Walk along Mississippi River
Saturday morning found us having a quick breakfast in the hotel cafe. Then we headed out to walk and walk and walk! We had a guide book that had several walking tours in it, so we combined some and made a day of it. First, Doug wanted to go see the river, so we walked down to the wharf. It was chilly with a brisk wind, so we didn’t linger; we kept walking. As we went along, we saw
We worked our way down along the streetcar line and crossed over into the downtown area on Canal Street. It was just like any other big city downtown with huge hotels, upscale shops, Walgreens and CVS and tourist T Shirt shops. I had been looking for a waist pack so I didn’t have to cart my purse around and finally found one for $10.00.
Since we didn’t really care about seeing the downtown, we headed back to the French Quarter and wandered around there. We visited an old convent, the Ursuline Convent, that was the site of the first orphanage in New Orleans. The orphanage was designed to specifically care for children of mixed races, who otherwise would have been abandoned. The sisters also ran a hospital and at one time their complex of buildings was the biggest in New Orleans. Through the years and the expansion of the city, the complex was threatened to be taken over. Apparently, the nuns appealed to President Thomas Jefferson to help them. His letter of support is hanging in the convent/museum. Here is the interesting part for me, the English teacher: Jefferson misused it’s/its TWO times in his letter! I only remember one (“the entity misused IT’S authority”) but I couldn’t believe it! I read several times just to make sure I saw it right, and I did. Well, if one of our founding fathers couldn’t get it right, why did I expect my seventh graders to get it right? There was another letter from President Monroe apologizing to the nuns because the military at some point intervened in their lives. His handwriting was so atrocious, you couldn’t read it. I’ll bet Jefferson’s and Monroe’s teachers were in despair over them, and the two of them turned out pretty well. There is always hope!
Our walking tour took us to Jackson Square, an Open Market with food and crafts and lots of restaurants. I stopped in a couple of shops, with just following, saying things like, “Who buys this stuff?” I stopped going into shops with him for obvious reasons. We ate lunch in one of the restaurants which had gumbo because I had my heart said on a nice big bowl for lunch. Doug had more seafood, of course. After lunch, we listened to a high school band play in the Square; they had great drums and all the kids were focused on their performance. Then came a middle school band. They made me laugh because there were always a couple of them talking and giggling instead of playing. At one point, the director had to go back and speak sternly to them. So typical middle school!
We walked down Bourbon Street before it got too crazy, looking for a place to catch some jazz. We didn’t find a place, but on every street corner, there were musicians playing some kind of music: jazz, blues, etc. On one corner were two girls: one violin and one guitar. They were awesome! We listened to them for quite a while.
After walking through historic districts and seeing lots of preserved houses, Doug decided he wanted oysters, so we found an oyster bar and had some wine. Only Doug ate oysters – they make me cringe. We headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner. My legs were so tired – I wish we had a pedometer to measure how many miles we actually walked.
Our dinner plans were to go to Irene’s for dinner. They don’t take reservations, but the owner of our hotel knows Irene, so he called over there and got us a commitment that if we got there at 8:30, they would seat us at 9:00. So we trekked over to Irene’s. Luckily, it was casual, so I did not have to wear heels. It was super busy! We found a seat in the bar right in front of the piano, and I mean in front as in our table was touching the front of the piano. It made it hard to talk, but the music was an entertaining mix of jazz and contemporary. We ended up waiting 1 1/2 hours for dinner, but it was worth it. The food was excellent. I had brown drum with a shrimp sauce and Doug had a seafood special with crawfish, jambalaya, and other Cajun delights. The restaurant was small, but the waitstaff had the service down to a science. You never waited for a course more than a couple of minutes, but they didn’t rush you. It was worth the wait.
I think we have been up and down every street in the French Quarter a couple of times. It is such a contrast with the downtown and river areas – a unique environment that I’m sure is not duplicated anywhere else in the U.S.
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