Honeymoon: Tuesday

21 Aug Honeymoon: Tuesday

We started the morning (late again) off walking to the market and of course went to Cafe du Monde.  We found a bench in front of a book store and sat eating them and drinking our cafe au lait.  I could definitely get used to this.  I was fully enjoying being in vacation mode where I left all the planning up to my husband.  You see, when we actually get somewhere I’m directionally challenged and ADD.  There is so much to look at that I’m lucky to have not been a leash kid.  I still am, in some respects, as Chris holds my hand and guides me through busy streets and across intersections as I look around and admire things.  I told him multiple times that we travel well together and we both agreed that is something we’d like to make a priority as we have been so enriched by our travels.

We walked around that morning to get the lay of the land and decide some things we’d like to do later.  We found a cute place for lunch that had a large beer selection and was very old and rustic with rich wood and open doors (as everything is in the french quarter)  Chris ordered shrimp etouffee as it is one of our favorite dishes to make and we wanted to know how true we were in our recipe.  Turns out we make a mean crawfish/shrimp ettouffee.  I had some fish and vegitables that were amazing. We hit it off with our waiter and the bartender and began asking where the locals go.  We got a tip from the marketing person that we had to take the trolly to plum street and try a snowball.

I had few memories from New Orleans, as I was  pretty young when we went there, but Chris remembered a lot more as he was there post Katrina.  I remember a little of Jackson square, but mostly I remember a large platter of shrimp being brought to me with their eyes and legs and antenne still on.  My dad sat there and plucked them all off as we ate them.  I searched for the place thinking it would pop back into my memory, but I don’t think we ever found the right one.

We had planned on taking the trolly car at some point anyway and so we decided to do a self tour of the Garden district.  We went to Canal st. to pick up the trolly, but were told to get on the bus.  it was very confusing, but after walking miles and miles in some interesting areas and heat we caught up with the bus which was routing people to the trolly car because of construction.  We ended up getting on the bus, but it started to go the wrong way from the trolly so we jumped off the bus and ran to the trolly just as the bus turned the corner and all the people go off the bus, onto the trolly, and drove away without us.  We waited and eventually a ver nice trolly driver let us on.  We were the only people there so we had our own little tour guide for awhile.  I have no doubt it was obvious we were out-of-towners at the moment.  We eventually told him we’d like to get off and he almost refused as he asked us where we’d like to go.  We said we’d get off and walk a ways.  He insisted he would take us to get food if that’s what we were interested in, but there was not any on this street.  I politely told him we needed to go to Plum street and get snowballs and he smiled and told us “ohh. they are good.  they are good” We began walking in a very heavily vegetated area and tried to dodge palm trees and bushes.  We eventually found a hole in the wall where they served the best snow cones ever – for you cedar falls people: it was a glorified tropical snow that’s open all year.

After stuffing ourselves on flavored ice we walked a bit and decided to get back to the french quarter before it rained.  It was already dark and we got poured on for a few minutes as we waited for the trolly.  We boarded with about 8 groups of college freshman who were in orientation mode – loud, excited, and… college freshmen…  We then got on to an even tighter packed bus with them and finally made it back to Canal street just as it stopped raining.

We walked back to the French Quarter and found a cute place to eat that had great food and was pretty much empty because we now eat dinner at 10pm.

We ordered a sea food platter (we were disappointed to not see fresh sea food as everything is fried, but who doesn’t like fried sea food?) This was also our first late night out and our first encounter with cockroaches.

Everything in New Orleans is open.  All of the windows and doors open to the street and whatever comes in feels free to go as it pleases.  I saw something out of the corner of my eye moving up the window and much to my dismay – roaches do fly.  It flew over our food and landed on the table next to us where I constantly kept my eye on it until it was safely out of view.  Now this seems very calm in writing, but I’m pretty sure I jumped up to my feet and dodged it as it flew across the table.  If that happened in Iowa or Minnesota It would be enough to make me leave a restaurant, but here?  I just dealt with it and hoped it didn’t come back and that one didn’t come crawling out of my food.

We took our time walking back, making friends with the man who plays guitar late at night on the corner, and we knew just what we’d do when we woke up the next morning…