I often get my best travel info from other people's blogs, so I've decided to do more with mine. I've written about Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania since moving here, but I haven't done much with California, which is shameful, since I always prided myself on being a great tour guide (after 30 years in the state, I'd hope so!). I wrote about Kauai when we went, and I think I'll do the same with New Orleans.
I am not, and have never been, a Bourbon Street person. Matt insists upon walking down it every chance he gets, for the high entertainment value, but for those of us who prefer our streets clean and smelling like flowers, Bourbon is not a destination.
The first time I visited New Orleans, I was speaking at a conference at the Wyndham Hotel, and it was booked. I blindly booked a room at the Royal Sonesta...on Bourbon Street. Let's just say I didn't sleep very well. Fortunately, I was only there two nights, since I had gotten hit by a van while running two days before my flight and wasn't going to go at all. However, my flight got cancelled, I got a refund, the next day I was bored to tears, so I ended up taking the flight I'd been rebooked on and heading to The Big Easy.
My Irish friend Sarah and I ate at the Red Fish Grill (on...you guessed it, Bourbon Street), where our Egreetings.com coworker Mitch had been a cook. I hear it's still good, but there are better places. We went on a ghost tour, got bored, and ended up shopping for tacky souvenirs...probably on Bourbon Street. We visited the Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone and snuck up to the rooftop pool. We had beignets and hot chocolate at Cafe Du Monde and bribed a cab driver to drive us around the Garden District, then learned about the $1.25 trolley. The morning Sarah left, I took a morning walk through the French Quarter while they were hosing down Bourbon Street, glad that I never got the bright idea to go to Mardi Gras.
When we returned last November, my first time back since that conference, we stayed at the wonderful Maison Dupuy, with its reasonable rates, pleasant cafe, beautiful courtyard, and off-the-beaten-path location on Burgundy and Toulouse in the French Quarter.
Our best meal on that trip was at Muriel's, a beautifully designed space on Jackson Square that combines the old and the modern very creatively. Oh, and the food's great. We also really enjoyed Cafe Royal, a coffee shop on Royal Street.
This time, we repeated our Maison Dupuy stay and Muriel's dinner, with additional stops at the classic Brennan's (flaming strawberries, anyone?), lunch at Lucy's, amazing salsa at El Gato Negro, a mellow dinner at EAT New Orleans, and less adventurous lunches at the Uptown Whole Foods and Gordon Biersch. Breakfast took place at Cafe Beignet, which has better beignets than Cafe Du Monde and decent coffee, and our favorite cafe, Cafe Envie, a fabulous space in the very corner of the Quarter with cold drip coffee and amazing breakfast.
I attended a surprising amount of the conference--I couldn't miss Matt and Jason's talks, of course, but I also heard a researcher with whom Matt works occasionally give a talk and attempted to understand several others (I failed). I even went to "SciMix," the big poster session! Whoohoo! There was free beer.
When I wasn't hangin' with the chemists, I went to the fabulous Ogden Museum of Southern
Art, a can't miss collection of fantastic pieces. Matt and I took the streetcar to Tulane and Audobon Park and wandered around Uptown and the Garden District, and I took the streetcar out to the Museum of Art, its sculpture garden, and City Park, out in Mid-City. I'd leave that for your last activity if you're visiting. It's a long, slow trip out there, and truthfully, I enjoyed the Ogden Museum more. I missed a few of the historic houses and gardens and would have chosen them over NOMA, in the end. The French Quarter walking tour run by the Park Service is supposed to be great, and one person I chatted with enjoyed her plantation tour. I'll just have to go back...
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Tulips
They're everywhere--the true sign of spring. First it was the daffodils, then the blossoms on the trees, and now the tulips! Shame on the person who picked some of ours--fortunately, we have so many, it barely made a dent. There is a true flower thief afoot in Newark, though. Grrr.
I've been gallavanting around with my Advanced Landscape Design Class--last week we visited the Sound Garden, sculptor and UD professor John Moss' garden of sculptures focused around sound. We also learned about native purple martins in Fair Hill. We've also visited Bucktoe Creek preserve, a privately owned property devoted to organic ecology research; spent time on-site at our three project sites (UD's Early Learning Center, the Delaware Department of Agriculture, and the Newark Farm); and talked a lot about Doug Tallamy's book, Bringing Nature Home, which makes the case for planting native plants as often as possible to continue to preserve habitat for native insects, birds, and other wildlife.
I'm definitely on board with native plants, but I also feel that well-managed bulbs and annuals can add seasonal beauty to a garden and warm a gardener's heart without becoming invasives like multiflora rose and Eucalyptus. Many would argue that I'm wrong, that seeds get carried to other locations and create a problem we won't be able to fix later, but for now, that's where I stand.
I feel a similar way about animals--this might be comparing apples to oranges, but at this point, I am incapable of killing the sparrow that seems to be taking over my birdhouse, though I know he's capable of assassinating baby bluebirds, a native bird.
But let's get back to spring. Supermom and Superdad visited last week, after Superman and I went to New Orleans for the American Chemical Society meeting (guess which one of us spent time visiting gardens and museums?). I took the 'rents to Simon Pearce on the Brandywine, Winterthur, Gibraltar, and Longwood Gardens. We also volunteered for the Colonial Market held in celebration of Newark's 250th anniversary and visited the Co-op an inordinate amount of times (four people drink a lot of milk, apparently). Great eats included an Amber Waves Bakery peach pie, scored at the aforementioned Colonial Market, lunch at the Simon Pearce restaurant, and lunch at The Whip Tavern in Coatesville, PA.
Fairfax was a major hit at Longwood. He was mobbed by children upon entry, and we met at least 50% of the garden's visitors that day, which we all loved. It's great to be able to share more about Guiding Eyes and guide dogs in general. It reinforces why we're doing this and makes us feel like we're doing a good job.
This week is all about work, as is May, since I have an exciting project due at the end of May.
Happy Spring!
I've been gallavanting around with my Advanced Landscape Design Class--last week we visited the Sound Garden, sculptor and UD professor John Moss' garden of sculptures focused around sound. We also learned about native purple martins in Fair Hill. We've also visited Bucktoe Creek preserve, a privately owned property devoted to organic ecology research; spent time on-site at our three project sites (UD's Early Learning Center, the Delaware Department of Agriculture, and the Newark Farm); and talked a lot about Doug Tallamy's book, Bringing Nature Home, which makes the case for planting native plants as often as possible to continue to preserve habitat for native insects, birds, and other wildlife.
I'm definitely on board with native plants, but I also feel that well-managed bulbs and annuals can add seasonal beauty to a garden and warm a gardener's heart without becoming invasives like multiflora rose and Eucalyptus. Many would argue that I'm wrong, that seeds get carried to other locations and create a problem we won't be able to fix later, but for now, that's where I stand.
I feel a similar way about animals--this might be comparing apples to oranges, but at this point, I am incapable of killing the sparrow that seems to be taking over my birdhouse, though I know he's capable of assassinating baby bluebirds, a native bird.
But let's get back to spring. Supermom and Superdad visited last week, after Superman and I went to New Orleans for the American Chemical Society meeting (guess which one of us spent time visiting gardens and museums?). I took the 'rents to Simon Pearce on the Brandywine, Winterthur, Gibraltar, and Longwood Gardens. We also volunteered for the Colonial Market held in celebration of Newark's 250th anniversary and visited the Co-op an inordinate amount of times (four people drink a lot of milk, apparently). Great eats included an Amber Waves Bakery peach pie, scored at the aforementioned Colonial Market, lunch at the Simon Pearce restaurant, and lunch at The Whip Tavern in Coatesville, PA.
Fairfax was a major hit at Longwood. He was mobbed by children upon entry, and we met at least 50% of the garden's visitors that day, which we all loved. It's great to be able to share more about Guiding Eyes and guide dogs in general. It reinforces why we're doing this and makes us feel like we're doing a good job.
This week is all about work, as is May, since I have an exciting project due at the end of May.
Happy Spring!
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