep. Spoke to beloved Pascoe on the phone and awaited the return of the Swamp explorers.

Rain died down so a few of the brave (or stupid!) ones amongst us headed back into the centre for coffee and Beignets at the famous Cafe du Monde. Beignets are little puffed doughnuts smothered in icing sugar and just as delicious as we’d hoped. Scoffed a few and went for a wander before cheese and wine for dinner and to the meeting point to collect our Voodoo graveyard tour.

Really interesting couple of hours tour of the city but not what we thought it would be. No graveyard visits and not much voodoo history but we did get to see some of the most ‘haunted’ buildings in New Orleans. We heard stories of murderous femme fatales and visited famous spots for ghost sightings. As a professional cynic I was wholly unimpressed by the niave faces of some.other random people we had join our tour. One woman desperate taking snaps to see if a ghost would manifest itself on the screen

We did learn the history of voodoo dolls, which originated as a method of keeping medical records. A tool used for the slave community who laregely couldn’t read or write and would go to their doctor, a voodoo shaman or priestess who would a pin into a doll to correspond with the location of identied ailments. This was then put on a shelf and kept as a record for future visits, a way of keeping track of previous issues. The deeper we got from the city centre the more we saw lots of meth heads, a one armed man taking a piss in the street and someone with their bare arse in display #allglamour.

Safety in numbers so all walked back to the hotel en masse and shattered from another long day. Next stop…Texas! And we’ve got a birthday in the house, so should be a great few days! Xx