Unplanned explorations

The plan for the day was not to have a plan, or as little of a plan as possible. After breakfast we walked over to St Charles St to catch the street car to Canal St. We bought a 24h pass for USD3 so that we could explore wherever took our fancy.

Just because of the tram that turned up for us, we took one to City Gardens. My interest in the arts wasn’t deep enough to warrant paying for the exhibition so we enjoyed the garden instead. There were some good sculptures but then we stumbled on a place for lunch.

They had Louisiana food which we hadn’t had much of yet, so we opted for the jambalaya and the gumbo. The former was like thick leftover congee (which I rally liked) rather than paella which it is more often likened to. The latter was a thick soup ladled over rice. We enjoyed them both but didn’t have a chance to try red bean and rice which is the other local specialty.

Using the wifi, we realised that St Louis #3 Cemetery was just outside. We had hoped to go to a cemetery and originally thought that Madison was closer but this one was just across the road from the tram.

The cemetery was quite nicely maintained with all the stonework in very good white condition. It didn’t have the rustic look as seen in Paris or Buenos Aires. Somehow the ambience isn’t quite the same because of the condition and the beautiful bright weather. The weather had turned clear blue with cool breezes and low humidity; I couldn’t believe our luck as others had bad weather in the days before.

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We trammed back to Canal St where we took one last dose of Bourbon and Royal Streets. Surprisingly, we needed a snack. This time we had the opportunity to try out red bean and rice. It was stewed red kidney beans (rather than the Chinese dessert variety) with sausages over rice. Very tasty like all the local fare.

On the tram back to the guesthouse, we stopped near the WWII museum so that I could pay for Kim’s entrance. There were some road works which meant we needed to a large detour on foot. Kim lost interest very suddenly. We hopped back on the next tram and spent the remainder of the afternoon sitting in the sun in the backyard. Now, that’s not something one can do in a typical city hotel!

We grabbed dinner back at Juan’s Flying Burrito again where dined last night. We repeated the Jerk Shrimp and Mango Salad but had one each instead of sharing one, plus a burrito to share. The dressing on the baby spinach salad was bloody awesome.