The Wedding(s) Blog #5 (Karaoke Cab, KInda Good Eats & Streetcars)

     Our two car caravan of Teresa, Julia (my lil' sister,) mom and I made it to The Crescent City just in time for rush hour on a Friday. It's been precisely 31 years since I've been here so not surprisingly I made a mistake when I thought I knew where we were going.
     Besides the long delay that comes with the expected traffic at 5:00 on a Friday, I took the wrong exit. So, we got a close up look at New Orleans' Central Business District. I knew we weren't in Snyder, America anymore when they guy at the red light wanted to wash our windows and I saw the Superdome on our right versus our left. The bottom line is: We found our place on St. Charles Avenue and all was right in the world.

NOLA/Looking North

           The expression is 'When in Rome..." That means when in New Orleans... EAT! Back in the day, I was a student and a waiter here in NOLA. I knew every bumpy, one way road to the places that came with a lot of creole and families. I was surprised to see that many of my old favs were still open and operating.

Mandina's, NOLA

     Joe and his long time girlfriend, Sharon Anderson, had taken the train into New Orleans. They'd beat us here by a day. We met up with them at an old Mid-City haunt called Mandina's.
      This is the same place where years ago, I tried to catch one of the stray kittens outside the main entrance. I didn't get supper that night. Instead, I got a couple bottles of hydrogen peroxide to treat all the kitten scratches up and down my arms.
       We ate. We visited. We ate and visited some more till it was time to Lyft our way back to our hotel.... this is where the story takes an unexpected turn.
     Teresa and I use Lyft/Uber quite a bit when on the road. Up until this night, all our rides have been pretty tame. But not this time... Start the video and turn up the volume...

     The video's hard to see, but that right hand, going left to right, in the front seat is that of Marianne... my 86 year old mom. She and Conrad, our driver, sang Neil Diamond, Abba, Lynard Skynard and Grease. Guess there's a first time for everything.
   
    

Jack & Allison

      At this point, we're still two days from our first wedding. So, I'll cut to the chase.      


      Jack and Allison came to NOLA, we all took a streetcar ride up and down St. Charles Avenue, ate our fair share of oysters, sampled the sweet beignets and café au lait at Café du Monde and found out that if you wait long enough at an old French Quarter watering hole like the ancient Chart Room a Second Line is bound to crank up the jazz.

     All that food, fun, karaoke and Second Lining served as a great appetizer to our first main course, that is the wedding for Zachary and Nadia. I have lots of pictures and stories to share like a kitchen fight, the World War II Museum, and seeing my best from high school 30-odd years after our last visit. That's coming up in my next post.

Bill Robertson