New Orleans, Louisiana
(The Steamy
City Steeped in History)
Excerpts from Kristy:
May 26-27, 1998
There's
a lot of beauty in New Orleans and plenty of history filled
with love, hardship, success and pain. We ate Creole, we ate
Cajun, but the place that sticks in my mind was a corner cafe
that we stopped at for lunch. The menu gave the customer so
many convoluted rules to follow that I thought we'd wandered
into a prison. But, as we teetered on our chairs in the open-air
area between the restaurant and the sidewalk, I experienced
that easy, laid-back feeling that only exists in New Orleans.
Contrary to the sketchy descriptions on the menu, the food
was delicious. And our quirky waiter served up a Cajun accent
that made the meal absolutely perfect.
Between
meals, which is one of the best parts of New Orleans, we traipsed
around Jackson Square, the Mint, the Pharmacy Museum and even
saw an angel. An angel? Yes, an angel. A woman dressed all
in white with her limbs and face painted white, stood in front
of the cathedral with the other street performers. Never having
seen anything like her, we sat for hours watching. She stood
perfectly still and posed with tourists who dropped money
in her pristine white urn. She ended her evening by stepping
down from her pedestal, which she flipped over to use as a
carrying crate for her props.
There's just nowhere else like New Orleans in the United
States. Maybe it's the steamy weather that saps the energy
out of you or maybe it's the underlying energy that revives
and bursts onto the streets at night, but what a way to begin
our trip.
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