Garden District, City Park, and Preservation Hall

Thursday and St. Patrick’s Day in New Orleans. We had an elegant breakfast at Angeline’s at the Provincial Hotel on Chartres, just one block from our hotel. It was delicious. They squeeze their own juices.

Then we began a day-long adventure on the streetcars of New Orleans. First we headed to Parasol’s in the Garden District for what was billed as an 11 am St. Patrick’s Day parade. It was more like a block party. There was no parade. But to be fair we did not get there until 1 pm. One lady who was sitting out on the boulevard looking like she was waiting for a parade told us, “There is no organized parade, but if you want a disorganized, those people over there are the masters of disorganized.” She was pointing at Parasol’s. It was an 8 block walk there. Trudie and I were both over-heated and dehydrated. So, we walked 7 more blocks to Joey K’s restaurant, which I learned about from the Triple D TV show. It was cool, the ice water had lemon in it. Trudie and I both had shrimp salads (of different types) with remoulade dressing. It was delicious, but the waitress just did NOT care about us at all!

Joey K’s had a painted sign on the wall that said: “Oh no, not you again."
>/br>We walked another 6 blocks back to where we picked up the streetcar and went to City Park where Mary wanted to see the New Orleans Museum of Art. They were only open for one more hour by the time we got there. People had created floral arrangements riffing off some of the paintings in the collection. Some florists had good concept designs that fit the painting’s zeitgeist, but some just picked up the colors of the paintings. I really the guy who put two birds of paradise in a birdcage. We walked thru City Park on our way back to the streetcar back to the French Quarter.

We walked for a few blocks on Bourbon Street but did not get the full effect of the smells, mostly because there had been rain that day. We went to dinner at Café Remoulade – the poorer sister of Café Arnaud (located just around the corner and whose kitchen they share). We had Creole dinners, Sazerac, and pecan pie for dessert. The food was great and our waitress was wonderful! We watched 3 young boys (about age 10) doing tap dancing on Bourbon Street. They were really good! And we saw part of a really pathetic parade.

After dinner we walked to Preservation Hall for the classic jazz show. We had fun conversations in the line with a father, mother, and son from near Pasadena, California (and previously Germany); and with a father, daughter, and friend from Oregon who was trying to organize a revolt in the line. The show in Preservation Hall was well worth experiencing – again!