"It's kinda like Louisiana . . . Or Dagobah" (part one)

Or exactly like Louisiana, because that's where Mr. flyskim and I have been for the past week.  The idea for this trip came about during a dinner last summer with sister-in-law V-Star and her husband, G-Man, who, after one too many Manhattans (or maybe just enough), suggested that we all go to New Orleans in the spring.  I promptly forgot that G-Man tends to talk a good game when under the influence of bourbon, and Mr. flyskim and I researched and booked a hotel.  Well, our traveling companions begged out fairly early (like right after we told them about making reservations), but since we hadn't been on a vacation that didn't involve family stuff in several years, the husband and I decided to go anyway.  We stayed at Le Pavillon in the Central Business District, and I thought the hotel was fine.  Good location, just a few blocks outside of the French Quarter.  Since we were on a main street, I was thrilled that our room was at the back of the hotel.  Here is the view from our window (I take this same picture every time we travel).  What a neat little rooftop garden on the building across the parking lot.

Since we'd never been to New Orleans before, our trip was chock full of all of the stuff that tourists do in the Big Easy including spending too much time in the French Quarter, drinking cocktails that came out of a slushee machine, wandering around cemeteries, buying beignet mix and coffee with chicory, hanging out in the swamp and tours, tours, tours.  For me, the most interesting part of the trip (other than being told by a very happy doorman outside of the "Barely Legal" club on Bourbon Street that his establishment was fun for the whole family so long as the whole family "was over 21 and liked boobies") was how the city grew outwards from the French Quarter and how many different nationalities of immigrants created the city and its culture, architecture and food.  We took several walking tours, one of the French Quarterwith the Friends of the Cabildo  and another of the riverfront with the national parks service.  We now know quite a bit about this one very small part of New Orleans.  While I liked this area, I also understand why locals don't really go there that often as it is very tourist-oriented, and I started wanting less commercialism by the end of the week.  Here are some of my favorite pictures from our trip.

 Breakfast our first morning.  Everyone needs to eat a beignet at Café du Monde when they're in New Orleans.

 Napoleon House.  Good food, reasonable prices and smaller portions.  Also, reading all of the articles on the walls about the owners was fascinating.

This historic house had two front stairways, one for men and one for women.  The women's stairway was wider than the men's to allow for the size of their skirts.

We also took an airboat tour of a swamp and bayou.  Our guide was Captain Carl, as he called himself.  He says that he's lived on homesteaded family land in a swamp all of his life and told us stories about growing up there.

Carl seems to have had a very interesting life.  He is a trained ship's navigator and has been through the Panama Canal multiple times and spent 15 months navigating a ship on the Black Sea which he says was a miserable experience.  He has also operated airboats as a part of the filming of several movies and television shows that were shot on the swamp we visited.  And, not that I didn't already know this, but he says that in all of his life, he has never seen anyone living in the swamp as it was depicted in Deliverance.  I only mention this because we did she the remains of a shack, but Carl said that this was one of the sets from the Adam Sandler movie The Waterboy that wasn't removed when the crew left.

Obligatory picture of a gator.

I'm going to end this here because the number of pictures are getting out of control.  I still have cemetery photos and pictures from the Mardi Gras exhibit (had to go since we weren't there during Mardi Gras itself) that I want to share.  I've also finished knitting an Anthropologie inspired scarf and will be posting the details later.  And now that I'm back, I can start sewing again.  Next up, the dress from McCalls 5818.

And I would also like to say welcome to my first follower, Sewtellme.  I'm very excited that you're here, and I'll try my best to be informative and entertaining.