Thursday 20th April
The early mornings just kept coming but we were starting to master the getting out of bed part with the free breakfast not starting at the hostel until 7, we had to ask the receptionist nicely if we could have something early. He was fine with it and pointed us in the direction of where the brekkie items were kept. After a bowl of cereal and a coffee, we grabbed our bags and, instead of working up a sweat over a 30 minute walk, we strolled to the bus stop, caught the bus for $1.25 each and arrived at our departure point within about 10 minutes. We were travelling with Megabus instead of Greyhound for a change, for the reason that Megabus offered a better time of arrival to New Orleans and that we got the fare for $2 each. $1 was for the seat reservation and the other dollar was for picking an actual seat, rather than an unreserved seat. Unlike Greyhound, which had proper stations with toilets, vending machines and a tv, Megabus just had a canvas sign zip tied to a chain link fence of a car park, however, they did manage to tell us, without the ore sense of a single member of staff, which row we had to queue up in, something which Greyhound seemed to struggle with. We waited for around half an hour before our bus pulled in to the car park and we all got ready to board. Despite the signage telling us where we had to queue we were still in the wrong place as we had reserved seats for ourselves, so we hopped out the line and joined a separate queue especially for us snobs. In a way, we needn't have worried, as the bus was far from full but it had only cost us 2 dollars, which was far less than the rest had probably paid for their unreserved seats. We set off from Houston bang on time and headed for the Texan border with Louisiana, our next state. We made good time until just after our fresh air break, when the traffic going in to Baton Rouge was solid as far as the eye could see. Every now and again we would stop and start and then progress at a good pace but it still took us nearly an hour to cover about 15 miles, which was very tedious. As is the case with traffic jams, all of a sudden, as we were crossing a bridge over the mighty Mississippi River, the congestion eased and we pulled in to the rather dilapidated looking city of a Baton Rouge, which is the state capital of Louisiana. Thankfully, we weren't stopping for long and were finally on the home stretch to New Orleans but not before crossing over some incredibly lengthy bridges that spanned the swamps and bayous of southern Louisiana and the Mississippi River delta. Having come from Houston, which had a pretty rugged look to it, it's safe to say New Orleans wasn't exactly an improvement. It seemed pretty run down and we passed a fair few nutters on the way in. Once we'd got our bags and exited the Greyhound station, it was probably the least safe we had felt during our entire journey. We were followed and talked to for the first few hundred metres until we took an unwanted right turn and the person headed straight on. When the weirdo had gone, we turned back and made our way on the correct route to our hostel, which was only 10 minutes walk from the station. The hostel was a modern oasis amongst the crumbling surroundings. It seemed nice but was far too expensive for a place that didn't even have a communal kitchen on offer. The 5 members of staff were loitering around the downstairs bar/reception area were just as eccentric as the people we'd passed on the way in, they just didn't have the look of trying to kill us. We settled into our 4 bed dorm, before heading down and attempting a trip to a nearby supermarket. Only we didn't get too far. We turned down the road we were told to by the receptionist but it was so busy with shifty characters that we didn't get half way down it before turning back. We didn't want to go back to the hostel with our tails between our legs, so continued down on the main road our hostel was on before turning back. When we got back to the hostel, the receptionist asked if we'd found it, to which replied we had, just to save a bit of face. We were always quick to make up our minds in a city and it was safe to say New Orleans wasn't in our good books. We were pleased we had an extra day to explore it properly though, unlike our precious 4 or 5 stops, which had been particularly whistle stops. Rather than brave the streets, we got some much needed washing done before attempting the supermarket once more whilst it was in the drier. This time we made it all the way only to find that it was closed for one day only due to some college prep thing but a very kind security guard pointed us in the direction of another one. Only it was underneath the highway where all the tramps and druggies were hanging out. We decided we didn't need anything in the end and instead stopped by a local Louisiana fried chicken place for dinner on the way back to our hostel. It was pretty much just KFC but a different brand, a less well known chain but it filled the gap and just made us all the more desperate for a kitchen and healthy dinners. When we got back to the hostel, our washing was done, so we collected it all up and sorted our bags out for the coming days before settling in for the night. Even our hostel pamphlet we'd been given warned us against walking the streets at nighttime, so we definitely ruled out any late night galavanting.
Friday 21st April
Seeing as the free breakfast in the hostel didn't start until the ridiculous time of 8am, we were finally able to get our first good sleep in a long time. When we got down to the breakfast, it didn't really seem worth it, as there were only some odd scone type things available along with some ham and cheese to go inside them. We still ate for the sake of it and then returned to the room to get ready. We were considering ourselves quite lucky as for the last 2 nights, despite being in 4 bed dorms, we'd had nobody else in the rooms with us. After getting ready and slapping on the sun lotion, we hit the streets of New Orleans. Rather than walk, we hopped on one of the old time street cars that trundles their way noisily past our hostel. It was a $1.25 fare for a ride to the French Quarter, which is the area of the town that everyone raves about. We bundled off the trolley along with everyone else and found a map to get our bearings. Our first objective was to get a paper map for ourselves but when we attempted to find the visitors centre, we got a bit lost and had to return to our ordinal position via a detour down famous Bourbon street. As we walked down it, we struggled to see what all the fuss and acclaim was about. It was a narrow, unkempt road that was pretty dirty and didn't have much on it of any interest. I know, we're so negative. We managed to get back to our original position and eventually got on the right track for finding the visitor centre. We picked up a map, allowing us to walk around the French quarter without getting lost. Firsts things first, pin badge was done and ticked off the list, so afterwards we went for a stroll along the Mississippi River, which we didn't realise, flows right through the centre of the city. There was a pathway that ran alongside it and it was a welcome relief from the tourist clogged streets we'd left behind. We'd planned on crossing some train tracks to visit a market but were hindered by a train that had pulled up before stopping and reversing back the way it had come. Due to the size and weight of US trains, this ended up taking an age, so we lingered in one place rather than continue walking, as it would have meant passing a horde of homeless people. Eventually, the train receded and we were able to cross the rails and access the French Market. As always seemed the case, there wasn't anything we were after and we certainly didn't want the shiny silver zebra dressed up in Christmas clothing bauble but we had a look around anyway. Once we were finished, we passed the lauded Café du Monde, which seems to be in every guide book and “must do” list about New Orleans. Only the standing for half an hour in the midday sun whilst you queue for a table isn't in the “must do” lists, so we carried on for about a block and found the much more peaceful Café Beignet, who’s lack of a sun baked queue was a huge winner for us. I picked up a lemonade whilst Charlotte got a coffee and we sat down to cool off. In the end we killed a fair amount of time, so afterwards, we went for a wander round Jackson Square, which was dominated at one end by the St.Louis Cathedral. Whilst we were walking in the square a man came up to me and asked where I got my shirt from. I responded “England” and walked off thinking nothing of it but Charlotte told me that there's a popular scam where people bet you they can tell you were your shoes are from. If you don't say the answer they are after, which is something like “on your feet” they will constantly ask you for money until you give it to them. Fortunately, they didn't bother me and we left them behind pretty quickly. We were ultimately heading for some lunch and we were after something local. Charlotte had found a restaurant online called the “Gumbo Shop” which seemed perfect. It took a short while to find, as it was tucked down an alleyway but we found it in the end and had a short wait to be seated at a table. I ordered a local beer which I didn't catch the name of and for food, Charlotte went for the chicken gumbo and I plumped for the jambalaya. The restaurant clearly had the food ready in big saucepans out the back, as we were served our lunch within 5 minutes of ordering. This didn't stop it from being very tasty and we'd cleaned our plates almost as quickly as it had been brought to us, so we paid our bill and headed off. After a short stroll back towards the river, we decided to have a bit of local dessert to go with our local lunch. We tried the café du Monde once more but the queue was just as bad as it had been earlier, so we paid another visit to the café Beignet. We were there for its name, the Beignets. We'd seen people eating the icing sugar covered goodies earlier and were curious about them, so we ordered ourselves a batch each and sat at a table next to the jazz trio that were playing in the café. We were brought a basket each that contained 3 beignets that were covered in a thick layer of icing sugar. They were pretty much fried squares of choux pastry that had been topped with the icing sugar whilst they were still hot, which made the sugar melt to your finger when you touched it. They were very tasty and very fattening but could have done with a bit of jam inside, or something similar. 3 each turned out to be too much for us to handle, so we made use of the takeaway bag we were given and put 1’leftover one each in to take back to the hostel with us. With that, we were pretty sure we were done. There wasn't much for us in New Orleans. We aren't big partiers or drinkers as you know and we aren't huge fans of jazz, so we had our fair share of food, had checked out the French quarter and strolled along the Mississippi River, which was enough for us. To save a fare, we decided to walk back through downtown New Orleans in the hope we would come across a supermarket where we could find some snacks and dinner. We didn't, which was rather annoying, so in the end had to return to our hostel in order to get wifi to find out that we had past within feet of the supermarket without seeing it, so we had to turn around and spent nearly 2 hours (hope your proud of us Paul!) deciding what to buy. After that time, we spent a massive $25 and ended up having some tacos and salad for dinner. It wasn't great but it did the job.
As I've said, New Orleans just wasn't really for us, like Los Angeles/Hollywood wasn't, so we were looking forward to moving on.
I apologise in advance at how hard this one is but its slim pickings. I expect Google to be used exclusively. If someone does know it, congratulations in advance!
“Oh I'm weary from waiting…”
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