Born on the bayou

20 A.D.

[All of the fun from Tuesday, 3rd July.]

Altogether now – “There is a house in New Orleans, it’s called...The French Market Inn!” Yep, that’s where we’ve checked into – the heart of The French Quarter, which is the oldest part of the city and therefore it was built on the highest ground and not affected by the devastation of Katrina. It’s also the safest place to be in The Big Easy, and we wisely took a cab from the Greyhound station. However, it should be noted that when we arrived at said station they were pumping some smooth, chilled-out Miles Davis sounds through the speakers – nice touch, and just what you need first thing in the morning after a long bus ride. And, just to get it off my chest, I started that bus ride stuck between a hillbilly boy in front of me tossing and turning on a seat so far back it was almost in my lap, coupled with a loud little redneck girl behind who was constantly booting my chair like it was an American football. Sweet home Alabama indeed!

Anyway, back to the French Market Inn - although there’s only wi-fi in the lobby (possible delays to future blog posts predicted!), it really is everything that a low budget hotel in New Orleans should be. The Knights Inn at Nashville was fine, but it only had a functional charm and zero character, whereas The French Market Inn has character seeping out of every cranny (if you ignore the various building work that is going on here and there – they’re sooo good they’re expanding). The bellboy had to take us across three courtyards just to get to the elevator for our floor (the fourth).

And here's the place in all it's glory..

Only joking, it's more like this...

The room is another double double-bedder, with a lot of open floor space between said beds and the bureau against the far wall -  space to hold one’s own mini mardi-gras? Yep, it feels like we’re back in the 18th century and about to make the Louisiana purchase. So let’s see what the Big Easy has on offer to us outside of the room...although a quick flick through the TV channels showed that Conan The Barbarian was just starting...to stay or to go?

The good thing about staying in The French Quarter, besides avoiding the deadly crack-and-gang related violence that plagues the wider city, is that everything is within walking distance to the hotel. This was no longer the Midwest and the temperatures were only in the puny 90s – puh! We could go jogging in that without breaking a sweat! However, there is a bit of humidity to make it feel hotter, though not as much as there was in D.C. We headed out under the early afternoon sun, wondering if we would get rain. New Orleans is situated with Lake Pontchartrain directly to the north and the mouth of the Mississippi river cutting through the centre as it heads out to meet the Gulf of Mexico. In one way it feels a bit like being back at the seaside...but with a lot more voodoo.

We wound our way through the battered and bohemian streets, their decaying elegance hanging off every balcony as residents slumped lazily outside the doors to their establishments, smoking away like the ban never happened. In fact, I forgot to mention that in some of the bars in Nashville people were allowed to smoke freely...or maybe they just ignored the rules, but either way it was liberating. But back to New Orleans - it’s the type of place where there’s a bit of history on every corner, though to be fair there’s also a good deal of tat in the vintage shops on every street (antique hinges for $20, anyone?) The actual French market was quite entertaining and i was tempted to buy one of the ten-a-penny voodoo dolls and name it after the Greyhound CEO.

It was getting a little too humid by late afternoon, so we gathered our supermarket sandwich supplies (authentic Cajun cooking can wait for now!) and headed back to our comfortable little corner of Louisiana. The finale to Revenge of the Sith was on the generously-channelled TV, so we dozed into the evening (hey come on, we were sleeping on a bus the night before!) Once we woke up, Bourbon Street was calling...

I’d taken advantage of The Big Easy’s relaxed street drinking laws and filled my hipflask with cheap bourbon (not great by American standards, good stuff by British standards), but I needn’t have bothered. I was hoping to save a bit of cash, but there were plenty of drinks offers on the 14 or so blocks that make up the infamous Bourbon Street. And yes, it was lively; yes, it was crowded; yes, it felt like the place to be...but it was all a bit seedy really. Do you really want to know what we got up to? Ha! To find that out you have to go to jamesandtimsworldtouruncensored.blogspot.co.uk It’s not for the faint-hearted, folks.

When it was time to leave, we headed back to Rue Decatur, but an elderly shoe shine gentleman stopped me with the following:
“Hey, Sir! Guess what?”
"What?"
“I  bet you I know where you got your shoes.”
I smiled a the smile of a very smug man who’d done his homework and replied, “On my feet.”

Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys

16 A.D.

Let’s go Grayboys! Dun dun du-du-dun! Let’s go Grayboys! Dun dun du-du-dun!

Yesterday evening we waited for the sun to set a little and headed out for a walk around the disparate neighbourhoods to the north. Instead we ended up going halfway along the freeway and coming back again like a couple of pedestrian plonkers – stoopid sidewalks that end up disappearing after several hundred metres! We did eventually find a pleasant little housing estate to walk around, the type of place where they have those mailboxes at the end of the drive that mischievous teenagers in the 1950s put cherrybombs in before running away hooting with laughter. We just smiled admiringly and strolled on by, enjoying the peace and quiet of Anytown, USA.

In our room we have the biggest air conditioning unit in the world – it even has a sleep function which we left on overnight. The Knights Inn's version of “complimentary breakfast” consisted of cornflakes, multi-coloured cheerios (going up in the world!), toast, and some do-it-yourself pancake grills which had the remains of previous peoples’ pancakes around the edges. We wisely avoided those.

Nashville ain’t just famous for country music; it also has more churches per capita than anywhere else in the country. The place is bustling with academies that train preachers to go off and spread the word (but not via a second-rate travel blogs like what I do). We strode off across the river, keen to be back on the sightseeing trail, but we had just one tiny problem...it was predicted to hit 108 degrees today. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT??? That’s an all-time record for this city! Roll on cold and rainy New Zealand!

We headed towards the capitol building, taking in the bicentennial park on the way. This featured a rather moving World War II memorial for all the young Tennesseans who went off to fight in Europe, as well as a stars-on-the-floor monument featuring plenty of country and western performers’ names. The wartime connection continued as we got further towards downtown and ducked into the war museum, but this was more a strategic move to get some aircon down the backs of our shirts. Afterwards we sat outside eating our apples and were approached by a friendly-sounding, dodgy-looking guy who said he needed a favour. “Are you 21?” he asked me, unaware of the continuing saga surrounding ID that I’ve been writing about. Before he could get into his spiel about how he’d left his Florida state ID back home, I told him I wasn’t from round here and therefore I didn’t have any ID whatsoever. And he bought my lie which an exclamation of, “Dang!” before sloping off to look for some other sucker to buy him some beer.

Downtown Nashville is pretty tiny and all of the main bars and honky-tonk shops are on Broadway, which is not even half the size of Lord Street. Rather tellingly, the first bar we passed on the corner featuring a live band had a song pumping out into the street entitled Take this job and shove it. Hmmm. In the souvenir paradise of “Dixieland Delights” they had every kind of gift with Elvis printed upon it, but I wasn’t sure why they had a whole section devoted to Beatles merchandise. Oh, thanks to everyone who voted in the poll, by the way.  

We took in a few more stores on Broadway, threatening to return in the evening for some beers and steaks and whatever else it is that cowboys do for entertainment. Speaking of cowboy boots, there were some absolute beauties in one place we ducked into, but none of them were priced under 200 dollars. Same went for most of the hats, but judging by the picture below, you probably won’t lose any sleep over me not buying one.

It had only just gone 1 p.m. when we concluded we’d seen pretty much all we wanted to see, and the sun was leaving us sweltering even in the shade. And so, we headed back to the Knights Inn, Tim with his shirt off and me even daring to undo the buttons on mine (and if you’re expecting to see a picture of that you can forget it!) When we reached the hotel, we noticed that the pool was totally empty, and so we took the opportunity to strip down to our shorts for a quick dip (and if you’re expecting to see a picture of that you can forget it!)

Hurry on sundown!