On Tuesday, March 11th, a group of us were able to visit the Cabildo on a rainy day in New Orleans. The Cabildo was built in 1799 for the Spanish colonial rule in New Orleans, LA. After France took over these territories, the Cabildo served as a city hall, then as a courthouse, then as a prison, and it wasn’t until 1911 that the Cabildo became part of the Louisiana State Museum.

The Cabildo is rich in Louisiana’s history, specially the Spanish history. I learned that the first explorers to adventure into the Mississippi River were all Spaniards; Alonzo Álvarez de Pineda, Panfilo de Narváez, and Hernando de Soto between the years of 1519 to 1542. These Spanish conquistadors then brought their families to take advantage of the native laborers for the precious metals and fertile soils. They established settlements and colonies, expanding the Roman Catholic beliefs, architecture, music and other traditions. The Spanish colonies were the first to establish free public schools, first only for boys in Louisiana around 1772.

The Isleño farmers raised corn, fowls and vegetables to sell all over Louisiana and even across the river. The Isleños raised livestock and food. They fished and hunted, selling surplus goods and cash crops such as cotton and sugarcane. Just like we learned in Los Isleños Fiesta on Sunday, the Cabildo exhibitions also mentioned that the Isleños came to Louisiana during the late 1700s and by the 19th century, most lived in St. Bernard Parish, which is now St. Bernard Village where we went on Sunday.

The Cabildo was definitely very useful and will be a big tool for my research project.

On Saturday, when we landed in New Orleans, and I saw the green grass, I was more than excited to be here. My heart fluttered and when I stepped off of the plane, I could feel the warm air. This was just the beginning of the best 5 days of my life.

We landed and rode to the hotel, and just riding through the city made me excited. I saw old buildings, I saw newer buildings, and I saw people EVERYWHERE. It was natural for them to just walk around the city, where as, in my town, it’s not normal unless the weather is really nice.

We arrived at the Banana Courtyard and I got to see my room, and they had really high ceilings, when back at the time this building was probably built, they were much shorter people. I dropped off my bags and off we went to go find some amazing food. Just a block away from the Banana was a restaurant called Buffas. I could smell sausages being cooked on a grill outside and instantly my mouth started to water. We went in and looked at the menu, and I immediately decided that I needed what ever the man outside was cooking. It just so happened that it was a Bratwurst Jambalaya. Three of us ordered the Bratwurst Jambalaya and two ordered the Crawfish Ettoufe. We sat waiting for the food and started admiring the artwork in the restaurant, and we noticed a band coming in to play. Our food came and man did it look delicious. We dug in immediately trying the other dishes as well. The jambalaya and the ettoufe were both very delicious and the music was good.

After dinner, we walked down through the french market, did some exploring, and then went on a Ghost Tour of New Orleans to end the night.

^Bratwurst Jambalaya^

3.13.14 late morning (that may be a bit of an understatement):

I wake up and feel depressed a bit. I miss the warm weather – a lot. I miss the city of New Orleans. I resist, but can’t help but love (and hate) the sticky humid feeling, the dirty streets, chaos, and the smell of crawfish. I miss the energy there — high strung, vibrant energy — almost moving at too fast a pace to keep up with it. But what I miss more than anything right now is the community I’ve made with friends and the friendships I’ve cultivated and walking down the stairs or walking in the front door to find everyone hanging out and laughing and staying up until 3am talking… that’s what I miss more than anything else right now.

later that afternoon:

I almost want to cry as I walk into Stauf’s, order, and pour creamer in my mug of hot, brown liquid. I could be at Envie right now instead of here…

…with doors and windows wide open, sitting around people who wear rollerblades to commute here and who greet you like they’ve known you for forever, with a warm breeze blowing through my hair.

But instead I’m here, sitting in the middle of a cozy, yet closed off room, surrounded by average looking, incredibly clean-cut, generally very attractive individuals who cling to their closed off worlds and social circles.

It’s cold here. No one calls me “baby” when I order my coffee, and I feel out of place, like I don’t fit in on such a large scale.

All of that to say, that I miss New Orleans. Being in a different place and coming back home makes you miss what you discovered in a new (or at least different) place, but it also makes you realize how much you have in the place where you came from.

And One Day, I’ll return.

So since the Court of Two Sisters was too expensive for some people, we split up and found other places to eat at. I went with Shannon and Austin to the French Market, Decatur specifically, and I purchased half a muffaletta from Frank’s restaurant, which Shannon had half of and Austin had a bite as well. I was not disappointed in the sandwich, since I had had one two years ago and loved it. Shannon, on the other hand was a bit cautious, since she didn’t like olives, but she also liked the sandwich. Afterwards, the three of us walked into the French Market, and I bought a couple of posters of the Beatles, a Doors cd that my dad did not have, and a piece of slate roofing from one of the old buildings in the Quarter. The three of us met up with the rest of our group from earlier and started making our way back to the courtyard. I stuck with Shannon and on our way back we stopped in a variety of stores and bought souvenirs to take home.

So after cooling off for an hour at the courtyard, I showered and got ready for dinner at a local spanish restaurant called Lola’s. I usually don’t eat much spanish food, but I must say that this place was pretty good. I ordered the meat paella, and when it came after about 30 minutes, I immediately noticed the similarities between it and jambalaya. It was basically sausage and chicken mixed in with rice, and it contained more types of vegetables than just peppers. It also didn’t use a stock like jambalaya normally does, but used saffron rice instead. I really enjoyed, even though I didn’t finish all of it. I’m just sad that I left my to-go container at the restaurant and didn’t realize until we we’re too far away.

Sunday was an AMAZING day! In the morning, we went to the French Market and ate lunch. I got a Banana Royale smoothie and then a roast beef Po-Boy with debris (all the juices from the pan) at the French Market. Then we shopped and got some gifts to take home. We were planning on going to Cafe du Monde, however we didn’t because we saw that they were filming NCIS. We watched them film it for about an hour and Mark Harmon waved to me after I kept trying to get his attention. We went back to the hotel to rest from the excitement then went out for dinner. We went to Acme Oyster House. We had to wait in line for about an hour but it was well worth the wait! I got fried oysters and fried shrimp with fries and cole slaw. The oysters were perfect and the breading on them was perfect. We walked back on Bourbon Street and saw them filming NCIS once again. We got even closer to Mark Harmon this time and it was very exciting! IT WAS A GREAT DAY!

On Saturday, everything went very smoothly with the flights. Once we got into New Orleans, I was surprised how colorful it was and how few tall buildings there were. I love the friendliness of the people and the environment. Of course, I was beyond hungry once we got into New Orleans. Originally we were going to go to dinner at Johnny Po-Boys but they ran out of bread before we could go there so we went to The Gumbo Shop. There I got a shrimp Po-Boy with house-made chips. It was delicious and the restaurant was old-fashion style. It was a very fun first day!

We had the amazing opportunity to attend the 37th annual Isleños Festival in St. Bernard Village on Sunday, March 9th. From traditional Spanish music, exquisite delicious Canary food which recipes have been passed down from generation to generation, to the great educative tour, thanks to Bill Hyland, throughout the Isleño Museum Complex, our experience was a very memorable one.

We were able to learn in great detail about the Spanish Colonies once they moved to Louisiana from Spain. Out of the four settlements that were in Louisiana, St. Bernard is the only one that have stayed there for all these centuries. We got to learn about the important role that the Spanish play in Louisiana, as well as New Orleans, that many tourists ignore because New Orleans is known as an Old French colony. One of the people that played a major role in the Spanish colonies was Alberto Estopinal, from Las Gran Canarias who influenced the human rights and laws of the state of Louisiana. We also learned that the major reason why the Spaniards moved to Louisiana in the 18th century was to help fight the British.

Many of the locals we interviewed considered themselves to be proud Isleños, which is the word given to Canary Islands descendants, however they admitted that after the French came and took over, all the Isleños lost their language and that’s why they don’t speak Spanish. This is one reason why many people don’t think of the Spanish Influence when they think of New Orleans.

Special thanks to Bill Hyland for being a wonderful host, introducing us to many great people as well as to opening our minds and helping us on our project.

O-H!

Fifteen Honors students from the Newark campus head to New Orleans Saturday for five days of exploration and research.
Watch this space for photos and news!