New Orleans Part 1

New Orleans Louisiana (NOLA) aka Big Easy, Crescent City

Hello old friend! We didn’t expect to be back quite so soon but there we were. We had been to New Orleans when we got married and had an exhaustingly crazy time and we had always said we would go back one day. It wasn’t on our itinerary for this trip because of the cost but we needed to warm up and this was the cheapest place to fly to from Boston.

Music everywhere

The usual place to stay for tourists is the French Quarter, but we were on a tight budget, and prices were quite high in New Orleans because it was the tail-end of holiday season, plus Mardi Gras was kicking off. We found a cool place out in Mid-City called Hosteeva Express, around 5km from the French Quarter, and the infamous party road, Bourbon Street which is 13 blocks of bars, hotels, restaurants and tourist shops. 

It was really easy to get down to the main part of New Orleans though; the city is well-known for its trams or streetcars, and we used them all the time, especially as they ran frequently up and down our road - Canal Street - directly to and from the French Quarter. The tram cost $1.25 a ride, or $3 for 24 hours.

Street car

After we had checked in, we headed straight down to Bourbon Street for a bite to eat and a cocktail. It was so great to be back, we had such fun there before. Bourbon Street is for the tourists – locals tend not to go out there as much. We were tourists though, so we were allowed to spend a bit of time there!

We grabbed some food in a pub called Pat O’Briens and soon got our first set of beads, which are synonymous with Mardi Gras festivities. Mardi Gras is a huge festival that runs for weeks, starting after Christmas, on 6^th January which is the Epiphany or ‘Three Kings day’ and runs until Shrove Tuesday (which is also pancake day), just before Lent. This means that the festival can vary in length depending on when Lent falls. Mardi Gras means ‘Fat Tuesday’ when all the fatty food is consumed before fasting during Lent – hence the reason we have pancakes, to use up the butter, milk and eggs.

Mardi Gras is famed for its amazing parades, organised by clubs known as krewes, and there are normally several large parades each day but the biggest parades are during the last week of the season. There are also other events such as masquerade balls, hence the plethora of masks for sale all over the city.

Decorated house in French Quarter

There is a growing number of super-krewes in New Orleans such as The Krewe of Bacchus, formed in 1968 and has over 1,000 members and 31 super-floats. Bacchus’ floats are famous for their extravagant decoration and entertainment and include the Bacchagator and Bacchasaurus.

In response to these super-krewes, there is an increasing amount of micro-krewes, like the Krewe of Barkus, founded in 1992 which uses dogs as the focal point of their parades.

As we’d been to New Orleans before and we had a few days here for this trip, we decided to go and see the new Star Wars film the next day, where we got the chance to try buttered popcorn. SERIOUSLY AMERICA, WTF ARE YOU THINKING?! Let me tell you, this is not something you want to try. It is popcorn with melted butter poured all over it, disgusting. The film was good though.

Jackson Square

Later that evening we were back down Bourbon Street to sample some of the cocktails and we wound up in a bar where there was some great live music. New Orleans was a lot colder than normal, and seemed fairly quiet, probably because holiday season was coming to an end. Many of the bars had live bands playing but were mostly empty, but this particular bar seemed much livelier. We got chatting to some Aussies who we spent the next couple of days hanging out with and having a few beers with.

Bourbon Street bar

When we got back to the hotel, we booked up our usual free walking tours of which there are many in New Orleans. We used the same company for all of our New Orleans tours and we can highly recommend Free Tours by Foot. As well as having experienced, highly knowledgeable tour guides and having a comprehensive range of tours, they even have detailed self-guided tours, and you pay what you think the tour is worth in tips at the end, so they go out of their way to make the tour a fantastic experience. We ended up doing five tours with them, and the first one we went on was the Voodoo tour.

Shadow statue of Jesus

Voodoo tour 
We were met opposite the Louis Armstrong Park the next morning by our guide, who, although not a Voodoo practitioner (she was a Wiccan), does have a lot of friends who practise Voodoo, and she knew her stuff. We walked into the park towards Congo Square where our guide told us about the origins of Voodoo in New Orleans.

Voodoo arrived in New Orleans in the 1700s when the slave trade began in earnest and the city was governed by the French. Although the slaves - who came from all over Africa - had their own religion, ideas and beliefs known as Vodun, they were forced by the French colonists into becoming Roman Catholics. As Roman Catholics, no one worked on Sundays and this included the slaves. However, it was illegal for groups of more than 3 slaves to congregate in the city, so every Sunday they would meet at Congo Square, which at the time was just outside the city limits on the other side of Rampart Street and which is now in part of Louis Armstrong Park. 

Statue in Congo Square

The slaves would meet in the Square to sing and dance, but this activity masked the rituals of the religion that they were purported to have left behind. This religion wasn’t quite the same for all of them though; it differed slightly depending on where they came from, so the result was a blend of different strains of Voodoo mixed with Catholicism, which itself had some similarities to Voodoo. Both religions believe in one God, and both pray to other religious representations, such as Saints in Catholicism and Loa (or Lwa) in Voodoo. Saints and Loa would have been humans who lived devout lives and those practising their faith would pray to them for particular reasons. St Joseph and Ogou Balanjo are meant to help small children, St Peter and Papa Legba both hold the keys to the spirit world. 

Voodoo offerings to the Loa include bottles of rum, cigars, pennies and coffee. Voodoo rituals are opportunities for the living to speak to the Loa who will ‘ride’ an individual, similar to being possessed. Rituals are also for healing, initiations into the religion, casting spells and creating potions.

Voodoo offerings

We strolled into the French Quarter, stopping at the site of the home of Marie Laveau, the most famous Voodoo priestess, known as the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Marie was a shrewd character who set herself up as a hairdresser which allowed her to get the dirt on all the locals through the women gossiping as they had their hair done. This put Marie in a position of power in the city. As well as being a hairdresser she was, more importantly, a Voodoo practitioner and made and sold potions to the locals as well as hosting ceremonies, helping the sick and saving condemned men from hangings. She is famed for legitimising Voodoo in New Orleans, perhaps using her knowledge over the powerful people in New Orleans as leverage to get their support. 

As we carried on walking, we learned about ‘gris-gris’ bags. These little bags are talismans, or charms which are normally carried around to give the bearer luck, bring them money, or for some other personal reason. The gris-gris bag should contain something of the bearer’s like hair, or clothing, then usually herbs are added, along with other things like coins, stones or crystals.

We moved onto Voodoo Authentica, a shop in the centre of the French Quarter where we had the chance to go in and browse the voodoo dolls, candles, charms and amulets and buy potions if we felt so inclined. We learned that Voodoo dolls are not to cause harm to those that might have done us wrong; their purpose is the opposite. The doll represents someone we want to help and sticking the pin in a certain part of the doll is supposed to heal the affliction of that person.  

French Quarter tour

That afternoon we met up with our new Aussie friends for the French Quarter tour. We met at the Andrew Jackson statue in Jackson Square, in front of the St Louis Cathedral. The cathedral was rebuilt in 1789 after a huge fire in 1788 that destroyed more than 800 buildings in the city. 

St Louis Cathedral

From there we headed to Pirates Alley. There is a bit of folklore surrounding this area, which runs between St Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo, or the Old Spanish Governor’s Mansion. It was said to be the meeting place for pirates but bearing in mind its location it seemed a strange place for them to hang out. It is also said that slaves were sold at the nearby St Anthony’s Garden.

The small bar in the alley, Pirates Alley Café, is well known for serving Absinthe, which is where we ended up one night after the Mardi Gras parade with some new New Orleans friends.

A famous face in New Orleans who lived in Pirates Alley was the writer William Faulkner who actually penned his first novel while living there. 

Our guide told us about how he was once invited to a glitzy New Orleans dinner at the last minute but he had to decline because he didn’t have a tuxedo. Not to worry, cried his fellow diner, if you have a pirate’s costume, you’re in! Happily he did have a pirate’s outfit and made it to the dinner, and we saw the pics to prove it. That story is sooo New Orleans. Of course he had a pirate’s outfit, and if he didn’t you can bet he knew someone that did.

Royal Street

We strolled up to Royal Street, which is an exclusive street lined with art galleries and shops such as James H Cohen and Sons - Rare Antiques and Collectibles, renowned for its eclectic range of treasures, including guns from the civil war, swords, and antique maps. Royal Street is also where a lot of street musicians congregate as the street is pedestrianised during the day, and it is where the iconic statue of Jesus with upstretched arms can be found.

Next, we strolled past the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum on Chartres Street. Louis J. Dufilho, Jr. was the first pharmacist to become licensed after the State of Louisiana introduced a law in 1804 requiring all practising pharmacists to pass a licensing exam. Dufilho operated out of the pharmacy which is now a museum. Our tour guide told us that the museum offered a tour which would last around an hour, at 1pm on Tuesdays to Thursdays.

Typical architecture in the French Quarter

Next on our tour of the French Quarter was Preservation Hall which was opened in 1961 to meet the demands of people wanting to listen to rock and roll and jazz and it is open every night for shows at 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10pm. Although we didn’t make it in, we were told that Preservation Hall is tiny inside and it doesn’t serve alcohol, but you can bring your own.

Back down Bourbon Street again, showing those Aussies how it’s done. 

We’d previously been to a bar called Tropical Isle which sells the lethal Hand Grenade cocktail, a super-sweet iced cocktail served in a huge green hand grenade shaped plastic cup.

More music

 
On our last visit we had noticed another cocktail being sold there, called the Shark Attack. When someone ordered one, the barman would frantically ring a bell, blow a whistle and pour some spirits into a glass. He would then put a frenzied plastic shark into the glass and the drink would turn red, like blood. We found it funny…but I guess you had to be there. 

We ended up dancing the night away in a bar with a live band which took requests for a dollar a go. When the singer/pianist wanted $20 to play ‘Don’t stop believing’ the whole bar emptied. Know your limits mate, you’re not Elton John.

To be continued...

 #nola #neworleans #frenchquarter #voodoo #sharkattack #bourbonstreet #freetoursbyfoot