New Orleans Day 4

Did I begin the day with coffee before dawn and a walk when the sun came up? But of course.

A house spotted on the walk.

We didn't have any scheduled activities this day, so I let everyone sleep in a little bit and we left the house around 10 a.m. We had arranged to go visit my aunt and uncle, who live in Covington. This is a suburban town across the Causeway.

The Causeway is a giant bridge that spans the entirety of Lake Pontchartrain. It's about 24 miles long, which means you drive on it for a very long time and it really feels like you're just out there in the middle of the water. It's pretty fun, although I wouldn't want to break down on it.

We did not break down and made it to my aunt and uncle's house. We visited with them for a little bit before going to my cousin's house nearby. She has a granddaughter Poppy's age and my aunt wanted the two girls to meet.

After that, my aunt and uncle wanted to take us out to lunch, so they started driving to the restaurant and we followed in our car. 

This is when I got a message from our Airbnb host that the cleaners were at the house getting it ready for the next guests and that some of our personal effects were still there.

Well, yes. ALL our personal effects were still there, because we weren't leaving until the next day. But apparently I had made a mistake in my booking and this day was the last day I had reserved.

*&$*#@!!!

That was what was in my head as I frantically messaged our host, trying to figure out what I needed to do. I was expecting a big fee, all our stuff thrown out, etc. Instead, when I apologized and told her how sorry I was to have caused so much trouble, she was very understanding and told me the cleaning crew would collect all our things and store them in a locked room until we could get there to pick them up.

I felt very bad about this, because of course our belongings were scattered around, since we hadn't planned on having to pack up until that night. I had, thankfully, asked the kids that morning to pick out their clothing for the next day and put everything else in their bags, so their rooms weren't too bad. It was still a lot of random stuff for the cleaners to gather up, though.

By the time I had had this exchange with our host and checked to make sure that yes, our flight and rental car return were indeed for the next day, we were at the restaurant. Our Airbnb host had told me there was no rush to get back to the house, but I felt like we should get there as soon as possible. I made my apologies to my aunt and uncle and we went right back across the Causeway to New Orleans.

On our way back to the house, I made a hasty new reservation on Airbnb. I had originally thought I would just get rooms at a hotel near the airport, as we were flying out the next day. However, A. encouraged me to try to find another house in New Orleans. That way we could actually enjoy our last afternoon and night. Hotels are not enjoyable for our family, so I took his point and got back onto Airbnb.

Within the parameters I had set for number of beds and cost, there were only a couple of options. I chose a renovated shotgun house and made the reservation. So at least we had somewhere to sleep that night.

We arrived back at the house when the cleaning lady was still there, so we had a chance to look around the house and get anything she had missed. She actually got almost everything. She had even bagged up the food in the refrigerator so we could take that with us. She was very nice about all of this, assuring us that Venus was in retrograde, and that was probably why this had happened. I gave her a large tip, we stuffed our very disorganized belongings in the car, and we set off for our new house.

It was only about half an hour away, and we couldn't get into it for over an hour. It was now about 2 p.m. None of us had eaten lunch yet. I had been promising my children po'boys for four days and had not yet delivered. A quick search on my phone revealed that one of the most famous po'boy places in the city, Domelise's, was only half a mile from our new house. It closed in an hour, so we went directly there.

Po'boys are like sub sandwiches. They are made on French bread, with various toppings, often seafood, served dressed--with lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayonnaise--or undressed, and hot or cold. They're best, in my opinion, dressed and heated. And the bread is miles better than most subs. I love them.

This place was a real hole in the wall institution, clearly.

Sandwiches being made above a sketch of the building.

I ordered two ham and cheese, two shrimp, and two oyster po'boys, plus five Barq's root beers, which is local to New Orleans. Our sandwiches were ready within about fifteen minutes. We sat outside to eat them, as the restaurant was closing.

After that, we parked in front of our new house. This turned out to be on Tchoupitoulas Street, a main parade route for the Mardi Gras parade. We still had about half an hour before we could get into the house, so we walked around the neighborhood for a bit until we could get in.

Hello, new home.

Shotgun houses are particular to New Orleans. They are so named because they are long and narrow, have no hallways, each room leads directly into the next, and theoretically, you can stand at the front door and shoot a gun from there to the back without the bullet going through any walls.

My children were disappointed that this house didn't have the doors lined up, so the shotgun test wouldn't have worked. It was still a cool old house, though.

This was the first bedroom, which was between the kitchen/living room and the next bedroom.

After getting all our stuff inside and re-organizing it all, and then settling the children in front of a documentary about bayous on one of the three televisions, A. and I realized we could actually leave and go have a drink in a bar. Like a date.

This house was in the Riverside district of New Orleans, which meant were a LOT of bars to choose from. We passed a couple that were just standard bars with middle-aged regulars hanging out drinking. This was not really the scene I was going for. Instead we went to a fancy bar associated with a steakhouse, where it was quiet and we could get nice cocktails and actually talk.

This was vodka, St. Germain (an elderflower liqueur) lime, and cranberry juice. It was very good.

This was only about half a mile from our house, so we were gone about an hour. On our walk back, we happened to go past a warehouse that had an open door and lights on. We paused to look in, because it was pretty clear that they were making Mardi Gras floats in there. We agreed we should bring the children back to see it, so as soon as we got back to the house, we gathered them all up and walked back to the warehouse.

We stopped in the open doors just to look, but a sculptor named Benny saw us there and invited us in. When he learned we don't live there, he took us on a tour and explanation of the various works of art in progress. He would not have done this if we were local, because we were seeing the parade floats for the coming Mardi Gras, which are supposed to be secret.

For that reason, I will not show you the couple of photos I took, but it was very cool. He explained the themes and how the floats are constructed from paper mache on a frame of two by fours.

After that we went back to the house and spent some time sitting on the front porch, eating potato chips and watching the traffic go by on Tchoupitoulas Street before going to bed.

The next day wasn't too early of a start. We were in the car by 7:45 a.m. to get to the airport. I wasn't sure how long it would take to return the car* and get through security the day before Thanksgiving, so I made sure we had lots of time. 

Everything was so fast, though, that we ended up sitting at our gate for about two hours. Plenty of time for a few more beignets from the airport Cafe Du Monde.

Not as good as Jackson Square, but happily eaten nonetheless.

Our flights and drive home were uneventful, if long. We had a wonderful time, but everyone was very glad to make it home.

* I had a few minutes of panic when I left my purse in the rental car and had to run back up to the car to search for it. Thankfully, the car hadn't been moved yet. Unthankfully, I first looked in the wrong car because it was exactly the same as our rental car, same color and everything. When I eventually realized my mistake and looked in the right car, I found my purse right away, but it was a bad few minutes.