Avoid at all Costs: Marquette House Hostel

I stayed an extra day in New Orleans after my friend had to leave. I figured I should stay in a hostel rather than a hotel to save money and perhaps rub elbows with some fellow travelers. I've had great luck with hostels in Bangkok, Beijing, Boston and Honolulu.

I booked a room at Marquette House New Orleans International Hostel online.

This turned out to be the worst rat hole I've ever stayed in. The room was filthy as was the bathroom. Guests, long gone, had left food containers and wrappers in the dorms and no one cleaned them up. The showers and bathrooms were a mess. The stairs needed repair. I shared a room with a woman from Isreal and profusely apologized that America was not usually so disgusting.

Is someone paying off the city inspectors? I don't know why this fire trap is allowed to remain open. It's a disgrace to NOLA.

New Orleans Walking Tour

On Thursday Maryann and I missed out on the U.S. Park Department’s free walking tour of the Riverfront. They only take 25 people a day and the line for the 9:30 am tour started at 8:30. We tried again on Sunday and were rewarded with a ticket.

A ranger, who’d come to NOLA from Iowa and knew his stuff, led the tour. He entertained us with a lot of history of this spirited city that has been ruled by the French, the Spanish and the Americans by turn. Among the many facts I learned were:

• The term Dixie derives from the currency used in NOLA. The bills used to be bilingual and ten dollar notes said “dix.” Hence outsiders called NOLA, Dixieland.
• No one really wanted to live in NOLA with its mosquitos and humidity so the French “coaxed” prisoners, prostitutes and those unemployed for more than a few days to board a ship for their new homeland.
• Spaniards who came to NOLA did not bring wives so they wound up marrying French women, who taught their children French thus keeping the language in play during Spanish rule.
• The for-profit tour companies have lobbied for reducing the number of tours, participants and locales of the Park Service’s tours to ensure they make a profit. Considering that I find most commercial tours disappointing, this irks me. Why not embrace the challenge and provide better tours to ensure success? Considering that the National Park Service’s mission is to preserve wildlife and culture they do have a place in the Big Easy.

St. Joseph's Parade, 2011

I loved this parade in New Orleans last March. It's so real and natural as opposed to commercial and impersonal. I highly recommend attending this if you're in NOLA when they have it.