The day in between...

Well because I travelled on Friday I have today to myself, not strictly myself in the way I spend my time for reasons that I’ll come on to but by myself in New Orleans.

This morning I woke after a fairly unsatisfactory sleep which is not surprising after the day’s travel and time difference. I feel ok though and I have a very important task before me which is the shopping lists emailed to me while in transit by my wife, son and daughter. So I’m off to Lakeside shopping mall and I’m going to use New Orleans finest public transport, wish me luck...

OK I’m back, only took 4 hours L 4 busses, lots of waiting at bus stops and 2 litres of water. So for those who may be mad enough to follow in my footsteps and are staying on one of the many hotels on Canal Street here goes; so you need to take the Canal Street streetcar to Cemetery and this is the first problem, since Katrina the Canal Street streetcars have been out of service, not that the hotel concierge who gave me the directions pointed that important fact out to me!

So here’s the first waiting bit... thankfully it doesn’t take long to work out that there doesn’t seem to be any streetcars or other people waiting for them. Off to the bus stop then, already drunk half a litre of water and don’t have a bus time table. Wait! Talking to some of the locals at the bus stop including a very nice lady who hails from Cuba and has a daughter who has just been to Bible school and is now doing pre med, who tells me that there are only two busses in this circular route and they seem to turn up whenever.

Second wait...here is the bus 10 minutes late, thinking that I must buy another bottle of water.
Second crucial bit of information, you need the exact change for the bus, the driver does not take money and you need dollar bills and change for the ticket machine.

Any single journey on this route $1.10. The next bit of the journey is changing at Cemetery to the Veterans bus service, called that because it follows a route that mainly covers Veterans Blvd! A wait for about 10 mins another $1.10 and I’m there. The mall looks very new and apparently comprises many stores that relocated from a mall near the Louisiana Super dome. I’m not surprised as there were many very sorry looking building on the way.

The trip back apart from more waiting and talking to more very friendly locals was good especially as the bus took a different route back into town past many very pretty traditional wooden houses all of which looked great and looked to be benefitting from some post Katrina renovation.

Now I’m back at the hotel I can freshen up then it’s off to the Mississippi, Riverside Walks Centre, Aquarium, the French Quarter, jazz, gumbo, Cajun chicken and some liquid refreshment. I'm tired now and will spare you the details least to say I managed to fit in all the above!