Last night’s dinner was great. I had crawfish and collard greens (both for the first time). Both were excellent. Danita had very good crab-salmon patties.

This morning, while Danita went to her seminars, I took a historical bike tour of the Frubourg-Marigny district (just downriver from the French Quarter). We rode crazy-cool bikes with “handlebar mustache” handlebars. There was one forward gear and coaster brakes (peddle backwards to stop). They had very wide saddles with soft springs. The tires were an inch and a half wide. These were perfect for touring the city. The tour was excellent. The guide was a nice guy, knew is history, and presented it coherently and in  an interesting manner. It didn’t hurt that we had perfect weather. I was surprised to learn how old the buildings are in this district. Most of the houses were built with barge lumber. Before steam ships, it took great effort to go up the Mississippi. As a consequence, people who wanted to move goods downriver built barges out of wood. When they got to NOLA, they broke the barges up and sold the wood. The people in NOLA used this barge wood to build their houses. Our guide owns a creole cottage in Frubourg-Marigny. he stripped off several layers of various coverings and ended up with interior walls that were either barge wood or exposed brick. It was a perfect morning and early afternoon. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pics. My phone was in my backpack, which I left with the bike shop while on tour.

That was the end of the good times for today. Danita and I met up at the room at the end of the day. For dinner, we went to a small “Cajun-Italian” restaurant that was supposed to be the most romantic restaurant in the city and have excellent food at a reasonable price. This place is upstairs from a Jazz bar on Frenchmen Street, which is were the city’s best music is supposed to be. The price was reasonable. But the place was not at all romantic and the food was pretty bad. We started with a salad (romaine lettuce with a rather poor Italian dressing). The entrees had plenty of meat, but that was all they had. The sauces were over seasoned and very salty. The place was noisy. It took an incredibly long time to get the food. When we finally got out, we walked up and down “music ally”. The bands we heard weren’t very good. Of course, it being Monday night, several places were closed and I’m sure the best bands weren’t playing. I was thinking of grabbing a drink when we got back to the hotel, but instead of a quiet bar with tinkley music, they had a projection screen with the World Series on. All-in-all, the evening was a bust.

Oh, well. It was a perfect day, and we’ll have another evening tomorrow.