Sunday, 18 April 2004
New Orleans
We started the day off easy with café au lait on the balcony. I finished the second of two Vanity Fair magazines that I’d brought with me—I tend to let them get backlogged until plane rides and vacations—and started another book. At lunchtime we took Anne to Central Grocery for her first muffaletta sandwich which we ate by the river with music from one of the festival stages providing the soundtrack.
We spent the afternoon at CC’s coffee house on Esplanade, sitting at an outdoor table under the huge live oaks, reading the afternoon away. Back at the hotel, we did like we always do while in the room and opened all the windows to let in the warm breeze and sunlight, and hung out on the balcony, reading and enjoying the view of the Quarter.
We decided on Acme for our final meal, a fitting finale both in food and atmosphere. Inspired by the book I was reading (Bayou Farewell) I decided to try crawfish for the first time. By the time I’d gotten to the end of my bag of “mudbugs,” I’d pretty much gotten the hang of snapping off the heads and tails, eating the meat and sucking out the head juices. Eewww-yeah!
Lasting Impressions:
- The weather in New Orleans was ideal. Sunny and warm, but not too hot or humid at all. It’s early enough in the season that we can enjoy the open air of the balcony as well as walks in the park etc. without dealing with humidity, bugs (mosquitoes or (aack) the flying termites as in past years.)
- I love the late afternoon/early evening when the sky fills with swallows zipping and spiraling about as they catch insects in the setting sun.
- A woman was planting window boxes on the railing of her wrap-around balcony of my favorite building near the hotel. I often wonder what it would be like to live here, and recall the time we were here a few years back and that building was for sale, and we joked about buying it…
2 Things @ Once 