Only a few weeks before Hurricane Katrina, I went to a conference in New Orleans. This was my first ‘big’ overseas trip.
I didn’t take a travel diary with me, I wasn’t keeping up with my blog at that time, I had a little point and shoot camera however I still remember quite a bit about that trip. I think that seeing the images of the hurricane on the news when I returned home was a signal to my brain to etch them in for the long term.
After the conference ended, I had a couple of days to cruise around New Orleans before I went to London.
For an inexplicable reason, New Orleans feels, felt, comfortable to me. The music had me thinking of my Granddad. The food had me thinking of my tummy. But it was the music – the birthplace of Jazz – had me dancing and tapping my feet even when I was standing still.
Much of the ambience of The French Quarter is created by its buildings.
Regulations say that any new construction or improvements have to be in keeping with the rest of the buildings which were built before the city was a part of the United States – when it was ruled by Spain.
A lot of the French style buildings were destroyed by fire in 1788. Spain had acquired Louisana from the French in 1764 so an almost complete rebuild took place.
The Garden District took my breath away. This whole area used to be a number of plantations. It was divided up and each lot had a large garden which is where the districts name comes from.
Old homes, peeling paint, neo-classical columns, wrought iron balconies. It was all very romantic and gorgeous. Some of these homes were designed and built in the middle of the 1800’s and I would love to call one of them home.
On Prytania Avenue, we found this “historial sign” …
After all the walking around, it was time to get back to the music and the drinking.
One night we went down to a small music club in the Ninth Ward where a band and then a sax player were having a Clarence “Frogman” Henry night. At some stage during the night, red beans and rice were served in bowls at the bar ensuring that we all didn’t just drink our dinner.
To be honest, I enjoyed more than one night on Bourbon Street – and not just after the conference ended!
It was a whole new experience. It was noisy, there were people everywhere and we were all walking around with liquor in a plastic cup. Huge Ass Beers are definitely huge!
It was friendly and I loved it.
Jean Lafitte’s Old Absinthe House opened in 1807 and has a historic bar that has to be seen. They did serve absinthe, until it was outlawed in 1912. Today they serve an anisette instead.
Looking back through these few photographs, I remember what I loved about that city and why I thought I would go back. After returning to New Zealand and then seeing Hurricane Katrina on the news, I thought for a moment that it wouldn’t happen. But it did. In 2007, Nell and I went back during our International Women of Mayhem tour and it was different, but somehow stil the same.
My Travel Diary is a collection of photographs and comments from diaries I wrote whilst traveling. Whilst I will always keep the diaries, I love reliving those experiences and writing about them here makes me very happy. Events, television shows and songs remind me of certain places, so I’m picking them out at random.
