Day One in The Big Easy
December 12, 2009 We recharge at Cafe du Monde, often. This is the first time I get a glimpse behind the scenes as I wait for the bathrooms, which I will avoid at all costs in the future.
A load of beignets, fried squares of dough mounded with icing sugar, en route to tourists crammed around tiny round tables and lined up out the door:
My first Cafe du Monde experience triggered a hacking fit (WARNING: avoid inhaling when you bite a beignet), clouds of powdered sugar and a poor wardrobe choice: black on black. I learned fast. Now, I typically leave the beignets to Lloyd while I recharge on murky, full-bodied chicory coffee. From the cafe's website: "The Acadians from Nova Scotia brought this taste and many other french customs (heritage) to Louisiana."
Sufficiently caffeinated, we wander the boutiques around Jackson Square (Place d'Armes).
At Louis Sahuc Photo Works we learned we arrived just in time for PhotoNOLA, a city-wide photography event, and just in time for torrential rains. Undeterred, we ventured out. Here's our approach to Canal Street:
Canal Street, presumably not named for its ability to in fact transform itself into a channel of sluicing water, became an actual canal on account of the all-day drumming rain. The depth, however, came on almost by surprise, so gradual that we splashed through until we were literally wading through, ankle deep, with no dry exits in sight.
Though soaked to the knees (jeans = wicks) we trekked on. How could it get worse? Well, I'll tell you.
Several soggy blocks later we sloshed into the hotel only to be informed by the doorman that the exhibition "moved." Thus, we splashed back to the evening's point of origin, refusing to allow our sopped state to dampen our moods, and admired the fine photographs, daguerreotypes (something to do with iodine, silver plate and mercury vapor), photogravures (transferred from a negative and etched on metal plates) and orotones (gold tone prints from negatives) at A Gallery.
-P
P.S. We stayed at French Quarter RV, which is conveniently located just outside The Quarter. Though convenient, we were forewarned, repeatedly, "Do not walk back in the dark." Still, it's a nice RV camp and we' would definitely stay there again.