LebensUndLeidensZeichen: Taste of Creole

When I heard the term “creole” I thought of Caribbean, jungle, and indigenous societies. Here in NOLA “creole” stands for “African Culture” + French Aristocracy”. Names, food and architecture. After all the party on the weekend I am actually really looking forward for some culture :D

San Lois cemetery, were all important personalities (including Marie Laveau) were buried.

My first Po-Boy, another traditional NOLA sandwich, Baguette bread stuffed with roast beef and molten cheese. Incredibly yummy and fatty. And hard to eat while walking!

Pralines, I thought I know what they are: tiny sophisticated chocolate treats with delicate and sometimes interesting flavors. However, here in the US a praline is massively big in comparison and made solely out of Cashew nuts and sugar. They are still kinda good, but don´t have this exquisite touch to it (and they are far too sugary for me)

The French Market is basically a market of everything that is considered to be New Orleans by the tourist industry. They are doing a good job, everything I have seen and experienced or just heard of is present here (usually with multiple stores selling it or referring to it). Saying that, everything is also heavily whitewashed for tourists and 2-3 times more expensive than in a local shop. It is a nice area to stroll around though and listen to all the street musicians.

the Mississippi

one of the famous steamboats

They have here a weird kind of scam. Some guys walk along the river and ask tourists to bed with them “I can tell you where you got them shoes”. If you agree, they say “On your feet”. Very funny. If you then refuse to pay 20$ they will get a big muscular guy over to threaten you until you give in.

That happened to me with the guy in the white shirt below. I have read about it online so I was prepared. However, I never thought that this practice would be so abundant and visible. I just got rid of this one guy (who asked me the exactly same question as noted on the internet) when I encountered tourist couple (the right one in the picture) that got involved into the same scheme. They didn't know and almost got in trouble. I warned them just in time (which didn't make the two black dudes very happy) Its the main tourist area, so there was no more they could do but being pissed off by me :D