Ah NOLA! I honestly can’t remember the first time I visited The Big Easy. It was probably on an epic road trip to Disney World when I was tiny. I have a very vague recollection of being informed that my grandfather needed to stop for beignets…whatever those were. He probably just needed to escape the camper and my incessant singing.
I definitely visited in sixth or seventh grade on a trip with my show choir. That trip is slightly hazy as well, though the singing was, on that occasion, expected. I think we went to the aquarium. And then we took a riverboat dinner cruise. Insert adolescent joking about the Titanic, and a very seasick Caitlin. I stopped through in high school to tour Tulane and Loyola, and then, in 2011 I went back in August. I would absolutely NOT recommend New Orleans in August, though that trip had its rewards. Despite the heat, history was learned, beignets were eaten, and I went on the BEST ghost tour I have ever taken. Having taken walking tours during travels my whole life, I will still credit Andrew Ward for sparking in me the somewhat foggy desire to actually give tours for a living. Blessed, wonderful man. His telling of the story of the LaLaurie mansion also kept me awake for about a week straight.
And so, despite memories of the steaming streets of the French Quarter, proffering the worst of stenches into the August heat, when my mom informed me that her annual librarian’s conference would be held in New Orleans in March, and would I like to come, of course the answer was an immediate yes.
I flew into NOLA late in the evening, and arrived to realize I had never flown into the Louis Armstrong airport before. Getting off the plane felt distinctly like walking into some sort of Twilight Zone episode somehow set in the seventies. Deserted and very orange.
Seeing as my mother was there on a conference with accommodation provided, not too long after that I found myself stepping out of my cab into the deliciously swanky International House Hotel on Camp Street. I tend to be more of a bed and breakfast/inn person myself (on the 2011 trip, I stayed in the Place d’Armes Hotel on St. Ann St. in the Quarter which was really an excellent experience), but I certainly won’t turn down a little swank if it is offered, and The International House was just the ticket. The 1906 building began its life as a bank and then served as the world’s first world trade center. Its entrance is truly grand, the lobby deeply red and plush (with a chess set! I rarely actually play chess, but I do love a good chess set), and our room had the most exquisitely tall windows and an enormous chandelier. It also had an arctic air conditioner. An excellent addition.
The next morning I joined my mother for a truly strange breakfast at The Ruby Slipper Cafe on Magazine Street, just a block and a half from the hotel. The cafe was excellent, a superb and heaping southern breakfast (with ample morning cocktails available on request), including a delicious omelet and biscuits. Numnumnumnum. The strange part was that I was joining a group of librarians which quite naturally included the dear woman who guarded my high school library all four years I was there. Now my group of friends in high school were the library set. We were always the first in the library in the morning and the last to be found haunting the study rooms in the evenings before our various rehearsals. We were very diligent students, but could often find ourselves distracted. On more occasions than I can remember we would find our heated discussions on Lord of the Rings abruptly halted by the crisp snap of a book being shut just behind one of our heads. We would turn to find our dear librarian peering over the top of the book at us, and would then be treated to her signature line: “Reading or studying? Reading or studying.” This dear lady was my breakfast companion that morning at the Ruby Slipper, and what a lovely conversation we had! But still an odd experience to find oneself enjoying pleasant breakfast chat with an authority figure from one’s previous life.
After breakfast, the librarians returned to their conference and I was set loose to explore on my own. Since I had just eaten that heaping breakfast, naturally I took myself straight to Cafe Du Monde.
If you have never been to New Orleans, I don’t care that it is touristy, I don’t care that the line is long (it moves quickly), and I really don’t care that the service is less than spectacular- just GO to Cafe du Monde. Get yourself a plate (or two) of beignets and some chicory coffee, douse it all (and yourself) in powdered sugar, and enjoy. If you hate it, at least you can say you’ve been- but I can’t see how you could hate beignets and chicory coffee. And I am not a coffee person. But I love chicory coffee. And the people watching is truly excellent.
The other great thing about Cafe du Monde is that it is in the heart of the Quarter, so, fueled by sugar and coffee, I was now prepared to begin my morning’s real quest: bookstores.
Now I am well aware that most people do not think of going to New Orleans for bookstores. But for the moment you are traveling with me, so: food, history, books. My grandmother had given me Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores for Christmas. It is a charming coffee table book highlighting some of the world’s best independent bookstores, and, being me, I naturally accepted this trinket as a challenge to visit them all. Faulkner House Books is tucked away on Pirate’s Alley just behind the St. Louis Cathedral in rooms once occupied by William Faulkner himself. It is a deliciously cozy little spot with floor to ceiling shelves neatly arranged and overseen by a guardian of an owner. (Kindly do not remove the books from the shelves by “hooking” the spines. Instead, follow the instructions on the sign showing you how to do it correctly). I left with a copy of The Pun Also Rises, you know, for work.
Not in my bookstore book, but literally just around the corner on Orleans, is Arcadian Books. This spot is the complete opposite of Faulkner House. It is one of those used bookstores that is composed entirely, not of shelves and tables and walls, but of STACKS of books. Piles and piles separated by barely enough floor to make your way through. This is not my preferred arrangement, as I find it rather overwhelming. Also, inevitably, if you find something you want, it will be at the middle or bottom of a stack and therefore practically impossible to retrieve without knocking down half the shop in the process. Oddly enough though, on this occasion, after a mere five minutes I found at the top of a stack in the back of the shop a copy of The Boston Irish: A Political History, and made good my escape.
The last French Quarter shop on my list was Dauphine Street Books which I found to be closed each and every time I walked past it- eh bien. On to the next.
The next was another meeting with the librarians, not for food this time, but to crash their tour of the National WWII Museum.
I have always had an interest in WWII. This year in particular I have, perhaps because of my visit here, taken a deep, deep dive into the subject. I’m working on a more focused exploration of my readings and some of my previous WWII related travels in which I shall certainly expound a bit more on this particular museum. Suffice it to say, it is remarkable. Extremely well curated. And if you are planning a visit, you should set aside at least one full day to do it justice. With three hours we made it through only the film (a MUST), and the Road to Berlin exhibit- a very small, small fraction of what’s on offer.
This post is also, only a very small fraction of what’s on offer in New Orleans and what I managed to cover on that weekend in March. So out of respect for the city, my weekend in it, and your attention span, I shall leave you for the moment and return soon with more from New Awlins!
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Essentials
To Stay:
To Eat:
–The Ruby Slipper Cafe
Bookstores and Books:
–Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores
–The Boston Irish: A Political History
Museums:
-National WWII Museum
I Digress 