New Orleans is full of surprises

Sunset New Orleans

You can't see it in a photo this size, but that's the Superdome in the background, about 2 and a half miles away as the pelican flies.  It takes about an hour to walk there, if you are so inclined.  We never have tickets for a game but we like to tailgate with everybody else outside the stadium.  We love when the Saints are playing a home game.  It's the best time to run errands, and the play-by-play commentary is on every radio so we always know what's happening, even if we are just picking up fresh pralines at Loretta's.  Go Saints!

I was standing on the balcony of La France Suite, overlooking the back gardens and the pecan tree in back of our shared property.

Fresh pecans make good pralines

I always tell Frau Schmitt, who is the better half of this pair, that we live in a beautiful neighborhood.  She agrees, and she is usually right about these things.  There is something to be said about a smart woman's point of view.

I was making the introduction of the neighborhood to two guests from Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, and I mentioned that things look very different in New Orleans.  Nothing is as it appears.  I mentioned that there are some abandoned buildings, some blight, some empty lots.  Two days later, Stephen, the male of the pair, said, "I was expecting the worst, the way you described it.  It's really the best."  He is right, of course, the way Frau Schmitt usually is.  We live in a lovely part of town.  It is pure New Orleans.  There can never be anything wrong with that.

The fountain in the garden

As I write this, I can hear some crows cawing in the palm tree a block away on Governor Nicholls Street.  The past few weeks have brought crows to our neighborhood, almost as many as come by in springtime.  Who knows why anything happens in New Orleans? Some people chalk it up to magic.  We do.  Some people claim that New Orleans is a magical city.  You'll have to visit it yourself to decide if this is true.

It is.

Orleans Parish Prison

The sheriff is building a new prison on Gravier Street, or maybe it's Girod.  Wherever it is, it is in Mid-City, hard by the interstate highway.  The old prison building looks just like the LSU dental school, or the new LSU Medical Center that is being built on Canal Street.  I took the picture above of the old prison after having a lunch of fried catfish on Tulane Avenue.  Ours is a wonderful city.

After I snapped the picture above, I ran into Claire DuBois.  "Did you get that picture I sent you?" she asked.  I had.  The picture was of her grandmother, Clarissette DuBois (nee Etoile) who worked as the secretary of the American Frog Canning Company in 1939 when she posed for the photo.

She is holding the female in one hand and the male in the other

You never know what you will encounter in New Orleans.  It is a magical place.  We know a few restaurants that specialize in frog legs.  Boy-o-boy!  Are they ever tasty!  Especially on Tuesdays when the fresh catch is auctioned in the Frog Market in Broadmoor.  If you want to know New Orleans' secrets, you have to live here.  That's what we do.

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.