New Orleans is known by many names - 'The City that Care Forgot', 'Nawlins', 'The Big Easy', NOLA.
We're getting to know it as the place we started our epic honeymoon road trip across the USA and Canada.
We arrived here on Tuesday 14th June to be greeted by a steamy sultry crazy party town - a French infused town on the edge of the Mississippi where bars never close, music is a religion and people prey at the altar of the deep fryer.
The first glimpse of the Mississippi is one I'll remember forever - for it's pure grottiness combined with the memory of every book, song and film that features its waters.
In the Bywater
We've been staying in the Bywater, a super-hip part of town just out of the French Quarter where street art adorns the brightly painted shotgun houses (shotguns are similar in style to a terrace house in Melbourne).
The pink house second on the right in this photo is the one we're staying in.
One house nearby is entirely painted in chalkboard paint and has the words 'Before I die I want to...' painted repeatedly up and down the wall, each with a space for passerbys to chalk in their bucket list goal.
I'm not sure what kind of face I'm pulling here, but I'm pointing at "Before I die I want to... rule the world".
A freight train line runs through the Bywater and we're regularly warned not to cross over to the wrong side of the tracks at night. As one local put it "they shoot each other with amazing regularity in those parts." How seriously to take these warnings I don't know. We have to cross the tracks to get to our house, so we hope that our Australian accent gets us out of any trouble.
The Treme
After having watched the HBO series Treme
we were so excited about visiting the neighbourhood's namesake, and we had the chance on Juneteenth, a national day that recognises the abolition of slavery. We celebrated with the Treme locals, kicking back under a little marquee with some 'fruit cocktail' (fluorescent red cordial to the uninitiated) and an amazing performance from the Treme Brass Band. This band is legendary, and the enigmatic 90+ year old Uncle Lionel Batiste who plays bass drum is one of the reasons why. He is one cool cat. You can see him second from the right in this photo.
A visit to the oldest cemetery in New Orleans had us stumble upon the gravesite of a much-respected old voodoo woman.
A procession of followers have left an assortment of gifts and keepsakes at her grave over the years, including combs, candies, ribbons, bottles of liquor and condoms, as well as leaving the voodoo mark of 'XXX' chalked all over the site.
Eating soul
How I've managed to get this far in the post without mentioning the food is beyond me. We went through our photos so far and at least every second one features us eating. I think that luggage weight will be the least of our worries!
We were staying with a New York food blogger for a couple of days who pointed us in the direction of some of the city's most awesome soul food.
Gumbo, grits, boiled crawfish, shrimp, catfish, collard greens, red beans and rice - I've eaten nothing like it.
A most memorable meal was Shaun's very first boudin sandwich.
Boudin is a sausage made with several types of cooked meat mixed with rice. Here's Shaun ho-ing into his boudin, which came complete with a fried egg, mustard and rasher of bacon. For a vegetarian, he has taken to this meat-eating stuff like a pro.
I've been making a decent go of it, too. Here I am tucking into a muffeletta from the legendary Corner Grocery Store - imagine the entire contents of an Italian deli piled onto a roll and you've got the idea. Ham, salami, prosciutto, mortadella, mozzarella. The olives are the only green component.
And here's the lovely Shaun demolishing our very first po boy - a baguette sandwich which usually has shrimp, sausage or catfish - this one is catfish.
While we're talking food, why the hell hasn't some enterprising young hipster in Melbourne started doing this outside pubs in Melbourne? Forget the kebab, people, a huge slice of pepperoni pizza that you fold in two and load into your mouth in four easy bites is the way to go.
The French architecture is stunning, and walking the backstreets is a rewarding, if sweaty, experience.
It's hard to believe that this is the same city that in 2005 was TV news fodder for weeks following Katrina. Driving past the Superdome is a pretty sobering experience - I don't remember how many tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people took refuge in there. There are a number of houses that are still boarded up even 6 years after the storm.
New Orleans music
We quickly learnt that Bourbon St was the equivalent of Kings Cross - a big, dirty, neon-lit stretch of karaoke bars and strip clubs and 3-for-1 drinks.
This photo taken on Bourbon says it all. If you can't read that sign, it says 'Huge Ass Beers'.
Much of the great music is on Frenchman's Street, where we saw an awesome 7-piece bluegrass fused jazz band called The Dirty Bourbon Boys at The Maison, and a classic country rock dude called Grayson Kapps (as if he could have grown up to be anything else??) at d.b.a.
What's astonishing is how a musician makes a living in this town. There is bar after bar of incredibly good music, the vast majority of which have no cover charge and bands rely on a tip jar that goes around the audience. We've been told that many of the bands don't even get a guarantee. The bars will tip your drink into a plastic cup if you are ready to move on but haven't finished your drink.
We visited the awesome local radio station 91.5 WWOZ and met the staff and volunteers, including the ghost presenter who wouldn't let us take a photo of him because it would be betray his anonymity.
Black Indians
We went to a concert in the park in the warehouse district where we saw this awesome black Indian chief funkin' it up with the band.
During times of slavery, runaway slaves often sought refuge with the Indians, and many were given honorary titles. The black Indian tradition still lives strong today.
We took this picture at the Backstreet Cultural Museum of one of the spectacular Indian suits that are worn during special parades.
