We have one full day in New Orleans before the next big leg of our itinerary... a 7 day Caribbean cruise!!





I woke up fairly early feeling great and went downstairs to the free continental breakfast in the hotel sitting room. There was a pretty good spread of breads, danish, cereals, fruit etc. All I really needed was a good cup of tea to start the day and thanks goodness I managed to have one!! I took Rodd some tea and pastries back up to the room but he was still sleeping and I didn't want to wake him so I left a note and set out to explore the French Quarter.



I wandered down to the river and saw the steamboat Natchez having it's brasswork all polished up lovingly. Then I just wandered aimlessly until I'd had enough! It really amazed me to see how well the streets had been cleaned up... you have no idea how much rubbish, broken beads, discarded "to go' cups and all manner of stuff ends up on the streets each night and overnight it all magically disappears.... for it all to start again! All the footpaths are hosed down and the gutters are full of soapy water.... funny seeing that side of things after seeing the chaos, mess and craziness of the night before.



It was arranged on Cruise Critic for those in town today to meet at Johnny Po-Boys for lunch at 1pm. A great opportunity to get to know some of the people I'd been talking to online for the last 10 or so months. We had all chatted so easily online so was interesting to finally put faces to names. When we walked up there was a line of around 20 people outside waiting to get into the shop to order lunch.... popular place..... I was wondering if we'd be able to tell who it was we were supposed to be meeting when I heard..." Any Spirits here?? anyone sailing with us on the Spirit tomorrow??" I just knew that had to be Lena B... she had started the roll call and I don't think there was a person that signed up that she didn't welcome and offer help in any way she could .



We had a lovely lunch and chatted just as easily in person as we did online. We actually ended up heading up to Canal Street with Lena, Dan, Stephanie and John after lunch for a parade and as there was such an awfully cold wind we all ended up in a bar laughing and drinking the afternoon away!!



Finally we decided it was time to eat.. can only drink so much before it becomes necessary to soak it all up with food!! Stephanie and John had already left so Lena, Dan, Rodd and I headed out to find a restaurant.... trouble was we walked passed that nice Saloon we were in last night and there was great music playing so Rodd and I said goodnight to Lena and Dan and went in to the saloon...... I ended up dancing by myself all night and had people coming up giving me beads thanking me for the entertainment!!! Ooooops. We did end up eating in some posh sort of restaurant.. I can't really remember what we ate but I'm assuming it was poshy cos I do remember the bill was $123!!



Back to the motel safely and fell into bed... tomorrow we're off to the Caribbean!!



Sorry this is short... trying to catch up and still took 2 hours!! Will get the cruise all done in one tomorrow hopefully!



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