So yesterday was a pretty chilled day. I awoke to The good news that my luggage had been delivered to the hostel. Yay!!! No more wrongly sized clothing, which, style wise, I would never, ever wear and only ended up as a purchase due to being cheap.  I could now also properly charge my phone and my kindle ( an absolute necessity, especially when looking for a distraction to pass the time) and more importantly, proper clean stuff and dress underwear!!!!

There is only so many times you can rinse out your undergarments before finally admitting that they have had their time and need to undergo a high temp disinfection wash cycle or failing those facilities, bin them for health and safety reasons (don’t judge, desperate measures and all that…)

I was so happy, I skipped down stairs only to find one of the volunteers who speaks the least english out of all the volunteers. He is french, very, very nice but due to a language barrier, he didn’t fully understand what I was asking.  No one else was up as they were probably recovering from the night before so I dragged myself out determined to enjoy the day.

Yeah It kinda worked, I spent the day around the garden district ogling the very big, spacious and beautiful mansions that are around in various styles (French,Spanish, Otalian, Greek influence etc). They all have a lot of history, often being the home of plantation owners or high officials such as the governor of New Orleans and High ranking military officials. I found it very weird seeing these very big, beautiful and luxurious homes and admiring them while knowing that at least one of the houses had been built by slaves for their plantation owner. Very surreal and humbling that such beauty is made at the expense of others and I must admit, this made me feel a bit uncomfortable.  There are parts of the world where people have a lot and there are people who have very little.

 

 

 

After that I visited Lafyette cemetery N1. Which was…..interesting in a really eerily way. All crypts are above ground and some are decorated and some aren’t. Some are in good repair, some aren’t. One was open (no, before you ask, no body was at home…)  That gave me the creeps, and, one was supposedly the grave of a voodoo queen.  Very interesting. I didn’t take pictures as it felt wrong and, well wrong to take pictures of a persons grave.

After this bout of culture and history I bounced back to the hostel, excited to get my hands on my rucksack.  Sadly it wasn’t to be as the guy from the morning was still there and hadn’t really done any chasing or tried looking for my rucksack 😩. Almost losing the will to live at this point with the situation and convinced destiny was contriving to make this the most difficult trip EVER and keep me separated from my beloved rucksack with all my worldly procession that I currently have!! I phoned Rob, the manager of the hostel.  Rob was excellent, and, much to my relief, came and located the rucksack immediately and proceeded to tell off Frenchie (nickname lovingly given to him by two Scottish lads at the hostel and not me I hasten to add).

A much happier me then could relax, finally, and begin enjoying the trip without the worry and the hassle of tying to replace all procession brought on this trip. 😀

As usual around 8pm the residents of the hostel gather in the courtyard to socialise (drink beer), make friends (drink beer), eat hotdogs (while drinking beer) play games (drinking games involving drinking beer). It was very fun meeting the new residents and the night preceded as expected with an all you can drink keg for $10 in the form of drinking games and ending up in Frenchman road drinking  more beer (Frenchman Road is the place to be for local New Orleans who want to go out and enjoy a night of Jazz, dancing and beer).

Suffice to say I had a sore head this morning and had to drag my self up. Feeling the worse for wear, the only solution is to eat and eat lots. I took myself to the French quarter which I knew had lovely places to mooch around and eat lots. Everyone here is fascinated by the square little donut things. They call them Beignets and they are the most delicious things imaginable, but, you will die a horrible and lingering death from diabetes – see picture below.

Yes, that is confectionary sugar (icing sugar to us in the UK) and they are always served baking hot and in threes. Not sure why so much sugar or why they only come in multiples of three but I don’t see anyone complaining. And the queues are massive in several places where they are sold they are that popular with everybody.

After that it rained again!!!!  Proper rain, not the dribbles we get in the UK but full blown sheets of rain. That is so weird about is place, one minute it is sweltering and you feel you are literally about to melt like the Wicked Witch in the wizard of Oz and all of a sudden it feels as it someone is ringing out the clouds like a wet paper towel and everyone is diving for cover, scattering like mice when startled by a sudden noise.

I had to quickly dive for cover under a balcony until it settled and then discovered a small museum which had a really good display on Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath.  Very sad and touching but also very inspiring to hear how people banded together to help each other out.   It also showed the history of Mardi Gras.  It was fascinating to visit. As I stepped out, it was yet again, baking hot and there was a jazz band playing on the street.

How cool is that??

Am officially in love with New Orleans ❤️❤️❤️❤️