Monday in Metairie, aka "New Orleans is not where I want to live"

We had a nice relaxing start to our day - didn't have to be anywhere at any certain time. We got packed back up and left Donaldsonville this morning, heading for New Orleans. On the way, we stopped at the San Fransisco Plantation in Garyville, LA. They said that it's the most opulent plantation house in North America. It's right on the east bank of the Mississippi River - in fact, the former front yard is now a levee that holds back the river. It's a really unusual looking plantation - very different than the others we've seen - the woman who lived there was German, and through a series of events, wound up living in Louisiana when she desperately wanted to live in Germany. To make it up to her, her husband let her decorate it however she wanted. It is a Creole style house, accented with turquoise, surrounded by huge live oaks and amazing flower beds everywhere. We took a tour from a costumed guide, but L's favorite thing was the slave quarters. One thing I thought was really interesting was the lists of the slaves (on an inventory of the masters' property) - it listed each slave by name, their race, their specialty (like potter or house slave or field hand) and any health concerns (like asthmatic). Very interesting.

Next we headed into New Orleans. We stopped at our hotel, then went to eat at the diner that is in our parking lot. It's called City Diner and it has wonderful food - I'd seen really great reviews about it on TripAdvisor. We all had sandwiches, and they were literally BIGGER THAN MY HEAD! I had a chicken cordon bleu sandwich, with spinach sprinkled into the swiss sauce that was over it - yummmm! The only down side is that we all had leftovers, of course, and our room doesn't have a fridge.

We headed into the French Quarter for the afternoon. That was quite an experience. I think I'm still processing...definitely one of those things that are part of the "American experience". It was a scary place to walk around with a kid - I was so tense the whole time. One of the things that I want Lauren to know is that there's a big wide world out there, full of people and things she doesn't see in our little sheltered world - but we might have had a little overload of that today. Between the people handing out free condoms, the people accosting us (trying to sell shoe-shines, but yelling the f-word at Stuart when we walked away), really smelly street bands of people that might fall into the category of street people or gypsies, etc, she saw all kinds of unusual types today. On the plus side, we saw amazing architecture, fascinating homes packed into structures that I'd never seen before, street artists, beautiful decorations left from Mardi Gras, and took a horse-drawn carriage ride around the French Quarter. We got to walk beside the French Market to see the Mississippi, and there was a steamboat docking, playing calliope music. (I wanted to stay and watch, but this was when the shoe-shine man episode happened). L hated the smell on the streets - I don't know if it always smells like that, or if it is just because Mardi Gras ended not so long ago. Her favorite part was the carriage ride - we were pulled by a mule named Andy, and the driver let her pet Andy. Our carriage was white with red plush seats, and in a funny coincidence, the people who sat in front of us were from Arkansas, and the people behind us were from Indiana. The man who provided our tour, Max, grew up in the French Quarter, and told us stories about what things were like when he was a kid, as well as telling us about the history of the buildings.

Our pizza just arrived, and I'm starving, so I'm going to go eat!
Carla