The French Way

One of the most seedy bars on Bourbon, despite the fabulous sign.

Now onto the second sin of Rue du Bourbon; Sex. Although not quite as prevalent as in Las Vegas, the sex industry in New Orleans is visibly thriving. Especially on Bourbon.

The Deja Vu Club.

The variety of strip clubs is dazzling and many of them seem to want to project an image of style and elegance from their establishments. On of my favourite “sex sights” was the swing in Rick’s Saloon. Once the adult hours were upon the city, a swing with a plastic lady on it would start swinging in and out of the front window of the club. She wore red and white stripe stockings with a little it of white fur for decoration. I did a double take when I first saw her because I couldn’t tell if it was real or not!

Rick’s Saloon. The swinging legs are just visible through the window on the left.

There were a few of these “saloons” or places that attempted the 1920’s or Wild West theme. Rick’s was one of the ones which actually succeeded with this look.

Babe’s Cabaret had a very plush,red velvet foyer area.

During my day of wandering up and down one of the most visited streets in America, I made sure to take photos of as many of these strip clubs as I could. there were bouncers outside most of them and my photography earned me some confused/angry stares from them!

Big Daddy’s World Famous Love Acts Club…not the type of place for a lady!

Of course there were some strip clubs that had a very seedy and rough exterior, all illusions of decadence were forgotten. My favourite club on the seedy scale would have to be the Barely Legal Club. Even the name is filthy! There is no attempt to disguise the rough and dirty aspect of this place. There are even pornographic photos around the entrance.

The Barely Legal Club. As trashy as it sounds.

Next – The French Market.

Bourbon St. What did you Expect?

Down Decatur Street.

The French Quarter is what everyone pictures when they think of New Orleans. It’s got the same run down charm as some of San Francisco. Even the scabby parts look beautiful because of the ornate iron railings and balconies. Everything just has a feel of old-world decadence.

Neon and Balconies. Welcome to the French Quarter.

There are signs all over Decatur advertising balconies for rent. These signs confused me at first, “Are people so desperate that they would rent out a single balcony to live on?” And then it clicked; Mardi Gras. The French Quarter has become a consumer product…you sell the views and the Voodoo.

But, onto Bourbon Street now. It’s a combination of various sins…drinking and sex with some consumerism thrown in. Everything on Bourbon is either a bar, a tourist shop or a strip club. The streets have a certain scent of bodily functions and the bars and clubs open all day and all night. Honestly, I walked past a full on club at about 2pm.

Big Easy drinking…Big, easy drinking.

The selection of frozen Daiquiris and Margarita was astounding. Every drinking establishment claims to have the best flavours and the biggest (most pointless) novelty drinking cups. You pay an extra dollar or two and you can become the proud and confused owner of a hollow, plastic guitar, fleur de lis or margarita glass. These are one of those souvenirs that seem like a really cool thing at the time but then you realise that you’ll have to carry it round with you for the rest of the day, thereby looking like every other tourist in the city. Then there’s the issue of getting it into your suitcase. I personally stuck to the boring, bog-standard plastic cup-shaped cup for my Hurricane.

My poison of choice.

I had this delicious concoction in a place called the Gazebo Cafe. For about £5 they give you some frozen, fruity goodness and top it up with about half a bottle of rum. I could smell the alcohol before the lady even handed it to me. But it was delicious and exactly the type of drink you need in the unbelievable humid heat of Louisiana. Just one of these was all it took for me to be reasonably tipsy. The Voodoo Museum mentioned in the previous post was actually found and explored while I was under the influence of a Hurricane. It made it even more fun! The best $7 I ever spent on a single drink.

Next – More on Bourbon.

“Voodoo Happens”

I feel each aspect of New Orleans deserves a post of its own…and so I begin with Voodoo. According to Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo, “Voodoo Happens”.

On my first full day in the Big Easy I wanted to ride one of the famous streetcars but the ticket machine was being a bit temperamental so I decided to take a stroll down Canal, along the river and towards the French Quarter. I could have gone via Bourbon Street but I wanted to save the seediness for another day.

Not actually in the French Quarter but it deserves a mention because of the name…Voodoo Mart.

All around The French Quarter and the other tourist hotspots were these little dilapidated shops selling voodoo dolls, magic bundles of herbs, spells, incense and even exorcisms. They all had a similar heavy scent of burning incense and they all sold pretty much the same thing. That didn’t stop me going into almost every single one I saw! I found them fascinating and I wondered if the people who owned these strange, worn out, buildings actually believed in the power of magic heather or casting spells.

The front of the Voodoo Museum.

My absolute favourite place in New Orleans was discovered completely by accident. As I said, I spent my afternoon popping in and out of occult shops and I happened to find the Voodoo Museum. From the outside it looked like a shabby building, from the inside it looked like someone’s house. It was, in fact, someone’s house. I walked in (with some trepidation I will admit, as well as excitement!) and they have a makeshift ticket office, which was a low table with a black woman in rags sat behind it. A fat white man was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room (which wasn’t exactly a long distance) and he was wearing Voodoo beads and Mardi Gras necklaces. To be honest, he looked like an over-zealous tourist but, from the way they spoke, I think he was some sort of Witch doctor.

During my visit the black witch lady was called on to perform some sort of spell. She went up to one of the alters and started lighting candles and chanting. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to take photos of this ritual but I took a sly one. It’s not something I’m ever going to see again is it?

The Witchdoctor performing some spells.

Only in New Orleans!

Half the time I had no idea what i was looking at.

The museum was basically the ground floor of someone’s house but it was full of voodoo related bits and pieces, and some completely unrelated things. there were portraits of Marie Laveau the Voodoo Queen, wooden carvings and alters, skeletons with top hats on, Mardi Gras beads, coins photos, cigarettes, prayer candle stands with dolls on, a skull with a cigar and an iron gate.

An altar dedicated to the occult…and the Virgin Mary.

It was, without any doubt, the best $5 I have ever spent, and the most fun museum I have ever been to!

Top hat skeleton and Maharaja gator.

Next – Boozing in the French Quarter.

 

At Home on the 46th Floor

View from the 46th floor above New Orleans.

If you’ve never been on one of the “secret deal” websites for hotels, I strongly recommend you use on the next time you travel. During my three months in American, I managed to stay in some incredible hotels for a surprisingly cheap rate. New Orleans was a perfect example. I got myself a room in The Sheraton on Canal Street, one of the best hotels in the city. They gave me a room on the 46th floor.

Canal Street viewed from the ground.

I gasped when I saw it and I had to reach out for the desk chair and sit myself down for a minute. I could see all down Canal Street, all the way to the Mississippi in the distance, The Graveyard where a Voodoo Queen is buried, Neon lights from Bourbon Street, palm tress, the famous streetcars, the freeway and a few skyscrapers.

I liked to press my head against the thin window pane. If I looked directly down it felt like I was about to plummet to earth on a lethal glass surfboard.

Many of the shop names made little or no sense. But they were in neon.

New Orleans is one of those cities that’s almost exactly like you’d imagine it to be. It’s all about Voodoo, boozing and Mardi Gras, and all three of these key industries can be found in the French Quarter.

Next – The French Quarter.

It’s 7am in New Orleans.

View of Canal Street.

Before we get to 7am in New Orleans, we have to cover the bus ride from Houston to Louisiana. I had a short nap but I woke up before we reached Baton Rouge. We switched buses and a very nice baggage handler carried my suitcase for me. He found out I was from the UK and he said “Wow. What the hell are you doing all the way down here?” Americans sometimes seem quite shocked that an international traveller would want to see their part of the world.

While having a snooze in a seat to myself between Baton Rouge and New Orleans I managed to catch some amazing sights. I had my back against the arm rest on the aisle seat with my feet up on the window seat. I opened my eyes mid-doze to see the sun rising across the great, low-lying state of Louisiana. It was so serene and beautiful that I couldn’t take my sleepy eyes off it.

Sunset in downtown “Nawlins”…not quite the same but you get a general idea!

I was so distracted by the sunrise, I almost didn’t notice that we were driving over water. There was still, blue water stretching in all directions, with palm trees and water plants growing around the road. It was like an extended bridge except the left and right lanes were separate. It was very strange and it took a minute to register in my brain.

I arrived in The Big Easy at (as the title suggests) about 7am. I managed to incur the wrath of the station security guard by asking where I could find the taxis. Right outside the main door, which I was standing next to.

I was eager to see this city, it had been one of the places I knew I wanted to go and my first glimpse of it was at its most peaceful.

Next – My hotel and Canal Street.

Houston, we have a problem.

An obvious quote to use for the title of this post but an appropriate one. The 12 hours I spent in the bus terminal in Houston were some of the most painful I have had while going Greyhound. My destination always made the hassle of the journey worth it though; those four days it took to get to San Francisco seemed like  nothing when I arrived and saw the beauty of the city, and so I knew that once I reached New Orleans this would all seem like a rough five minutes.

I thought popping across the road to McDonald’s might kill some time but that actually used up less than an hour. And I still hadn’t been able to try the McCafe strawberry lemonade that I’d had my eye on! Houston was very humid compared with the dry heat of Dallas, but I was always quite lucky with the terminals I was stuck in for extended periods; Salt Lake City was spacious and Houston was pretty big too and so there was room to stretch my legs. I always worried that I would arrive to a shack on the edge of town with a cardboard sign stuck to the window.

As I was waiting, the small TV sets showed CNN and I was enjoying learning about America’s position in Afghanistan. But it wasn’t long before someone turned it over to a channel showing “Rambo First Blood part II”. Not quite as educational and thought-provoking but a distraction nonetheless.

I started to get tired and irritable in Houston. I became bored with people watching all the badly brought up brats, teenagers jumping about and the way everyone getting off the buses ran straight towards the charging stations to plug-in their phones.

At 10pm I bought a cup of coffee and grabbed a bit of floor. It was pretty uncomfortable and I swear I have been on more comfy floors! There was a Mexican cowboy standing opposite me with a purple shirt, Stetson, tight jeans and cuban heels. Every time I looked up at him he seemed to be putting himself in a cowboy pose. I was surprised he wasn’t chewing a toothpick or a blade of corn.

I am always quite proud of my appearance but when you go Greyhound you can’t help but let yourself go a bit if it’s an overnight journey. I decided that I would take pyjama bottoms with me on my next trek around the USA. Those buses are surprisingly cold at night! I worked out that I spent about a week in total sleeping on a bus.

While waiting, I saw an advert for a dating site, which proclaimed “You can accomplish anything if you’re with the right person”. You can also accomplish just as much if you’re on your own.

Next – Arrival in the big easy.

Dallas to New Orleans – The Beginning.

The night before I was due to leave Dallas, I was woken up by a massive storm. And I mean massive! I had flicked onto the weather channel and it had mentioned some severe storms but adverse weather had missed me until now. I was lying in bed and I was woken up by the blinding flashes of lightning and some biblical thunder.

I am normally a fan of thunder and lightning but this was scary. It felt sounded like the world was going to end and it was so dark outside; like being in an Edgar Allen Poe story. I managed to nod off though and then got up in the morning for my short stroll to the Greyhound terminal. I was back onto state hopping since leaving California and I was loving it. The bus terminal always held some excitement for me because I was about to enter a new state every time I went there.

Of course, it’s not Greyhound without something going wrong. Due to the crazy storms of the previous night, the bus heading for Louisiana was delayed by a few hours. So delayed in fact that we were told that, if we were heading to New Orleans and we got on this bus, we were in for an 18 hour wait in Shreveport. Our other option was to wait and get on a bus going south and wait in Houston, TX for a mere 12 hours instead. I would arrive in The Big Easy at 7am the next day.

Old Red.

“Everything is bigger in Texas” As demonstrated by some wonderful buildings in downtown Dallas.

The heat in Dallas was almost unbearable. Even a 15 minute walk to McDonald’s seemed like a trek through the desert and so I had to take shelter in a museum of my choice. It was a choice between Old Red Courthouse and Museum or the Dallas Holocaust Museum. I had no idea how to get to the latter and it sounded like a bit of a depressing way to spend an afternoon and so I chose Old Red.

Old Red is a museum that tells the story of Dallas’ place in history, from its humble beginnings to becoming the largest city in Texas. When you pay your admission, they give you a sticker to show you’ve paid and you’re supposed to wear it as long as you’re in the museum. It says “Adult” on it in big, bold letters and it made me feel like I was on a school trip. I forgot to take it off so I bought myself a Subway while declaring to the world that I was an “Adult” who had paid to get into Old Red.

The majestic Old Red Courthouse.

I learnt a lot about Dallas from the displays and I learnt even more about Americans attitudes to the past. Americans have such an unshakeable pride in their heritage but there are certains parts of history that they’d rather forget; the sordid, dark, racist parts. You could argue that the UK has a violent past but most of the senseless violence happened about 400 years ago, whereas America’s violence was mostly within the past 100 years. There’s still some remnants of the extreme racism around today.

The Martin Luther King monument in downtown.

Americans should accept that every country has skeletons in its closet, even if their skeletons are more recent than most. They should accept that their forefathers were slave owners, lynch mobs and members of the KKK. It’s not nice but it’s how things were. In Old Red, the displays told a fascinating story about glossing over your past. When they reached the parts about slaves, the curators had seen fit to almost justify and white wash (no pun intended) over the narrow-minded attitudes of their ancestors. The museum declared that, even though African slaves were brought into Dallas, those in Texas were supposedly treated better than the slaves in other states.

The next bit of glossing over came when the Civil Rights Movement of the 50’s and 60’s was mentioned. They had accounts from black families who had moved into white neighbourhoods and they had bricks and stones thrown at their houses. But, according to Old Red, segregation wasn’t all bad because it meant that the black communities could develop their own history and culture. I can see what they mean but it just felt too much like justifying segregation for me to feel comfortable with it.

Next – I attempt to get to New Orleans.

Wild Bill’s and The Civil Rights Movement

Wild Bill’s….all that’s fabulous about Texas.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Texans are every bit the stereotype. They are incredibly proud of their state and its brief period as a separate country in the 19th century. One place that I feel represents Texas was Wild Bill’s Western Store on North Market Street.

Wild Bill’s neon cowboy boot.

They sold cowboy boots, Stetsons, various leather goods, and some amazing slogan t-shirts. My favourite was one that had an image of the state of Texas on it along with a revolver (I may be British but I can identify a revolver belive it or not!) and it said “We don’t call 911”. I would have bought one but the colours on offer were a strange shade of orange or an off green.

A Texas Steakhouse.

The whole shop smelt like leather and I half expected some hay bails in the corner with some hillbilly band playing banjos and jugs. Anyway, onto the rest of Dallas. The few days I was there were very hot and very windy. It was just cooler than Nevada but with the added fun of warm gale force winds. It was like walking down the street with a hot fan blowing in front of me all the time. It was such a strong wind that the trees in front of my hotel were diagonal.

Monument to the Civil Rights Movement.

I came across an unexpected historical figure while in Dallas; Rosa Parks. It’s been a few years since I studied the Civil Rights Movement but I know that Rosa Parks did her famous protest on a bus in Alabama. So what was she doing in Dallas? If I’m honest, I still don’t know! But, the statue of her was lovely and people had placed flowers and beads on her. She looks very serene but it makes you think how crazy it is that an old lady on a bus could cause such a stir because she wouldn’t give up her seat to a white man. I felt she had a kind of knowing look on her face.

Small trinkets for a very important lady.

Next – More Civil Rights.

Dallas and JFK

The unassuming book depository on Dealey Plaza.

“It was just a little building next to a grassy knoll” states the leaflet from the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas. And that’s exactly what it looks like; a brown cube of a building. Until 1963 when one of the most talked about events of recent history occurred.

X marks the spot.

Dealey Plaza has been designated a National Historical Landmark District and so it’s exactly the same as it would have been in 1963. The one exception is the big white “X” on the road, which shows where the president was shot. I thought it was an eerie sight but most tourists in the area didn’t share my view. I saw lots of excited American tourists having a lovely family photo in the place where a man was murdered. I overheard one guy declare, “”I want to have my picture taken on the X!”. It seemed I had more respect for the history of the place than most of the Americans who visited.

There’s so many photo ops to choose from in Dallas

It was a surreal experience seeing the road through the plaza from the sixth floor window and from the top of the grassy knoll next to the wooden fence. The day I stopped by, there was a book sale and an author signing for another book on conspiracy theories.

The famous view…sans Motorcade.

I went into the Sixth Floor Museum and it felt like being back at school. In a good way. There was the Zapruder Film, the conspiracy surrounding the autopsy, and the infamous hat Jack Ruby wore when he shot Lee Harvey Oswald. I had so much information about JFK drilled into me in school that I didn’t learn anything from the museum but it was a surreal experience seeing the route from the corner of the sixth floor and from the top of the grassy knoll next to the wooden fence. I couldn’t help but think of the bit in Zoolander when we learn that Kennedy was actually killed by two male models due to the embargo on Cuba, which stopped a trendy type of trouser coming to America. I wonder if this is a theory that’s been taken seriously!

The view across Dealey Plaza.

One thing I loved about Texas was how it fitted almost exactly into any stereotypes you can think of. On most shops and businesses, they had signs up reminding patrons that they didn’t allow firearms in there. My favourite one was the one they’d put on the door of the Sixth Floor Museum. Even a museum commemorating the shooting of a president has to remind those fabulous Texans to leave their guns at home!

Damn it…

Next – What else does Dallas have to offer?