ARRIVING NEW ORLEANS

We did not reserve a room in New Orleans ahead of time, so when we entered Louisianna, we stopped at the Visitor Center on I-10 to get information. The attendants there were very helpful. They get faxes every morning from the hotels that have rooms available for that night - so they helped us book a room at a place called the Chateau. Pictures looked good, in the heart of the French Quarter, $89 a night including parking -- what could be better, right? We booked it, they gave us directions and off we went . . .

Now, if you've ever been to the French Quarter in NO, you might be able to imagine our first impression. It did NOT look like the picture at all! I thought "this is a dump" and Jerry said "looks like a flea-bag hotel to me". We had to park on the sidewalk (very narrow streets) while the valet emptied our car as I went in and registered. He then took our stuff up a narrow, steep, dark stairway and opened the door to a very small room, left us there, and as he took our car to park it, we wondered if we'd ever see it again.

That's me waving from the balcony. This picture, which we took later in the day, doesn't look so bad actually. By then, we realized that all the buildings were the same as far as being old. We also discovered that there was a courtyard with a pool behind the building.

Well, as we explored our small room, we noticed that it had all the amenities - tv. phone, fridge, bathroom supplies - even wifi service. It was clean - just old and small. A somewhat flimsy door went out to a balcony overlooking the street. So we just "accepted it", used the facilities, prayed the guy wouldn't wreck our car or that we wouldn't get mugged, and set off on an adventure! We were two blocks from Jackson Square - more about the activities there in the next post.

After the Jackson Square experience, we came back to rest a bit before heading out for the nights activities. All of a sudden we heard sirons and commotion - Jerry said go see what's going on out there - so I went out on the balcony and there were police cars and they were trying to handcuff a woman who was yelling obscenities at them and really putting up a fight! (Just like the Cops show on tv!) I told Jerry - you gotta get out here and see this! So we watched and it was probably about 15 minutes before they took her away. By that time there were not only the three police cars and one motorcycle visible in this picture, but two more cars and another cycle. From what we could gather, apparently she had attacked a woman on a bicycle who she thought got too close to her. There were several witnesses that they were questioning etc. and quite a crowd gathering to watch on the street as well as on the surrounding balconies.

But, even after all that, we were brave and headed out to see what we could see. We got back to the hotel about 10 pm - and I'll bet what we saw before 10 was nothing compared to what we would've seen after 10!!