The Big Easy - Day 1

Yvonne and Old Man River.

Squeen: Do the readers know we're in New Orleans?
Yvonne: No.
Squeen: Wow, ok.

Well, the cat's out of the bag. We are in the Crescent City for five days...yeah, you thought my birthday celebration was a big blowout. But this is what you get when you complete three decades on this doomed planet. (30!!!)

As we all know, Yvonne's favorite things are sweets and travel, so travel we did -- and yes, sweets have already been consumed. More on that later.

Despite our reasons for being here, we spent most of our first afternoon pursuing things on my to do list (have I mentioned that accommodation is one of Yvonne's finer traits?)... we saw some important sites from the New Orleans-based novel, my favorite of all time, A Confederacy of Dunces.

If you haven't read it, do it. Hilarious. Archly original. No more brilliantly drawn character ever put to print than Ignatius J. Reilly.

And since Ignatius lived in a dumpy little house on Constantinople Street between St. Charles and the river... and since our bed and breakfast sits among the beautiful old homes and handful of dumpy houses on that same stretch of Constantinople Street, a pilgrimage was in order.


Ignatius' house?

From there, we took a longish walk among the stately homes on the way to the Prytania theater, where Ignatius would watch the beach blanket films of the early '60s just to get inflamed about the decrepit state of the culture. Sorta like watching Fox News on purpose. (What would Ignatius have said about Sarah Palin? "She should be lashed until she drops!")



And last, was a streetcar ride and a search for the statue of Ignatius on Canal Street.



We're calling it an early night tonight because we are spending the next two days volunteering in a neighborhood that was flooded by Katrina. There WILL be nightlife on this trip, though. Our awesome innkeeper has pointed the way, we've got tons of recs, and I'm digging the vibe of this city.


Aforementioned sweet. Beignet at Cafe du Monde. As far as deep-fried vehicles for the delivery of powdered sugar go, this has to be one of the better ones.


Looks like a pretty good Day 1.