Chivalry and Etouffee

Wrote this bad-boy on a few sheets of notebook paper on the plane ride home from New Orleans:

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I’ve always preferred the aisle seat on planes. I think that started back when I was a little kid with a bladder condition (don’t make fun, it’s common). I never liked asking people to move so I could hit the 1ft x 1ft lavatory. Plus, think about if you’re trapped in a window seat next to a hefty passenger…you’re going to get awfully friendly with that window.

R prefers the window seat. What luck.

And so it twas that our journey to New Orleans began.

I quickly learned several things about traveling.

  • Never choose a city that sounds like an Indian tribe as a good meeting place. Chances are it’s all back roads.
  • Pack lots of food. Snacks help stressful travel encounters.
  • Always travel with person(s) who’ve racked up some type of airline status and/or are persistent with their desire to sit in first class (not rude or annoying, just persistent).


Hokay so…

I was confident that New Orleans would be a good time when the first vision we got as we descended from our cab was a homeless man relieving himself on the sidewalk. I thought, “even though I can’t decide if I should feign a French our Southern accent during my visit, this city has to be a good time.”

New Orleans is an interesting place.

The French Quarter is absolutely beautiful. All you have to do is turn off the endless supply of strip joints and souvenir shops, and probably look past all the “daiquiris - 12 FLAVORS - and pizza by the slice” joints, and you’ve got an architectural, or as R calls it “you like it because it’s cultural,” paradise. I loved the uneven streets, the balcony lined apartments, shops, restaurants, live music, colorful decor, riverfront views, the occasional monument or fountain, the smell of Creole on every corner, the leisurely living pace (we were constantly reminded by locals that residents don’t work hard and don’t care to change that), the cocktail availability, the smiles, the none stop sound of music, and the amazing residents. Love. It. All.

Now, as I sit back in first class heading home, with R in the window seat next to me explaining with a diagram and hand motions the process the pilot is going through in the cockpit, I find myself already reminiscent of my time in the city.

The food of course was incredible. Everything I had I enjoyed, and can’t wait to go home and try to replicate. In fact, it was so good that my taste-buds weren’t phased after R and I thought my coat was stolen at Mother’s Restaurant, a shock that sent R flying out of the restaurant and running down the street in desperate search for the culprit as I stood watching from the door…his speedy movements past the window heading west and disappearing for a moment…then reappearing as he sprinted east past the window still holding the oversized menu he forgot to put down as he ran off to my wool rescue…and then back again west passing the window with sheer determination after a lady who’s small child he momentarily mistook for my navy blue coat….

During R’s gallivant, I found my coat. The door man at the restaurant had grabbed it thinking someone left it behind. Cute. No?

Nor was my delicious enjoyment effected by the meal during which I had to take away R’s straw wrapper to keep him from shooting it at my forehead ONE MORE TIME. Or the time I ate dessert with him describing where each type of red meat comes from, as in, which part of the cow.

At arrival in the city, I knew of all these things I wanted to do, but had no desire to figure out how to organize them. R was sweet in his constant, “whatever you want, I just want to make you happy.” But his obsession with needing to know which activity was next took over and we made a plan. Have to have plan. Plan. Plan. What’s the plan. Plan?

So.

Tours Went On / Sight Seeing Saw / la la la / Experiences Had  / Things Attended:

Went on a swamp tour and got to hold a baby alligator.

Enjoyed a plantation tour given by the plantation owner himself who was adorning a very snazy scarf.

Spent a day at the WWII Museum and saw a 4-D film by Tom Hanks. Educational, enlightening, etc.

Strolled through the Garden District after a ride on the street car and put a deposit down on a mansion.

Went on a Ghost Tour through the French Quarter and heard eye popping, face grimacing stories. I learned a lot about the messed up characters that used to live in New Orleans. At one unfortunate point, R got called out by our guide as a, “sick freak man,” because his smile at my horrified face was mistaken for malicious intrigue in the story. Then we learned about a vampire murder that took place in the hotel we had been staying at. To make it real rich, one of the lady vampires who had gotten caught in the murder as she left the hotel with the guys skin over her shoulder (I KNOW) got off due to her daddy attorney. She’s still roaming the streets of the city. Fan-flipping-tastic. All while drinking buy-one-get-one-free hurricanes. Yahtzee.

(**We switched hotels the morning before we heard that story. Glad about that. Plus our second hotel had way better elevator music. R tried to get me to dance with him to it. I’m like, not that good of elevator music.)

Spent nights out listening to live bands galore from dueling pianos, to Jazz, to Blues. The tunes on our last night were my favorite. A 9 band member crew that included someone playing the flute, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, saxophone, drums, viola, electric guitar and tambourine.

I decided I’m taking up piano in 2011.

On our last night we ran back to our hotel from Frenchstreet in a rainy crazy wild insane downpour. We were the only people out running in the rain. When I was a kid I used to think mother nature would cry if a vacation city was sad to see me go. Oh Ms. Nature, you got me again.

And so it tis now that I bid ado to my vacation in the fabulous New Orleans, and turn my mind to the new year in Chicago. I’ll attempt to answer the question I left you with last. Did R pick 1 or 2? He’s definitely within 3.75 feet of me, so things are looking good.

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Two weeks later sitting in my beloved Chicago apartment on Wed evening:

I got a job!
- C