Arriving in New Orleans, or NOLA, we were greeted by music🎺🥁 🎷🎵. What else?

Canal Street cuts right through the downtown core of New Orleans. The street once served as a “neutral ground” between the old (colonial-era) families of Spanish and French descent living in the ‘Vieux Carre’ (French Quarter) and the newly arriving Americans, who preferred to settle in the American Sector. The Canal Street line and the Saint Charles Avenue line are a joy to behold, the latter being also the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world, as it has been in operation since 1835. Wow! 😲 (Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture of this dark green, old-fashioned, cute street car. 😔)

As mentioned above, the French Quarter is where the French and Spanish settled back in the days. Together with the west African influences New Orleans became a true melting pot of different cultures, languages and of course also cuisines.

Today the French Quarter is known for its many bars (with and without live music) and Mardi Gras.  Notorious Bourbon Street is the centre of the attention: At night the streets are crammed with drunk tourists. As opposed to the rest of the USA, it is not prohibited to walk the streets with open alcoholic drinks, so people believe they have to make up for this constriction when they visit New Orleans.

The French Quarter is also home to the famous Mardi Gras which is a several day long celebration around Shrove Tuesday and when parading the streets of the French Quarter, paraders throw beads, plush toys etc.  on the people who visit. (🤔🤷🤗)

Burying the dead in a place below sea level that is subject to recurring heavy rainfall and flooding posed quite a problem to the first settlers of what later became known as New Orleans. The solution agreed upon, to entomb the departed in elaborate marble chambers above ground, created one of the city’s most extraordinary sights: cemeteries that are both historic and hauntingly beautiful. 🪦

What else did we do in New Orleans? We found a really great boulder lounge which wasn’t too expensive and the entry even included shoe rental. Yeah! 🥳

They apply a very social fee scheme: the regular fee is 20$ but if you are among top earners you are more than welcome to pay more, whereas if you have a low income you pay only 16$ or less if you can’t afford it. Noone is sent away. What a great concept! ✌️💪

Ach ja und eine tolle Laufstrecke hatten wir auch: direkt am Mississippi ✌️ einziger Haken: die drückend schwüle Hitze in NOLA… 🥵

Ein paar Worte zum Thema Essen: prinzipiell sind wir sehr positiv überrascht, dass es gar nicht schwer ist, gutes (nach unserem Geschmack), veganes Essen  zu bekommen und viele der Speisen sind weniger ungesund, als wir befürchtet haben. Und unser “Notessen” kann sich auch sehen lassen (haben wir leider aus irgendeinem Grund noch nie fotografiert) : bei Supermärkten wie Wholefoods oder Farmboy gibt es immer eine riesige Salat-Theke, bei der es neben Blattsalaten und  einzelnen Gemüsesorten (Tomaten etc) auch fertige Salate gibt (zb Quinoa-edamame-schwarze Bohne oder Italienischer Nudelsalat mit getrockneten Tomaten etc). Nach Gewicht berechnet, haben wir dann immer ein gutes und vor allem sehr ausgewogenes Essen, das nicht allzu teuer ist.

Was ich allerdings wirklich komplett eigenartig finde, ist, dass man nicht nur Lebensmittel in allen nur erdenklichen Mengen anbieten/abpacken darf, sondern auch, dass die Nährwertangaben nicht einheitlich auf 100g bezogen werden müssen. Jeder Hersteller darf sich offenbar selbst eine Bezugsmenge aussuchen (1 serving), er muss zwar angeben, wie viel g das ist, kann dann aber die einzelnen Nährwerte für diese Größe angeben. Will man nun aber die Nährwerte verschiedener Produkte oder Hersteller vergleichen, müsste man selbst immer alles umrechnen, was für mich als Touristin schon mühsam (weil zu zeitaufwendig) ist,  ist im Alltag wahrscheinlich einfach nicht machbar. Konsumentenfeindlicher, intransparenter und verwirrender geht’s eigentlich kaum!

PS. Alle hier in m Blog gezeigten Speisen sind immer vegan.

Hier gibt’s ne kleine Geschichte: once upon a time in Louisiana, there were two Austrian travelers. It was their first day in New Orleans and it was terribly hot, about 30°Celcius. They did carry water with them but soon they ran out of it and were incredibly thirsty. There were no supermarkets around but they came across something called “snowballs” on Google maps so they thought they’d give it a try.  They found the place and there was already a queue (locals only, by the look of it) in front of it. ‘That’s a good sign’, they thought, ‘this means it must be pretty good’. They’d read before that New Orleans is quite laid back and people are relaxed and never in a hurry. So they waited. And waited. And waited. After what felt like an hour it was finally their turn. They ordered a small sour apple and pink lemonade snowball and a medium watermelon and mango one. They were really curious about this special treat. Turns out the snowball is indeed made of water that is turned into snow via some machine and when a cup is filled with it, a seemingly homemade, very colourful liquid is poured over the snow in order to give it the desired flavour (and sweetness). It was delicious! Believe it or not: Never had anything tasted better than this, cold, sweet and refreshing delight. 🥵

One of the perks of being a vegan is that you hardly ever end up in very touristy rip-off style restaurants and cafes. We often find ourselves in places we feel that are only frequented by locals. One such place was where we got the following meals. There were lots of different dishes and you could pick and choose any three that you wanted. And this is what we ended up with: Oliver had Jambalaya (also a very New Orleanian dish), Cauliflower wings and potato quiche whereas I chose Mac’n’cheese, cabbage and Dirty Rice.