New Orleans - Day 1

We headed out from Natchez in the morning, New Orleans was only a 3 hour drive away. After a ride on what has to be one of the coolest highways in the world, basically a very very long bridge over swamp lands, we approached New Orleans. We had decided to stay in the French Quarter so we drove straight down to Jackson Square. Luckily the GPS made it very easy to get there, without it it would have been a much harder task to navigate the maze of highway exits needed to get where we wanted to go. After walking around the French Quarter for a little while we found a hotel that we were very happy with. Great location, great rooms and a decent price made this the best hotel so far. We rested up for a bit and we decided to head to Jackson Square to get something to eat. After navigating through all the fortune tellers, artists and crazy people with purple hair we found a great little restaurant and we decided to try some Cajun food. We had alligator, gumbo and jambalaya, very tasty. It was no surprise that the alligator tasted a bit like chicken.

Later we were ready for some live music and some drinks so we headed up to the Maison Bourbon on Bourbon street and watched a great live jazz band. We were there early so Bourbon street was a bit quiet when we arrived. As we left the Maison the street had completely changed. We discovered that Bourbon street has an abundance of overly drunk people drinking cocktails from plastic cups shaped as grenades and small shops selling "huge ass beers" for 2 dollars... So we decided that the best way to have a good time in New Orleans is to stay off circus Bourbon street and find small bars that have live music. We headed to Frenchman's street and found some bands playing music in the streets and a great duo playing blues cover songs in the backyard of the BMC. All in all a great first day in New Orleans.