Day 5 New Orleans 30th Dec

Our room at the Royal St Charles is cosy, so cosy that it has no window, just a fake one.  Maybe this was why this morning Lance woke me up with "F*%! it's 10 o'clock!"

This is highly unusual for us, especially Lance as he is an early riser. It wasn't long before we were out pounding the pavement and grabbed a seat on the tram car. 

 This took us right up St Charles St, through a magnificent residential area, it was right out of the movies. Quaint, palatial and ornate, I could just imagine the days gone by with a slave woman sweeping the porch and a man in the garden. As the day was bleak many homes had their lights on and you could catch a glimpse inside of huge lit Christmas trees and lamps set perfectly in each window. We hadn't had any breakfast, not even a cup of tea so after a trip of about 2 hours we hopped off back in town in search of nourishment. Light rain was falling and we popped into the Canal St Mall, a safe move as all of the shops were top dollar, so no spending there, well actually I did have to spend a penny after we had a bite to eat.

By now we had made our way down to the river and found 'Riverpark Walk' a small outlet mall, I manage to leave with a few parcels and an extra full belly. Cafe La Monde is famous for it's beignet.  These are fried doughnuts covered, and I mean covered in icing sugar. 

By now it was 3pm and we wanted to get some tickets for the 'hop on hop off bus'. On our way I needed to spend another penny and popped into a much larger, and the original Cafe la Monde. I had to queue and the toilets were so disgusting that I would never eat at that cafe. 

After a bit of a rest we headed out for the evening, heading of course, to Bourbon St. Cornet was our choice and what do you know? New Zealand wine!  Lance had jambalaya and I had crawfish Mac and cheese. The crawfish were tiny little tails like a prawn tail. The whole meal was very tasty. 

We moved on to a little jazz bar, Maison Bourbon.  This had a quintet of mostly old fellas playing, I enjoyed them so much that I bought their CD. And they served NZ wine! 

Toilet: very clean, however they had swing saloon doors with no lock!  A toilet nightmare!  I had just stood up to pull up my pants and a woman was just about to push open the doors, she got a heck of a fright when my head popped up. 

Just had to take this photo of the shadow on the church. 

Next call was a bar that had two guys playing piano, duelling they said. The first song we heard was piano man, so drinks were purchased. No NZ wine, in fact when Lance asked for a sav blance the girl said that they only have white wine. So a cup of wine was purchased, I had one sip and left the rest. I did use the toilet, as I hadn't wanted a repeat performance in the swing door toilets. Whaddya know? This bar led to the exact same toilets, quickest wee in history.  And after a few songs we moved to famous door where a pretty good band was playing and best of all the beers were ice cold in this chiller.  

Not finished yet, a last stop at funky 544, old school disco and Motown (except for one Neil Diamond song). We were talked into some dual shots with the waitress. 

Finally we headed home ready for an early morning for a plantation tour. 

Day 4 NOLA 29 Dec

Thoughts about Houston 

Loads of Hispanic people, I hadn't thought about Houston being so close to Mexico and South America. Many signs are in English and Spanish and heaps of Mexican restaurants. 

People are friendly and enjoy a laugh. Even airport customs and security. Customer service in retail is pretty bad, but in hospitality staff are awesome (tips wanted). On the whole Houston is nice, but there is nothing to see. 

NOLA

The flight to New Orleans was uneventful. Checkin was great, they just whipped people through and on to the train to our terminal. The plane was overfull and they had to ask for a volunteer to wait for a later flight and they would get a $300 united airlines voucher. Fortunately someone volunteered and off we went, they also hadn't allocated seats so we ended up sitting separately for the short flight. 

Our cab driver Jean Baptiste was a maniac driver, clocking 90 miles per hour, that's 144 kph! And my seat belt didn't work! I was very happy to arrive at the Royal St Charles Hotel. A much smaller hotel and with a small room and a small bed, but adequate. The location was perfect, close to Bourban St but far enough away to miss the noise.  We went for a stroll to Bourbon St whilst they prepared our room. I think we are going to enjoy our evening stroll down here each night, very colourful with bands, bars, clubs and food and a tad sleazy. We had some lunch at Olde 'Nawlins Cookery, Lance had a selection of gumbos and I had blackened chicken. Sorry in advance for the food descriptions, but this is my travel diary and I like to remember the food. I promise not to post food pictures unless it is worthy of sharing. Lance managed to knock a large sign over and it spilt red sauce all over the table of an older lady and maybe even knocked her a bit. We stopped and apologised profusely and scadadled out of there fast (they sue here you know). 

We had a quick trip home to sort our luggage and a short rest and then a cab ride down to the Mississippi to hop on board the Natchez Paddle Steamer. Hailing the cab we were lucky and had the best driver. He was an old guy who obviously loved his city and told us all sorts of stuff on our short ride. We had to stop at one point as the Poe-leese (police) came flying by on bikes with flashing lights and sirens blaring. They were making way for the college football team who were on their way to practise in four big tour buses. They have a big game on the first of Jan. 

We boarded the paddle steamer and felt very old worldy. It was a beautiful night 15 degrees and best of all they had NZ wine!  (I know that I should be drinking local wine but it is just not nice in my opinion). We had a wait of an hour and a half to sit onboard on the outer balconies until dinner. Lance got me two glasses of wine and I have to tell you that they were real RSA pours (if you don't know what that means, it means they filled it to the top). By the time we went for dinner I was very merry. We sat on the outer deck watching the evening scenery, what a huge river, the third largest in the world. We passed container ships and watched Nawlins slide by. Dinner was okay and we met a nice couple who live in Oklahoma, no idea what their names were but by then I was on to my third barrel of wine. I did manage to knock a lady's water all over her, but it wasn't my fault! One of the waitresses had such a large booty (butt) that she backed into me and I went flying!  All In all the Natchez paddle steamer was a great thing to do. 

We were tossing up wether to try and walk our way back to the hotel when Lance spotted some tuk tuk/cyclo things. We climbed aboard and when we said that we had just arrived in NOLA the guy asked if we would like him to show us around. We must have been with him for 45 minutes. He took us through all sorts of streets, residential with beautiful and quaint homes and through bawdy bar areas where marijuana was thick in the air. It was a beautiful clear evening and we loved every minute of it. 

Now we are tucked up in bed and a "Back to the Future" trilogy is on TV. Lance thinks they put them on because it is his birthday, as they are some of his favourite movies.  

Nighty night💤

Day 3 NASA 28 Dec

Lance slept like a baby. I slept in short bursts, I woke at 3am and just couldn't get back to sleep. I thought maybe my body clock was a bit out of sync, but realized what the problem was early this morning.  Of course, it all makes sense now, sleeping with a four story mall on the other side of the wall was just too much for my system. 

We were up at 7am, enjoyed a hearty breakfast and waited in the hotel lobby for our tour of the city and then NASA. After a while I checked with at the hotel counter. Oops we were waiting at the wrong place. They have a sister hotel at the other end of the mall. Off we ran, luckily the shops weren't open so we had a clean run. City Tours was waiting for us and off we went to meet the double decker bus. 

I haven't yet mentioned that over the last couple of weeks we have been checking the temperature in Houston. It has ranged from highs of 7 to 24 so we were at twos and threes about whether to pack our puffer jackets. Last week it was 17 to 24, so we both opted to leave the jackets behind. BAD MOVE, it was bloody freezing. We had layers of thin clothing on and on the open top double decker bus they gave out blankets!  The 90 minute tour of the city was informative, highlights were the prison that has false windows on the outside to make it look more hospitable and the witty tour guide. There is not much to see in Houston, but we did go to NASA. 

We took the tram tour that took us to see some history. After a freezing open sided ride we arrived at Mission Control. This is the real mission control from the sixties, as they updated it they stored the original equipment, viewing seats and even the carpet. I thought,when we sat down to listen to the guy talk, that the viewing area was a bit shabby! But it was original 60s stuff. You could also see a live stream from a rocket orbiting earth. It takes one and a half hours to orbit earth and is traveling 17,500 miles per hour. That means that it could get from Houston to Paris in 17 minutes!   

The actual touristy building was not that large and after a 45 minute queue for the tram ride we opted out of the other queueing attractions and just wandered, people watching and looking at space suits and stuff. 

NASA: we have done it, but wouldn't rush back. 

Arriving back at 5pm we still had 4 hours until the mall shut. Lance suggested that we split up, good move I thought. So I managed a couple of pairs of boots and some other stuff in 2 and a half hours. Not up to my usual standard but the queues to pay were horrendous. 

Houston is apparently an eating sort of town and we had panned to find somewhere nice for a meal. But the freezing weather made us stick close to home and we ended up just next to the hotel at Del Fresco's Double Eagle Steak House. 

Lovely restaurant. And even better food. As it is Lance's birthday in NZ we thought we would enjoy a nice meal. I was happy to find some Kim Crawford on the wine list and of course Heineken for Lance. The meal was great, oysters fried and fresh, steak which Lance ordered rare and myself medium. For the first time ever the waiter asked if Lance wanted his rare steak cool or warm. Lance asked for warm "not quite walking but with a little wiggle ". 

Tucking into our meal Lance said "all I need now is for Hugh Hefner to arrive with his bunnies".  Well not ten minutes later out of the corner of my eye I spotted a pair of rather pale jellies coming up the stairs. A couple of young women with implants not only on their chests but also on their butts arrived. Wish almost complete. Sleep now and New Orleans tomorrow for Lance's USA birthday. 

Day 2 Houston Texas still Dec 2015

I am sitting in bed and the last time I was in bed was a bout 31 hours ago,so I hope my writing makes sense. An uneventful flight from Auckland to Houston was stretched from 12 and a half hours to nearly fourteen hours with holding patterns at Houston due to stormy weather.  

The weather was misty rainy and humid when we finally hit the land. And the drive to our hotel took about an hour, but we had a couple of drop offs on the way. Out of town looked like the poorer area with houses that remind me of 'wife swap' ( a tv program I was once addicted to). 

We are staying at the 'Westin Oaks', a well appointed hotel with a huge bonus. It has a direct entry to a huge shopping mall, so big it has an ice skating rink in the middle.  See below in this photo of Lance. 

 So we dropped our bags and spent a couple of hours shopping and the Christmas sales are another bonus, however the queues are not. 

I spent half an hour in this queue waiting to pay. 

We were pretty buggered and ready for a feed and bed, so we went to the hotel restaurant. Tucking into our dinner we were interrupted by an old school friend of Lance's, funny aye.  

As I write, Lance is sound asleep and I am ready to join him.  NASA tomorrow and hopefully much more action to write about.

U.S.A Adventure 27 Dec 2015

Buckle up and hang on to your hats.  You are about to join us on a journey to Houston, New Orleans and the Carribean. 

Waiting in the Koru lounge at Auckland International Airport.