We've had a wonderful first day in New Orleans, and I'm going to make a big call on our first full day here: Tied with Disneyland, this is my equal favourite place I have visited in the USA. The street music is great, they don't like chain restaurants so you aren't constantly bombarded with Starbucks, McDonald's etc. and I love the architecture in the French quarter.
We slept really well in our beautiful hotel room and had a great breakfast. Then we walked down a very quiet Bourbon Street (it was 9.30am) to Jackson Square. Jackson Square is named after Andrew Jackson, a military hero in the Battle of New Orleans and subsequently the seventh president of the United States. There's a statue of him in the middle of the square. We went into the St Louis Cathedral. It was really beautiful inside, and is apparently the oldest cathedral in the United States. It was first built in 1718, but reconstructed in 1788 and 1794 after bad fires burned much of the city. Either side of the cathedral are two beautiful buildings, the Cabildo which is the former city hall, and the Presbytere which is the former courthouse.
New Orleans is a very multicultural city, and owes this to being colonised by a few different cultures, the slave trade that was rife here, and its proximity to the Caribbean. The first known residents here were the American Indians, and the French Market area was actually an intertribal trading post of theirs about 1000 years ago. The Spanish arrived in 1541 expecting to find gold, but were disappointed when they didn't so they left. In 1682, Frenchman La Salle arrived here and claimed the Mississippi River and its waterways for King Louis XIV (this is how the state of 'Louisiana' gets its name). Little did he know at the time that the Mississippi River was nearly 3800 km long and encompassed what is about 40% of the US states today. He went back to France, and set off on an exhibition to find this area again. He got lost, and those who had travelled with him eventually became impatient, killed him and headed back to France. Finally, in 1718, 'La Nouvelle Orleans' (New Orleans) was settled by the French. They remained here for 40 years, creating the French quarter during that time. Then the Spanish took over in 1762 and were in control until the area was sold to the USA in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 by Napoleon to fund his wars in Europe.
At 10am, we joined a free walking tour from Jackson Square for two hours. Our guide, Andrew, took us around for two hours telling us lots of funny stories about the city, giving good recommendations and showing us around. He told us that the buildings in the French quarter have been designed so that peoples' businesses or storerooms were downstairs, and their residences were upstairs so that during floods these rooms wouldn't flood. These are very similar to the style built in the Caribbean, but the ones here have elegant cast iron railings.
Andrew told us that New Orleans was the hub of the domestic slave trade in the USA. Most of the residents of New Orleans during this time were enslaved, and were forcibly baptised. The only advantage of this was that they could have Sundays off. Interestingly, some slaves spent Sundays setting up their own businesses and eventually could afford to "buy" themselves and be free. Voodoo originates from slaves in this region bringing their own religious beliefs across. We learned that rather than the concept of a 'voodoo doll' that we have been presented in movies, these dolls were originally used to pinpoint where a patient was saying they were in pain rather than the other way around (pinpointing a spot and using it to cause pain).
We talked about the different cuisines here, mainly Creole and Cajun. These both tap into each other at points, and have both come about due to African and Caribbean influences. Famous dishes here like jambalaya came about because locals asked their African slaves to make them dishes like paella, and they made them with a twist.
At the end of our tour, we witnessed a buskers 'turf war'. A man set up to play the guitar, and another busker wasn't happy. He was so nasty to him that he eventually packed up and left which was pretty horrible.
After the tour, we had lunch at the Napoleon House restaurant. This building was rumoured to be the house that Napoleon would flee to if he left Europe, but alas he was killed before this could happen. I had seafood gumbo and Rob had a po boy (kind of like a baguette). Both were incredible.
We then walked around, first heading to the Mississippi River where we saw the Steamboat Natchez and another steamboat. The river was flowing really fast, and we enjoyed watching it from an area called the Moon Walk, named after a mayor in 1976 who created this pedestrianised area when the area was overrun by industry. After that, we bought some beignets (kind of like doughnuts with lots of icing sugar) from Cafe du Monde and ate them in the park in Jackson Square. The sparrows here loved us and flew right at our faces before settling at our feet and getting whatever sugar that dropped to the ground.
Next, we went to the Presbytere Museum. Outside, we enjoyed some really good street performers. The ground level was all about Hurricane Katrina, and it was horrifying reading about and seeing how much it affected the city. New Orleans has a strange relationship with water. The river has brought it prosperity due to fishing and trade, but at the same time has made it prone to flooding and hurricanes. Previous instances of floods and hurricanes meant the city was well aware of the dangers and tried to implement programs to help, but the implementation of the flood protection system inadvertently destroyed local wetlands. This has meant that the Gulf of Mexico has intruded further inland and hurricanes have more of an effect on nearby cities due to wetlands not blocked their path. It's expected that at the current rate, by 2050 Louisiana will have lost 1 million acres of wetland.
As a result, Hurricane Katrina has been referred to as a "natural force with an outcome compounded by human error". On the 23rd of August 2005, a tropical depression formed over the Bahamas. By the 24th it was called Tropical Storm Katrina, and by the 25th it was a category 1 hurricane. By the 28th of August, Katrina had been upgraded from a category 3 to a category 5 hurricane in less than 12 hours. I can't really remember much about Hurricane Katrina as I was only just shy of 13 at the time, but I do remember seeing it in the news. The museum was very well presented - we read about peoples' personal accounts escaping from their attic onto their roof using an axe, and about the poorly executed rescue attempt after the hurricane had passed. I had never really thought of it this way, but the main thing that killed people was the aftermath, not the hurricane itself (though many did die due directly to the hurricane, too). The government programs and resources that were outsourced to help people communicated poorly, and people stuck on their roofs or in their homes suffered greatly. Half of the people that died during the hurricane were 75 years and over, even though this age bracket made up just 6% of the population at the time. Things like dehydration, heat stroke and heart attack caused many deaths. It was the height of summer, so peoples' attics etc were very hot.
The superdome (stadium) here housed 35,000 people at its peak, and apparently the smell was absolutely atrocious. People were meant to be bused out of here, but the programs that had been suggested didn't eventuate as intended. It sounded like hell living in there for days at a time, sleeping on concrete or in a stadium seat surrounded by thousands of other people with limited food or water. The water in New Orleans wasn't drinkable after the hurricane until nearly six weeks later, on October 6th. A year after the hurricane, the local football team played at the newly renovated Superdome for the first time since Katrina. They won 23-3 against Atlanta which was very uplifting for the city.
We then read about Hurricane Rita, which coincidentally happened on my 13th birthday in 2005. As a result of Katrina, everyone in the affected towns for this hurricane evacuated. Towns were completely decimated but only seven people died during the hurricane, and the towns decimated were sparsely populated so it wasn't publicised nearly as much as Katrina. I'm glad we aren't here in hurricane season. Apparently they can occur from June to November, because they're the result of energy in warm oceans (AKA the Caribbean out this way) spiralling inwards towards the centre of a developing storm. The heat from the ocean warms the air more, which then spirals upward and strengthens the storm. It would be terrifying to be caught up in, I think. Luckily for the French Quarter, it wasn't affected like other parts of New Orleans. So the famous buildings etc that we associated with New Orleans remained unscathed compared to other parts of the city.
Strangely, the upstairs of the museum was about Mardi Gras and Carnival. This was a stark contrast to the mood of downstairs, but I guess it was there to show that the city is resilient and can still have a good time. Without meaning to, Rob and I have come here quite close to Mardi Gras. The festival begins 47 days before Easter Sunday, which this year is on February 25th. But apparently for the entire month beforehand there are lots of events on. There are already yellow, green and purple decorations everywhere in the streets which is really pretty. We walked around and enjoyed seeing the glittery, colourful costumes.
Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel for a shower and a rest. We then got ready and headed to Preservation Hall. My Pa hasn't been very well while I've been away, and before I left he and Nan had told me to check out the jazz show in Preservation Hall. With this in mind, Rob encouraged me today to buy the expensive tickets to make sure we were in the front row and got the full experience. We did so, and it was wonderful. We had a clear view of the band just a couple of metres in front of us. I loved that no phones or cameras were allowed, so everyone there got to fully experience the moment. It was a fantastic recommendation, Nan and Pa!
We had dinner (Rob fish and me jambalaya) afterwards and now we are back in the room. We walked back via Bourbon Street but were too tired to have a look. We will check it out properly another day. We've had a really great day!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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