Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree

Hello everyone,

I can't believe it's only Monday and I have only been here for 2 whole days (well, not counting Saturday...). We've already done so much!

Saturday night after I last wrote, Lisa & I had dinner at the hotel restaurant, called Drago's. Apparently it is famous for crabcakes so we made sure to order that, some salad, and some "surf n' turf" to share for dinner. It was fabulous. Our waiter, Richie, filled us in on the places to go in the French Quarter (which our hotel is right beside).

We also decided that each night we would walk up the stairs to our hotel room, which is on the 18th floor. No really, we think it's a great idea since we'll be eating rich food every day. Right?? Right?!! Riiiiiight....

Yesterday we had breakfast at the hotel and booked some tours. We went walking along the Mississippi River, past the Holocaust memorial, Moonwalk promenade and ending at Washington Artillary Park. Then we headed down into Jackson Square where the famous Cafe du Monde is located and we had beignets and drinks. Beignets are French donuts - square and deep fried and served with heaping powdered sugar on top. It's quite an ordeal to eat them; we got pictures.

Then we headed into Jackson Square where there were tons of local artists and psychics and people selling their wares all around. Music everywhere. Hotter than hot. Humider than humid. We explored Pirates Alley and walked throughout the French Quarter. There were streets blocked off to cars and bands playing really cool music. We looked in some shops and wandered around a bit until the start time of our first tour!

We chose to go on a Cocktail tour. Now before you go thinking that this is some kinda pub crawl, think again. Drinks are not included, and the tour guide took us around the French Quarter talking about the history, and yes, stopping in several establishments to tell us about the drink specialties. A bunch were highlighted: Pimms Cup, Fleur de Lis, The Green Fairy (made from absinthe), Bayou Bash and the Sazerac. We tried a few but I refused to drink the ones that tasted awful. Yech!

And do you know about "go cups"? You can drink in the street here. So you can get your drink to go and walk around with it. Very handy.

Our tour guide was named Joe and he is a Hurricane Katrina survivor. Katrina is everywhere here. You see it all around and the locals all have stories about where they were and what happened and how it affected them. Most (that work in tourism) are pretty happy to have people to tell stories to - they are glad that we came. :)

Joe lived in Gentilly, which according to him, had the largest death toll of all the New Orleans' neighbourhoods. He said a wave of water came at him and lifted him up high enough and he had to scramble to get on top of a roof. All of his neighbours one street over were elderly and died. He and others stayed on their roofs for 5 days, with no food or water, swimming from house to house to scavenge whatever they could. Sometimes they had to break through roofs to rescue people stuck in their attics. He said that they spent so long up there and nobody had any news, obviously no TV or radio, and they didn't know if anyone even knew that they were there. When they were finally lifted out by helicopter, they were put on a bus and spent 7 hours trying to cross a bridge to get out of the city (along with just about everyone) and he said that people died on the bus, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. You just had to ride the bus with people that were dead & dying.

Let me just say right now that I am so happy to live where I live. Katrina aside, New Orleans isn't the place I would choose to live. Those of us on the west coast are SO LUCKY. Okay, I'm done. :)

After the tour was over, we had jambalaya and shrimp remoulade at a restaurant in the Quarter and it was delish! Then we went to another bar of Lisa's choosing.

Today is Monday and we spent most of our day at the Oak Alley Plantation. It is this totally awesome plantation that lies on the Mississippi River and there is a walkway from the river to the big house that is lined with 28 Oak trees. We got AWESOME photos - Lisa especially cause she has the skookum camera! It was gorgeous there. Our tour bus driver's name was Bryan and he was basically like Eddie Murphy, the same huge laugh and cracking jokes and being comedic all the time. It was funny at first and I must admit, got a little tiring by the end.

Okay, that's enough for now. This internet cafe is about to close! Tell you more later. :)

Cheers

E!