The Music Never Stops in New Orleans

Our dining room

I am not sitting in our dining room as I write this.  In fact, it is afternoon, long past breakfast time.  I have to put something as the first picture because this is going to be a video-heavy installment, my favorite kind.

It is getting close to Mardi Gras Day.  Because of this, there are marching bands practicing all over the city.  We ate lunch uptown this afternoon while running errands, and a school band marched past the restaurant windows.  We were eating at Martin Wine Cellar, nothing fancy.  

In New Orleans, you can go to the liquor store to have a sandwich.  You can also go the deli to buy a bottle of wine.  How do we tell these two kinds of establishment apart?  It takes practice.  

When I'm puttering around the inn and nobody is around, for a change of pace I like to listen to a little soft Chinese pop music:


I don't speak Mandarin, but I think they're singing about New Orleans.  That's what my heart tells me.

Mardi Gras season just started the other day.  The first parades of the year rolled on January 6.  It's a short season this year.  Mardi Gras Day falls on February 9.  We were talking to Marc at Martin Wine Cellar and he said he doesn't like a short Mardi Gras season.  Just about everyone we know agrees with him.

We still have some nights empty if you are thinking about visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras.

Even though it's a short season, we aren't too busy, yet.  It's still early and people who aren't from New Orleans don't know that Mardi Gras is unfolding before our very eyes.  It's a magical time to visit New Orleans.  

Since we aren't too, too busy just yet, Tammie the Housekeeper isn't around as much as she usually is during other times of the year.

Tammie the Housekeeper

When Tammie isn't around, Frau Schmitt and I do most of the housekeeping.  It's nice to keep in practice.  The other day, Tammie left her iPod at the inn and I noticed it in a drawer in the lobby.  Naturally, I wanted to see what it's like to be Tammie the Housekeeper while performing housekeeping duties, so I put on the headset.

"You might learn more about Tammie than she wants you to," Frau Schmitt told me.  She is usually right about these things, but I didn't listen.  Instead, I listened to what Tammie the Housekeeper listens to on her iPod.



I should have listened to Frau Schmitt.  

I'm sitting on the back balcony of Le Pelican Suite.  I'm overlooking the neighborhood.  It being a Saturday, the high school down the street isn't in session so that marching band isn't practicing today.  They won't march around the neighborhood until we get closer to Mardi Gras Day.  Instead, some pick up brass band is marching around the streets in back of our house.  They aren't bad but they could use a little practice.  They sure are enthusiastic, though, and their enthusiasm is infection.  Even though they don't always keep the beat, I find myself tapping my foot as I type.  I don't have any sense of rhythm to speak of anyway.

We live in a very interesting city.  You never know what you'll see. Come down and find out for yourself.

Like my grandfather, I've always preferred the Conway Twitty version, myself:


À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade
...where the rest comes easy.