A month of travel

I just got back from a 2 day trip to New Orleans. I went because there was a meeting there that I wanted to attend for work. I was lucky that I had some extra time before I left the city to walk around. My friends and I did a girlfriends trip there 3 years ago. I was pregnant with Harrison at the time and it was about 100 degrees and humid when we went. Surprisingly I remembered a lot of the places we went to this time around. I tried to relive that trip. It was so much fun just walking down the streets and remembering all of the fun times Ilene, Anna, Lisa and I had while we were there.

On my way into town, my cab driver pointed out all of the hard hit areas. He showed me the spot on the highway where the people where air lifted by helicopter from the SuperDome to the highway to catch the buses to Houston. He also showed me the water lines on the highway. They were atleast 8-9 feet high and in one spot, just under an overpass, it was at least 12 feet high. I just couldn't imagine the water being that high. He told me that where we were, Lake Ponchitrain was 4 miles to the left of us. After the ride in, I was surprised at how much things didn't change in the French Quarter from 3 years ago..Especially after Katrina. The main things that I saw was that not all of the businesses reopened but a majority of them did. The ones that were open many of them had reduced business hours compared to 3 years ago. And the most obvious thing was the garbage collection. It was obvious that it wasn't back to pre-katrina conditions as there were piles of garbage bags on the curbs waiting to be picked up. Another thing I noticed was the souviners. Before the hurricane you could just imagine all of the souviners that were available. Now almost 1/2 of the souviners sold were Hurricane Katrina related. T-shirts, books, mugs..ect.

As I strolled down Bourbon street I stumbled across Rev. Zombie's House of VooDoo. This was where Ilene, Lisa, Anna and I started our Cemetary and VooDoo tour. Now, for some reason pictures of our trip were hard to come by so I took pictures of all of the locations I could find for nostalgia and will send them to the girls. I then walked down to Marie Levau's House of VooDoo. We learned about her on our Cemetary/VooDoo tour. I was working up a bit of an appetite so I made my way to Cafe DuMonde to have come Bignets and coffee. Can I say YUMMMMMM!! I bought Cliff some Cafe DuMonde coffee as a souviner. I then walked around the French Market area to burn of my breakfast of Bignets. I went up to the boardwalk and sat for about an hour and read my book. It was a beautiful day - 80 degrees and no humidity - so unlike the last time I was there. I was so relaxing to just sit and enjoy the weather and the view of the Mississippi. It was now lunch time and I wanted to have lunch at the place Anna, Ilene and Lisa and I had lunch - Charlie Q's. I found it really easily and went in to have a seat. But I didn't stay because I don't know if it was because I was alone or not but no one every came by to serve me so I just left.

Now I had no idea where to go for lunch. So I just wandered the streets of New Orleans where I happened on this restaurant called Oceana. I stopped to look at the menu and one of the waiters lured me in saying the food was really good. It wasn't crowded and looked like an interesting place to eat. As I was sitting at my table looking around at everyone in the restaurant (what else are you supposed to do when you are eating alone), I noticed someone familiar at the bar. It was Johnny Knoxville. This was probably my biggest celebrity sighting ever and I had an unobstructed view of him. Of course I immediately, but very discretely, called Cliff to tell him my exciting news. Let me just say he was less than impressed. He said big deal, he is like a D list celebrity (like Cliff knows who is on what celebrity list). I thought he was at least a B list celebrity if not an A lister (Ok he is no George Clooney or Patrick Dempsey...but who is).

After lunch I made my way back to the hotel where my luggage was waiting and hopped in a cab to go to the airport. It was a fun, quick trip back to the Big Easy. I felt like my friends Anna, Ilene and Lisa were right there with me the whole time- the best part - I didn't have to share the bathroom with them.