N'Olans

Apprehensive I was and I won't lie. Having read about places to avoid due to post-Katrina related crime etc, I hoped we weren't staying in any of them.

It turned out that 1 day prior to our arrival, we had nowhere to stay. Luckily, our good friends in St.Louis came to the rescue by hooking us up with their friends couch in New Orleans who, luckily, didn't live in one of these places-to-avoid.
Infact, he (and she, for he lived not alone) lived an a beautiful part of New Orleans called the Garden District, located about a mile away from the French Quarter.

Some pictures to illustrate...

A very relaxing few days in the Garden district along with several trip to the French Quarter.
On advise from pretty much every local, including our host John, we avoided drinking on the expensive and tourist driven Bourbon Street in favor for the much more recommended Frenchman St. A walk along these streets explained why and although Bourbon street had the layout - Bar, Strip Club, Bar, Bar, Strip Club, Strip Club, Tacky shop (which also had a mobile bar setup inside), Bar etc... which in my opinion was ideal for an easy night night out, lacked anywhere actually 'nice' to drink in so we stayed on Frenchman. (Although if I return and am not restricted by this budget, I shall enjoy a night out there!)

So, as that was a long paragraph, and I've run out of steam, we'll carry on my picture story telling format that I found preference for only 20 minutes ago.

Exploring the French Quarter outside of the bars and shops..


The graveyards are unique. Due to the swampy foundations, graves have to be built above ground. This makes for some creepy exploring..

We also went to explore these swamps, complete with Aligators and other nature (watch out David Attenborough!)
Bike riding around the city...


With our new hosts, Chris, Savanna, Cassie (and Snake)....


Mardi Gras after-math...Beads in trees on Charles St.

And ofcourse, drank more. Although I seem to have no 'good' photos of these events. I'm sure you've seen enough of beer photos for now anyway.

So, go visit New Orleans. I thoroughly recommend it. And eat Cajun food, because it's awesome and don't seem to have it properly in Blighty.

Walking in Memphis

Another Greyhound later...

A little confusion over our couch surfing arrangements. Richard had organised this one but hadn't managed to get final confirmation from our host so whilst on the bus, I phoned and arranged to stay with someone else.
We got to the bus station to find the original person, Tucker, waiting for us to give us a lift. Nice.

Memphis felt like the true South (Not that fake stuff they try and sell on the streets of St. Louis).

The streets were full of balls....

And Rock 'n Roll...


A night out on Beale street (THE place for blues music) which incidentally, is the only real place to go in Memphis...
They serve good sized beer though...

Which made us smiley...

We then stayed with Matt, the guy I had arranged whilst on the bus. He was a hero who drove an Audi TT but couldn't afford to feed himself.

He did invite us to his brothers leaving party though so an evening of free food and drink. I also had some 'Smores' (sp?). Basically, roasted marshmallow with hersheys chocolate (yuck) between 2 Graham Crackers. This would have been brilliant with Cadburys!

We met up with other couchsurfers...

And drank beer in not so good sizes...


We also went to Graceland (ofcourse) but my camera decided it was too tacky to picture so faked a dead battery. We had words later.
So, no pictures of this. I had hoped to try harmonising 'Since my baby left me' whilst at Evlis' grave. Richard didn't want to humour me on this. (Spinal Tap reference to those who haven't a clue)

A bar we went to with over 200 beers available. If you could drink them all within a certain period (3 months I think), they honoured you with a plaque on the wall...

Memphis is clearly full of drunks.

I like this new format of picture story telling. Especially how behind I am with these things. I may do the New Orleans one straight after this...2 blog posts in 1 day, aren't you lucky!

Further notes - so I don't appear too lazy with this post.
I had a nice time in Memphis although maybe a week was a little too long. The food speciality there is BBQ pork which we had a few times. The dry-rub ribs were amazing!
Our 2 hosts, Matt and Tucker were incredibly friendly (this couchsurfing is going well so far!).

And further down the Mississippi we go. Wheeee....

Along the M i double s i double s i double p i

Arriving in St. Louis to a spectacular lightning storm, we feared the weather was not likely to be favourable whilst here. This was certainly the case when the next morning, awakening to some of the largest thunder I have ever heard (shaking the house and setting car alarms off - the cool 'apocalyptic' style thunder!) we decided to brave the rain and wait it out whilst watching the new Star Trek (nerd) at the movie theater (learning this Yank speak).

I don't think I could have gotten much wetter on the way and if the film hadn't been so enjoyable, I may have noticed that we had formed a large puddle of rain water around us.
We left the Cinema no drier but to a complete change to sun and clear skies. Typical.

Sock drying time.

And I promise that will be the last talk of the weather on this post, other than to say, the rest of the time, it was beautiful.

We had originally planned to stay with a friend of Richards, PJ, but it turned out, he didn't really have the space and had arranged for us to stay with some of his friends, Liz and Ann Marie. They were great hosts and although vegans, were very friendly!
They had a cardboard coffin in their front room but we were assured this was normal. There is a story behind this but not one worthy typing. Infact, I'm not sure why I bothered mentioning it if I'm not going to explain it..maybe I should take it out, but I've already written all this now so I'll just leave it in a keep you guessing. HA.

St. Louis also has a "Church" of Scientology.

I saw students protest outside here everyday. I'm not sure what they think they'll achieve, but it keeps them off the streets. As it were.

PJ had invited us to a Jewish Banquet he and his housemate had organised. This turned out to be a very enjoyable night and I got to sample alot of Kosher meals and less than 'Kosher' beer. We also met some friendly people who invited us to their place the following day. Here, we got drunk and ended up playing guitar til wee hours. Most fun.

No Pictures of these events as the camera wasn't Kosher...it's a Nikon.

St. Louis is also home to Blueburry Hill, a bar where the legendary Chuck Berry still plays once a month. Needless to say with our luck, this would not be whilst we were there.

Where I found my thrill...at Blueberry Hill.

Downtown St.Louis doesn't have much 'happenin' apart from the arch so we stayed around the university area mostly.

The Arch. Interesting aye?!

The campus is incredible and the surrounding parks have many attractions.

We went boating.(Reinventing the rowing method)

And zooing. "I think it's a rock"

And so concludes my tale of St.Louis. Our journey continues down the Mississippi where I walk in Memphis and feel a good song could be made about the experience.