NOLA Day Five

Required experiences: absinthe

We had big plans for this day. You know how we like museums, and New Orleans has a good many museums.

Doll House Museum
Musee Conti Wax Museum
Preservation Museum
Pharmacy Museum
The Presbytere Mardi Gras museum
Louisiana State Museum
Ogden Museum of Southern Art
WW2 Museum
The Backstreet Cultural Museum

That's our list. It was museum day. We started with breakfast at The [formerly Camellia] Grill. We just had normal food: bacon, eggs, white toast. Gary announced he didn't know why the hell we live in Saint Louis and that we should move here, where people know how to cook. When I suggested the difference was that we eat at chain restaurants in Saint Louis he said, "That's it. No more chains." This is like a panda saying "No more bamboo." Amazing.

It was noon by then, and somehow we didn't get to the hotel and then back to the street till one. And then somehow we didn't make it the two blocks to the state museum till 2:30, because the street entertainment was particularly good. Gary even gave some buskers twenty dollars. He's been making it rain for the buskers here. A few weeks ago he became obsessed with "hooping" on YouTube, and we encountered some hoopers as well.

So we only spent a few hours in the museum, and frankly, yawn. It put us off all museums and they were crossed off the list. Then we decided the zoo and aquarium would have the same animals we can see at home. This means the only thing left on the list is "ride streetcar." We might take a cemetery tour, if we can step away from the buskers.

Gary was the one who had a fall today, In Jackson square. Boom, down he went, a crowd gathered, and he moaned with a tone of Great Portent, "I have broken my phone." No, the phone's fine.

We turned in our drink tickets at the hotel bar. After I downed a very sweet free punch, I read that the wormwood has returned to absinthe. Evidently some absinthe enthusiast did a spectrum analysis on old bottles of absinthe and found the drug thujone was only there in trace amounts. Somehow he manufactured a wormwood-filled thujone-free absinthe that matched the old samples. I had some and did not see tulips on my legs or kill my family. So disappointing.

Gary fussed that we haven't had room service yet. Evidently it's tradition, much like my Eggs Benedict. Thankfully, they did my steak and Gary's burger exceptionally well, but not so well that he'll want to stay in the room and cycle between naps and room service.

We finished out the day with PPV Don Jon. I know. I voted for going back to the clubs on Frenchman street. I pointed out to Gary that if, as he says, spending time with each other is what's important on vacation, we could hole ourselves up in an all-inclusive resort and see nothing but the beach and our room. Or, you know, stay home.

Of course, we've seen nothing of NOLA except the French Quarter. I know were supposed to go out and mingle with the real people. To that end we had a looooooong talk with a guy selling soda in Jackson Square.

Let's see how far afield we get today. God knows I don't want breakfast after a ten ounce steak last night.

Comments

[~~Silk]

You must take a guided cemetery tour! You can combine it with your streetcar ride.

[Thequeen]

Silk - well we took an unguided tour on our own. It lasted five hours!