On Monday, October 1, 2001, we made the final payment on the massive load of consumer debt that we'd been paying off for four years.
On Tuesday, October 2, SealedMedia, the company I was working for at the time, closed its San Francisco office, and I was laid off.
So of course, on Monday, October 8, we went on vacation. After all, I didn't have to go to work.
We had been planning to go in January, and make it our anniversary trip. But after I got laid off, Terry suggested that we just go ahead and go. So we went. And for ten days, I almost forgot that I didn't have a job.
The first day was mostly spent travelling. We got up horribly early, drove to Oakland, parked in offsite long-term parking, and took a shuttle to the airport. In the aftermath of September 11th, the lines were, of course, horrendous. But we made it through, and had an uneventful flight to New Orleans, with a short layover in Houston, where I got to contemplate a heroic statue of George Bush (senior).
We got to N.O., picked up our car, and drove to our inn. We stayed at a little place called A'Etienne's French Inn, in the Faubourg Marigny district, just east of - but walking distance from - the French Quarter. Here's a picture of the inn, with our rental car in front of it:
(Our car is the red one.)
The house is what they call (as we discovered) a "shotgun house," meaning you can fire a shotgun down the hall without hitting anything. Apparently, property used to be taxed according to the amount of street space they took up, so people built long skinny houses.
And here's a picture of the street, Elysian Fields Ave. Not a terrific neighborhood, but not too bad - we never felt unsafe, even walking around at night.
We met our host, Todd Wicker:
He used to work as a cook on a cruise ship, and then he bought this house and converted it to a B and B. The house has three bedrooms, one on the ground floor, and two upstairs in the back. There are also two sitting rooms and a kitchen, and Todd's office (pictured here). Behind the kitchen is a smaller bedroom where Todd sleeps - but if necessary, he'll rent that room out as well, and go stay at an apartment his mother owns (which he manages). If that's rented, he'll stay at his mother's apartment. A truly free spirit.
And here's a picture of our room, one of the upstairs rooms. Actually, the first night, we were in the downstairs room, and then moved upstairs for the rest of our stay (we are nothing if not flexible).
A couple of interesting points about the bathroom in our room. In the first place, it had no door, just a curtain, which meant that when you would go to the bathroom, everyone could hear exactly what you were doing.
In the second place, there was no shower stall. Instead, there was a contraption rigged up which consisted of a metal frame placed around the tub, with a shower curtain hanging from it. The curtain went all the way around the tub, instead of being only on one side. This meant that the curtain, instead of just billowing inward on one side, billowed inward on both sides, leaving you about two inches in which to shower.
Ah well - it was quaint.
After we got ourselves settled in, we went off in search of dinner. We ended up at Rita's, a Cajun/Creole restaurant that Todd recommended. It was excellent.
A few words about Cajun and Creole: Cajun is a corruption of Acadian; the Cajuns are descendants of French Canadians who drifted south when they were thrown out of Acadia, in the Maritime provinces of Canada. Creole comes from the Spanish word criolla; the Creoles were people of mixed French and Spanish ancestry who settled in the New Orleans area beginning in the 1700's.
However, although I did learn the difference between Cajun and Creole in terms of ethnic origins, I never did figure out the difference in terms of cuisine. Restaurants were all "Cajun/Creole," and I don't know who we have to thank for what. It's all good, whatever it is.