Category: USA

Today, we’ve done a bit of exploring !

We woke up reasonably late from our slumber, and Milan took us to a very nice place for breakfast. We discovered grits, this meeting between porridge and rice pudding, in this cased mixed with some fresh cheese. Then, we walked around Treme a bit, Milan’s neighborhood, and sat on a bench between sun and shade to talk for a while.

Like most american cities, building density is not always linked to the center or the wealth of a district. Treme, from where a number of jazz musicians came, is not very rich, but still is composed of nice two-floor houses, painted with soft colours with gardens and tall trees. Like everywhere, the streets are wide and the cars shiny (and huge).

Mid-afternoon, we went to our accommodation, a studio-apartment we rent for the week in Mid-Town. It’s a slightly more fancy neighborhood, but with the same sort of houses, just a bit more elaborate. On all our way (a good 4 km) we met people saying hi or enjoying the sun on rocking chairs in front of houses. everyone was really nice and welcoming, even if we were just passing by. I’ll just mention the fact that most people we met are black and the local accent is gorgeous (a mix of african american accent and southern states accent), but sadly I’m afraid we are way too white to pull this off…

Our room turns out even better than anticipated. We rented it late enough so that we didn’t have many choices in our price-range, but the result is more than nice ! We will be able to cook a bit, we have a big TV, the fridge and stove are US-size, which is huge, and there is even a princess-flavored conditioner in the shower… We are in walking distance of the street-car, taking us to the center, and the transportation prices are very affordable (compared to Paris or even Toulouse !)

With this vintage-looking street-car, all red paint and wooden benches, we joined the French Quarter for dinner. The streets had name like Bourbon (the most famous) but also Toulouse, and it’s clearly the party and tourism district. Since the weather was getting bad and the rain coming (with a cold wind like we didn’t have for a long time), the restaurants closed early and we ended up finding a place to eat local fried fish and jambalaya. We had dessert in a café, with traditional beignets covered in powder sugar and some hot chocolate !

In the center, the buildings are higher and the streets narrower, of course. There are also big construction today to rebuild the sewer system. It was in such a bad state lately, that flooding caused a mix between rain water and sewage to go back up in the water networks. The food had a sewer flavor, and food is so sacred around here that they finally started the construction ! Not too far, the business district is the highest with lit towers, and the squares with gardens offer us nice points of view.

Finally, we went back “home” and on the way stopped to buy cereals and milk for tomorrow’s breakfast in a 24/7 drive-in pharmacy (yes it is insane)

See you tomorrow, X

PS: don’t forget to read yesterday’s article, that just came out ! It’s just a bit further down 🙂

Today we were in Miami !

We landed at 7am Florida Time in Fort Lauderdale (near Miami), after 2 and a half hours in a plane (to short to really sleep). So we were quite tired when we went through immigration and customs. But luckily, it all went quite quickly and smoothly.

As we didn’t know how much time it would take, we hadn’t booked the 8am flight to New Orleans, and the only other cheap flight available was at 10pm. So we had a whole day to spend in between. We decided to rent a car a visit Florida a bit.

Yes, I know, we rented a car instead of taking public transport. But we’ve been taking exclusivly public transport for 3 months, and we were a bit too tired to adapt to a new network. And we wanted to make sure we got back to the airport in time. Also, we didn’t want to unpack our bags.zip (see yesterday’s article), and they’re not very practical to run around with.

At first we wanted to rent a Ford Mustang, you know, do as the locals do, but as we’re in the USA, the prices are shown without tax, so we quickly turned to the cheapest solution. We first went to a diner to have breakfast, and immediately felt like we were in Pulp Fiction (too bad I left my “Bad Motherfucker” wallet back in France 😉 ). Then we went to the beach, to lie a bit in the sun.

Well they call it “the land of the free”, but not much is free here ! Parking was 2$ an hour, and only accepted small change. The shop nearby required you’d buy something if you wanted change (cheapest was a 2.5$ water bottle…). And if you wanted to set foot on the pier you had to pay 2$. Even the toll road don’t tell you you have to pay until it’s too late and you can’t go back !

So then we drove south to Miami Beach, which was actually much further than we thought. But the drive was nice, it was sunny weather and we went along the huge avenues with lots of palm trees, and old American hits were playing on the radio. It really felt like GTA (except we didn’t kill anybody, as far as I know…)!

After a late lunch and a stroll on the beach, we started to get back to the airport, but there was already a bit of traffic. Even though we avoided most of it, it felt like forever to get there. Americans are used to spend a lot of time in their cars, so when they tell you it’s near, it’s like a 2h drive, which is a lot for a French!

Near the airport we parked in a supermarket parking lot and slept like babies in the car. We could have slept at the airport, but the air conditioning is set on “freezing your balls”, and we only had our T-shirt and shorts on us! After the nap, we manage to fill the tank again (which was not an easy task, we’re not used to the American pumps), and gave the car back.

So, we landed in New Orleans near midnight, and went to see Milan, a cool friend of my brother, who very nicely let us sleep in his flat for the night.