Thursday, October 22nd
Jess and I are what some have referred to as Afternoon Emu's. Not Early Birds, not Night Owls, our peak hours of being awake and willing to do things is somewhere between 11am and 7pm. While we can get up earlier and stay up later, if it's our choice we would choose for everything to happen within those times, hence why everything we planned for our New Orleans trip is planned (if possible) for sometime between those hours. For this reason, we thought we might be cutting it close choosing the 11:30am riverboat time for the Riverboat Natchez brunch trip, but we figured we could reasonably get there for the 11am boarding time and still have time to lounge and laze about our hotel room for a suitable amount of time in the morning, which we so love doing. It's our vacation, we can do what we want, and what we wanna do is sleep in!
In an unprecedented twist, it is Jess who gets up at 9am to get breakfast! I was thinking of giving it a miss because we're having brunch anyway, but Jess thought it would be a good idea to get food anyway to have in the place and to have our usual juice and coffee. She got yogurt, muffins, and made two breakfast sandwiches out of the croissants and English muffins available for if we wanted them later. We found "Something Wicked This Way Comes" on Freeform and watched that while we got ready. We had our nice dresses picked out for today, as one should dress up for a river cruise! At least I think so. For whatever reason we get convinced at 10:30am that we need to RUSH out of the hotel and hurry, hurry, hurry to the dock, even though it's a less than half-hour walk from our hotel and boarding only starts at 11am, it ends at 11:30am when the boat casts off. But, we decided we needed to go, so off we went at a brisk pace up Royal to St. Peter's, streets we now knew quite well, to the dock where the river boat Natchez was waiting for us!
Waiting for us after an enormous train finally finished passing in front of the dock loading area. It was cool to watch pass and we had plenty of time, but the couple beside us got pretty antsy about waiting for it, poor things. Wonder what they were in a hurry for. We boarded no problem, arrived just before a huge crowd did to get on the boat, and we were handed a card for a 11:15pm brunch time. Jess recalled that we'd book at 12:15pm brunch time though, so she asked the next person we saw about it, explaining that she just wanted to make sure we "hadn't done anything wrong". The woman laughed and said nope, we did everything right, it's just when the boat isn't busy they only do one seating time between 11am and 12pm instead of two, which makes perfect sense. Also, good to know we were in for a nice, emptyish river cruise! There were people, certainly, but yeah, not too-too many, so it was easy to move about, find seating anywhere, and really enjoy the boat and ride!
The boat doesn't depart until 11:30am, and we're on by 11:10am-ish, so we peruse the ship a little bit, checking out the bar situation though we don't order a drink just yet, and also checking out the gift shop! Nothing we see that we really want or need, but an older woman in there has just a ball of a time purchasing one of the Captain's hats! She's so excited about it and I'm so happy for her! You buy your fun hat and wear it around the boat! After some exploration we find a nice little table in the shade and look at the view around us as the live jazz band downstairs plays through the speakers. Around 11:30am, cast-off time (though the boat cast off a little late), the music ended and a speaker came one saying the live jazz would be back for the second half of the river cruise journey as the first half would have him narrating some history and scenery as we passed it going up river. That narration began, of course, after the safety instruction spiel.
The boat casts off and we decide to hit the bathrooms and then it's time for food! We get seated at a little table by a window, nice! Jess goes off to get some of the tea and coffee we were told is available on the other side of the dining area and I stay seated while our salads arrive. Jess returns to say there is coffee but alas, only iced tea. For shame. So just the coffee and water for us as we had our salads, which were actually super excellent, great greens and dressing, and then got served the main course, which was fried fish of... some kind? I don't remember, and then red beans and rice and jambalaya. Everything was great to us, but then we have no palate so there's very little that doesn't taste good to us. Desert was served as we ate, some simple bread pudding, and we'd never had any before but it's a staple of New Orleans so we were glad we got some! While we ate a man came in and was seated behind Jess, he arrived after us, ate so fast you'd think he had somewhere to be on this boat in the middle of the Mississippi river, and blew outta there long before we were served desert. My man, you paid extra for this? What was that about? Behind me there was a group of women who asked when the live jazz band would be back, like wow, tell us you didn't pay attention to the very important safety information spiel where he said when they'd be back. They did come back while Jess and I were still eating, so we got to enjoy our desert while listening to the dulcet tones of saxophones and horns.
We both ended up leaving one piece of fried fish unfinished because we were full and decided stuffing ourselves with an extra piece of fish while trapped in the middle of a body of water would be a poor idea, no matter how much we hate to waste food. We got up and walked over to the drinks area to get some more of their mediocre coffee and buy a drink at the bar, the Mississippi breeze, and hung around for a while to watch and listen to the band. We also spot a sign of famous people who've ridden the Natchez and Vincent Price's name is on there! Our boy Vinny! After getting some pics of that, we took a stroll around the boat, taking in the sights, which included a giant hose spraying dark brown fluid into the river. Sewage? Mud? Who can say, the narrator was gone now so we'll never know.
We eventually set up shop at one of the many available outdoor tables and do some people watching in addition to sightseeing. Our favorite encounter was watching two men walk by the gift shop door and say, in deep Russian accents: "Gift shop?" "For gift?" "Da." Before entering the giftshop. Perfect interaction, no notes! We also pass the Domino Sugar Factory and boy does that place look filthy! Still operating though! Somehow through all that filth. The band is still playing over the speakers and at one point they play "What a Wonderful World" and oh boy, teared up quite a bit. Nothing like being on a boat and hearing that lovely songs. What a treat.
As we approach the dock we departed from, Jess and I decide we wanna see the wheel of the boat so we head on down and it seems we weren't the only ones with that plan as a group of people are coming down the other way to do the same thing. A woman in the party asks us to take a picture of them and she and the other woman she's with are ready, but the two men didn't get the memo and they're just chatting up a storm as the women try and get their attention. They seem a little embarrassed that the strangers they asked to take a photo of them are standing there waiting but Jess just goes "Men, amiright?" And we all have a laugh and we finally get their attention to zip it and stand still for a photo. One of the ladies says she loved my sunglasses and I tell her about getting them at the Boutique du Vampyre and she says she's heard of the vampire cafes and restaurants and whatnot and wants to check them out. We chat about stuff we've done and wanna do in New Orleans and we both agree it's just so fun here! You gotta be actively trying NOT to have a good time in New Orleans.
We hit the bathroom again when the boat finally docks, since everyone is just standing in line to get off the boat. There's two stalls in there and one of them feels locked so I wait but Jess keeps saying there's no one in the other one but I insist it's locked anyway. She exits her stall, pushes on the door, and it opens. So I guess I'm just a weakling. Or it was a ghost! Ooooo! There's still a line when we get out so we take a seat and relax until the crowd disperses and off we pop towards the French Market! It's a lovely walk along the water from the dock to the market, great views, great paved pathway! The sonly 5 or 10 minutes to get to the French Market, which we remembered how to get to because we'd seen it yesterday, and we circle the place for a good while seeing all that's available for purchase. Most is mass manufactured junk, some is handmade junk, and a couple of things are quite nice, but nothing really catches our eye. I see a red coffin ring that I like, and the seller drops the price to $30 cash, but I decide I've already bought several vampire things, like my fangs and my sunglasses and my pin, and the ring is obviously not handmade so if I really want it I can find it online later. Lotta food stalls in the French Market and those look good, but we're full from the river boat brunch and just make our way out of the French Market stall area to an indoor Artist Co-Op we passed on the way towards the market. Inside is some much nicer quality items compared to the outdoor market, some stuff I can't think of a use for, but mostly some nice paintings, cards, magnets, ornaments, jewelry, and decorative signs. Again, no purchases, as art is something Jess and I mostly think of as fun to look at but not to buy.
We're surprised by how few Halloween themed items there are in both areas. Neither the people selling mass-produced stuff nor the handmade goods folks have apparently bought or made any seasonal items which feels like leaving money on the table to me cause Jess and I were really hot to trot for some spooky mementoes of New Orleans and yet there were none to be had. We checked a couple of the shops near the market and co-op and still found nothing worth buying before heading back down St. Peters to get back to our hotel. We had planned on the boat to go back to the hotel, get changed out of our nice dresses and into something more casual, then take the streetcar to the cemeteries and something called Sacred Heart Cafe, so we finally stopped into a Walgreens on the way back and bought our 3-day Jazzy Passes for the streetcars. Back at the hotel, however, we discovered that the Sacred Heart cafe closes around the same time the cemeteries do, which is between 3 and 4pm. It was about 2:30pm so we had to come up with another plan. We decide to ride the 47 streetcar to the cemeteries anyway and just look at them from the outside and hit a different cafe in the area, the Morning Call Coffee Stand.
We make it to Canal street just as the 47 is pulling away so we have to hang around and wait for another 20 minutes. No big, we wait, scan our card, and we're off! And then we're getting off several stops too early? Because the streetcar driver is kicking everyone off the streetcar? Why is he doing this? Well, the one guy who tried to ask got cussed out about it, so we all just get off and let him pull away. Most of the folks get on the 48 that comes right after, and the rest just walk the rest of their journey, so it's just Jess and I on the little wooden benches waiting the 15 minutes for the next streetcar, which pulls up just as some rando started tryna chit-chat with us so that was perfect. Except no, because this car is telling everyone to get off too! This streetcar driver does actually explain to everyone that the car is making some kind of service stop but there is a 47 right behind the 48 pulling up in a second so we can all get on that, which we do!
Back on the road again! Then finally off the street car basically right in front of one of the cemeteries! We look at it, take some pictures, and keep walking up. We pass the Sacred Heart Cafe, which does look kinda cool, turn a corner, and find our Morning Call Coffee Stand! Nestled between two graveyards and right by the final stop on the 47 streetcar route! Perfect! We get inside and the place only sells beignets and cafe au lait, so ok, that's what we're getting! While ordering, however, for whatever reason, apropos of nothing, I pronounce cafe au lait as 'cafe aw lot' and the guy taking my order immediately corrects me, almost in tandem with Jess asking why in the world I pronounced it like that when I have never done so before. I have no answers for either of them, I don't know why my mouth did that. Possession, perhaps?
We get our drink and beignets delivered to the table we've set up at in quick time as we're the only people in the place and Jess discovers a free magazine that has the Krewe of Boo parade route printed in it! At last! We take the time as we eat and drink our excellent beignets and incredible coffee (they only do two things, but boy do they do them well!) to make some plans for parade day, where we wanna set up, how far that place is from our hotel and from the after-party we're going to, etc. Jess decides to take the magazine with us when we're ready to head across the street to the streetcar pickup. I get a pic in front of one of the graveyards there and I think I probably could have gotten more, we didn't have to go right back to the hotel, but the sun was starting to set and it did end up being dark by the time we got back to Canal street, so it was probably for the best I didn't hang around too long.
The streetcar pulled up after about 5 minutes and I do think it might have been the same driver who threw everyone off the car the first time, but I can't be certain. Whoever he is, he gives a somewhat deserved attitude to the guy who sits first in the priority seating and then when told off moved to the wheelchair seating, which the driver did actually need because someone with a wheelchair was getting on. Driver just went up to him and went "That's not your seat, go to the back." Like yeah, you know what, fair. After that, however, we're off, and it's a direct ride to Canal street where I do have us get off one stop too early but it's close enough and we like walking around anyway.
We decide for dinner we wanna get pastas from the Streetcar Cafe and the Daisy Dukes cafe, but neither have online ordering, so Jess goes into Daisy Dukes and I go into Streetcar and we put our orders in and wait. Jess is ready first so she waits outside on the bench and gives me a wave, but my food isn't too far behind! Then we make the short, very familiar walk back to our hotel, as it is 7pm and time for us to be settling in for the evening! We put on Phineas and Ferb and enjoy both pastas immensely, both the alfredo and the cajun are just perfect! I do some writing after we find "Burlesque" playing, then take a shower. After that we find "Suddenly, Last Summer" on tv, the Tennessee Williams play-turned-movie with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Cleft set in New Orleans Garden District, which is where we're headed tomorrow! How perfect! And it's such a good movie, not as vague and metaphorical as the play, but still just a wonderful movie to watch! After that it's time to get everything packed up so we can change hotels in the morning, which we do while watching the tail end of "The Martian", one of my favorite movies, and then get ready for bed. We're like clockwork in a way, home by 7pm, in bed by 11pm. But that won't be the case for the next three nights with our late-night plans for all of them, so perhaps we've just been taking advantage of early nights in while they're an option to us.
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