I'm staying in the AAE Bourbon House Hostel, which offers a free shuttle from the airport and train station. Naturally, that's the point that sold it for me! I'm paying $19 per night, booked through Hostel World, for a 6 bed, female dorm. It's in the Garden District and has plenty of bars and places to eat nearby. The staff are wonderfully friendly and it's overall a really nice hostel. There's a full kitchen, with a pancake station in the mornings, and a common room with free wifi. Laundry is $4, once the hostel laundry has been done. Walmart is a short walk down the street, and there's two fridges (one in the kitchen, which shuts at midnight I think, and one on the patio). It's also full of British people! I'd definitely stay here again.
I didn't do much exploring on my first day, as it was about 5pm by the time I was checked in and changed into clean clothes. Instead I went out for some dinner at a nearby pub (Down the Hatch), recommended by the hostel staff. It was a pretty dingy looking place outside, but the food was deeeeeelicious. I had a grilled chicken and mozzarella cheese sandwich (po-boy?) with fries. They were soooo good!
After that I went back to the hostel, stopping to take photos along the way, and played around on my laptop. I was exhausted after the long train ride, and ended up in bed by 10.30pm! Living the high life here in New Orleans...
It wasn't a completely wasted evening, as I did get some planning done for the next day. I booked myself onto a free walking tour of the Garden District with Free Tours By Foot. It met at the corner of Washington Avenue and Prytania Street, outside the Lafayette Cemetery. That was about 20 minutes away from the hostel, but I gave myself about 45 minutes as I have a tendency to get lost. Not sure how much trouble I could have with the directions "Turn right on Felicity, follow it for 0.5 miles. Turn left onto Prytania, follow it for 0.5 miles", but I would rather be safe than sorry! It was a hot day, so I recommend taking a drink. I also recommend a waterproof jacket...
The tour was about 2 hours long (approximately a mile of walking), and took us around the cemetery to begin with...
...and then along some of the streets (I forget which, sorry!) to show us some of the fancy houses. The houses were spectacular, and the history involved in them were fascinating.
Side note, the tour guide told us that the house in the final photo above is thought to have been Walt Disney's inspiration for the "look" of the Haunted Mansion ride. The Disney geek in me loved that!
Not long after these photos were taken, it began to rain. The tour guide gave us an abridged version of the remainder of the tour as we all got quite wet. One of the other people on the tour, a lady from The Netherlands, kindly shared her umbrella with me - thank you! The tour was very much worth it, with a lot of interesting information given...for free! I wanted to go on the French Quarter tour tomorrow but it's sold out already.
Once it was done, we sheltered under an awning, waiting for the rain to let up a little.
After the rain subsided a little, I headed down the street a few blocks until I reached Magazine Street. I walked down a ways, stopping to snap a couple of photos of the fire station.
I found a nice looking cafe, Joey K's, and went in for some lunch. I went for 2 pieces of fried chicken and fries. The service was fabulous! They accidentally cooked me chicken tenders, so the waitress brought it out to me, apologised for the mistake and explained that they were cooking my fried chicken but thought I'd probably be hungry, so let me have the hot chicken tenders anyway (wasn't charged for them). I got french bread while I waited, and free refills of my soda. The food was lovely, and I definitely recommend them. They also offered to give me a trash bag for when I was about to go back outside into the rain! I used my styrofoam take-out box as a rain shelter most of my way home. Luckily my fried chicken stayed dry!
I was about 20 minutes way from the hostel, and the rain was really coming down. The closer I got, the worse it was! I stopped in a petrol station for a few minutes, where I had the full sympathy of the staff and customers. I also stopped in the doorway of a nice shop, where the sales assistant was busy "documenting this crazy weather" with her rather fancy looking camera. The streets started to flood, with the water coming up level with the sidewalk. Each time I crossed the road my flip flops were sucked off my feet (leaving me running back to grab them before they floated away!) and the water came up to my ankle and above. Trash cans were floating away, but the water was too deep for me to want to go and rescue them. By the time I reached the hostel, I was soaked to the bone and was carrying my flip flops. They took one look at me and just handed me a towel! I couldn't have got more wet if I'd jumped in a pool! It's almost 3 hours later and my hair is still damp. I'm now curled up on the sofa in my sweat-pants and camp hoodie, not wanting to risk going back outside for a while. Apparently some places in the area are without power, so I guess we didn't get hit too badly...
There's a hostel bar crawl later tonight that I might go along on, and then tomorrow I'm planning on going to explore the French Quarter.
All in all, I absolutely adore New Orleans and already plan on coming back for Mardi Gras sometime! It's full of the friendliest, most helpful people I've ever met. I know there's a high crime rate, but I've seen nothing but good things so far. Touch wood it stays that way.
Also, I love the fact that there are beads everywhere! It's like a treasure hunt...
No comments:
Post a Comment