I stood on the scruffy edge of railway tracks and let the cars of the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad send a rumble through my body. I like the greasy smell of trains. I like that the engineer waved to me from the red cabin of his car and I waved back. I would like to rock asleep in a berth closed in by pleated curtains, and in the morning watch golden flatlands speed by outside the window. To eat a meal in a dining car at a table set with crisp linens, and to see the water swaying in my goblet.
I would like all of that, but today I could only pretend, because today I'd step over these tracks and make my way toward the Warehouse District, up Magazine Street, into the Garden District, back through the quiet end of the Quarter, across Esplanade Ridge and into Faubourg Marigny (Faw-berg Mari-knee). And then I'd board a ferry and cross the muddy Mississippi to Algiers Point (Pernt).
The stroll would take me five hours, send me through eons of history and rumble me deeper than those train cars, but I didn't know any of that as I ventured forth only to be sideswiped by the grumble of my stomach.
On Magazine Street, an area known for antiques, art, quirky restaurants and boutiques, I found Surrey's Cafe and Juice Bar: small, hippy-dippy and crowded with locals. Great, I'd managed to duck the tourist crowd. I neither wished to wait 15 minutes for a table nor did I need one. I was happy to sit at the three-seat bar, where I ordered a cup of chicory coffee, a fluffy baked biscuit, grits with a hint of garlic, two poached eggs and sliced tomatoes. The healthiest meal I'd eaten in days.
In the Garden District I wandered through an above-ground cemetery. The gray and white stones are a familiar landscape in this city. On the disaster tour we heard ghoulish stories of the powerful flood dislodging some 1,200 tombs and sending them far from their peaceful settings. Some bodies remained encased in their concrete vaults and then traveled up to 33 miles, landing in trees or swamps. Some caskets cranked open and the remains, no longer at rest, were sent on a long swim. Officials then had the task of gathering and identifying the newly dead, the newly-buried dead and the historic dead. Nice job.
The Garden District was first settled by Americans arriving in New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The grand mansions of the Garden District have a distinctly different architecture from the green, pink and yellow Creole cottages of the Quarter. The homes of the Garden District rise over wide verandas, where dogs slumber in the shade of camellia and magnolia trees.
In contrast, French Quarter balconies framed in wrought iron sit high above the narrow streets, providing an outdoor space perfect for watching Mardi Gras parades.
I ambled up and down the quiet streets of the Garden District. The homes, a mix of gingerbread Victorians, Greek revivals, Italianate and pretty shotgun cottages, are predominately painted white. They were constructed when white paint was invented. The metaphor is not lost on me.
This is New Orleans, where all things are possible and those things vary ward to ward, parish to parish, and people to people.
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