Oh My NOLA!

(that's a great post-Katrina Harry Connick, Jr. album reference)

Nick is a very busy business traveler of late, flying all over the country in less than a month. I mentioned in the last post about his trip to Maryland, and he was just in New Orleans. Now he's in Saint Louis just in time for his birthday! The whole Sinnokrak clan is meeting there this week so Nick and his mom can celebrate their birthdays (today, the 10th!) and Nick can catch up with his brothers, sister-in-law Kate, and nephews Braydan and Joshua. They are even going to have a pre-Christmas Christmas, since Nick and I aren't heading back to the midwest for the holidays this year.

Without a holiday vacation to look forward to, this December was looking a bit bleak until Nick suggested that I try to meet him in New Orleans for a long weekend. Nick and I hadn't been to New Orleans since Katrina and we have such fond memories of the city as one of the few vacation destinations within our reach when we lived in Pensacola. It's funny to think about how different our lives are now compared to the last time we were there ... namely, how our idea of a "nice" dinner has changed now that we're serious foodies!! Always prepared, I looked into places to indulge our foodie sensibilities over the three-day vacation. We settled on doing Friday lunch at Commander's Palace, where they are famous for their M-F 25 cent martini lunches! We were smart, though, to limit it to one each: we did not want ANYTHING getting in the way of tasting that amazing food!! We started with soup: Nick had a duck, goose, chicken, and oyster gumbo and I had their famous turtle soup. Honestly, the soup was so rich I could have stopped right there and been full for hours. But we were in NOLA, for chrissakes, and we were going to forcibly expand our stomachs! I had the most amazing Black Drum (fish) from local waters, and Nick had veal ... here's a picture, right before we dug in!

[Note: I tried and tried but could not get the pictures to look right compressed into the blog format. I recommend clicking on the individual pics to see them more clearly. Sorry!]



We also ate at Cochon, which was upscale Southern comfort food ("cochon" is French for "pig" so you can guess how many things on the menu were pork!) and it was simply fantastic. If anyone's in New Orleans anytime, soon, those are two places not to be missed!!

Commander's Palace is in the Garden District, so Nick and I took the streetcar from our hotel on Canal Street. We had time before our lunch reservation to stop at the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, right across the street from the restaurant. Of the New Orleans area cemeteries, it's one of the oldest and also one of the smallest. Anyway, here's a sampling of the shots:























I got a lot of use out of my super wide angle lens on this trip ... most of those shots were taken between 13 and 20 mm.

After stuffing ourselves silly at lunch, we decided to take a leisurely trek back to the French Quarter. As we walked through some areas that were ... well, let's say we wouldn't walk through them at night ... we came across this fascinating tree that had grown right through the fence. How long do you think that fence has been there, if a tree actually grew AROUND it?!



And near the new WWII museum (formerly the D-Day museum) we walked past a bar that had this slice of "local color":



Nick had been to the WWII museum earlier in the week with his meeting, although he didn't get much time to actually spend inside the museum. With nothing but time on our hands and no mission other than to eventually get back to the hotel, we decided to do a late afternoon dash-through. The museum is in the Warehouse District, which was hit hard by Katrina. There was wind damage and serious water damage, and the blocks surrounding the museum had some serious damage to old and historic homes and structures. In what must have been a controversial plan, the museum bought up the nearby blocks and worked with the historical society to move or preserve what structures they could, then tore down the rest and are in the process of greatly expanding the museum. They will add an "Air and Sea" structure to house planes and part of a ship, small convention center, ceremony facilities, and a large parade ground/courtyard. Here's a LINK to the website to see the expansion. My initial impression of the museum was that it was going to be largely devoted to D-Day, it being a former D-Day Museum. I was surprised that there was a very comprehensive Pacific Theater gallery, including all of the individual "D-Days" involved in the taking or taking back of the islands in the Pacific. It's a very modern museum with many interactive components like 2-minute histories from the mouths of American and foreign service members, soldiers from the "other side(s)" of the war, and stories of the men and women back home and the ways the war affected them. I thought the museum was really great and I highly recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in NOLA.

We spent the rest of the weekend walking, walking, walking. We hit jazz clubs and saw some really fantastic bands, went to Preservation Hall and were blown away, and saw "Steamboat Willie," a New Orleans institution, in the courtyard of Cafe Beignet. We went to the French Market and were shocked to see that the fixed vendor stands (the set of stands with gates, meant for permanent sellers like confectioners, farmers, local fisherpeople, etc) were still not open post-Katrina. We spoke with one vendor, Loretta (of famous Loretta's pralines!) who lamented that the fixed booths weren't open yet but who also talked about the wind damage the French Market sustained and the repairs that had to happen to the structure.

Here's me, behind the French Market:


We tried to walk up to one of our favorite spots, Louis Armstrong Park, but it too was still closed and under repairs. I knew that it had sustained a lot of damage during the post-K flood, but three years on ...? Upon that disappointment, I turned around and took this street shot:


The light in New Orleans this time of year was amazing. Because the French Quarter is oriented to the river and not the compass, you get a false sense of East and West. Every time you think that the sun should be setting to your left, it's actually setting somewhere between in front of you and your left. (wow, did that make sense?!) The consequence of this is that there are always shadows being thrown on the streets. That picture just above was actually taken right around noon! And this one was taken around 1 pm:


We had so much fun wandering around in the tourist-free city that was all decked out and festive for the holidays. Nick and I talked about finding a way to come back every December - no tourists, mild (usually, anyway!) weather, and the restaurants start their Revillon menus, which are special fixed-price holiday 3-4 course suppers for unbelievably reasonable prices. One of the most fun things we did, however, was trek up to the relatively hidden pool deck at the Westin and get some panoramic shots of the city (hooray wide angle lens!!)

Here's the river as it bends right at the French Quarter:


And here's one of the French Quarter all the way out to Lake Pontchartrain (the cathedral in view is Jackson Square):


And the French Quarter with that super clear winter sky:


Oh yeah, and I think most of you know these fools:




And speaking of fools ... the afternoon sun was SO BRIGHT and we were looking DIRECTLY into it. We got to the point of closing our eyes and counting down until just before the shutter ... and we still look like squinty fools.



So Nick suggested we just make crazy faces at the camera instead of trying to smile nicely, and we ended up taking a bunch and making ourselves laugh so hard we were crying. Or maybe we were tearing up because our retinas were so damaged. huh.


(I caption that one "Ahhhhhh, my eyeballs are BUUUUURRRNING!")



It would be worth going back to NOLA just to recreate that ridiculous photo shoot.

A couple more shots -

One from the Riverwalk, outside the second location of Cafe Du Monde:


One of a street band out performing on Sunday morning:


One of a beautifully botanical wall in the far French Quarter:


And one of the sunset I saw from the plane as we headed back home: