New Orleans, LA trip, June 3-8, 2016
Candace and I took a trip to NOLA arriving late Friday, June 3 and returning (late as it turned out) Wednesday, June 8. The trip was business and pleasure for Candace and all pleasure for me! We took photos of some of the activities, but many were not recorded.
On Saturday, Candace and I attended the Law and Society Luncheon, where Candace, chair of the dissertation award committee presented the award to for the best dissertation. That afternoon, we walked around the French Quarter. In the evening, we had dinner with some of Candace’s grad school friends from her Berkeley days. Dinner was at K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen, just a few blocks from the Marriott where we stayed, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Sunday we had lunch at Shaya’s (best new restaurant!) with another Berkeley friend. Then a local friend and colleague of Candace took us to the (George Washington) Carver Theater in Tremé to attend a benefit for Nancy O., the long time organizer of the NOLA Jazz Fest. She was severely beaten in a car-jacking right in front of her house. It was quite a moving experience to see the young people perform: drum lines and African dances and songs interspersed with adults exhorting the community to pull together to fight the gangs and make the community safer. That evening we had dinner with my niece Becky at the Acme Oyster House. Becky is in law school at Tulane. All of a sudden I know too many lawyers!!!
Monday we learned how to ride the street cars (an all day pass is just $3) and visited the Garden District. We had lunch at a Mexican place, perhaps the Superior Grill. In the afternoon, we checked into the Canal Street Inn, a nice B&B where we stayed Monday and Tuesday. In the evening, we rode the street cars to Frenchmen Street where we had dinner and then went bar hopping listening to jazz, blues, and swing at three different places. By dumb luck, we caught the last street car back.
We hung out at the B&B Tuesday morning and then took a bike tour offered by the American Bicycle Rental Company in the French Quarter. Laura, our tour guide, was funny and informative. We rode from the French Quarter to the Garden District where we spent most of the time on the three hour tour. There were lots of stops so we only covered 7 miles! Here’s a link to a map of our tour. Later we took the street car to the Mississippi River and then rode the ferry across the river where we explored Algiers and Gretna a little bit. Back in the French Quarter we had dinner at Domenica’s, another fine restaurant whose executive chef is the same Shaya as the Shaya’s restaurant mentioned earlier.
Wednesday, we visited a book store in the French Quarter and then headed for the airport. Our memories of NOLA include great food and great music.