My ipad travel blog: Saturday to Monday, New Orleans-May 10-12, 2014

our courtyard using app Waterlogue

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, Donna and I spent our days at the International Reading Association Convention so our sightseeing was a bit limited. Saturday night we had a dinner to attend at the Chartres Restaurant and Sunday, a reception at the Marriott, followed by listening to a little jazz on Bourbon Street. Monday, when the conference ended at 1:00 we followed up with taking a cooking class and a little shopping. By the end of the day my battery in my iPhone was generally shot so my pictures were rather limited. Serious sightseeing resumed on Tuesday… but I will share a few highlights…

Saturday began with an opening session with a children's jazz band that was excellent, an address by the International Reading Association's president, and then a keynote by Jeff Kinney, the author of the popular children's series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It was an interesting session describing his path to becoming a children's writer from his early ambition of being a cartoonist. His books were incredibly popular with my students, especially boys who didn't see themselves as readers but loved his humorous stories of a character they could relate to and his amusing drawings. These books were often the first step to moving on to books such as The Lightning Thief etc. For more on the conference I will be posting on my other blog, Late Literacy.

Bad Kitty gave me his autograph

This followed with the opening of the exhibit space where there are all sorts of publishing displays and lots of authors and books. Overwhelming but for a lover of children's books such as myself a kind of heaven. The rest of the day was filled with sessions and I met up with Donna and took the shuttle back to Canal Street and the walk to our hotel laden with books!!

Our next stop was a dinner at the Chartres Restaurant. This is a neat building and we even ate in the Tennessee Williams Room (apparently he liked the bar here). I even won a copy of A Streetcar Named Desire!

Their balcony is quite famous and you can see it gives you a good view of the New Orleans street scene.

As we were walking up the street which was blocked we started hearing jazz and hearing a whole group that looked like wedding guests waving handkerchiefs and swaying to the music. I had heard of processions of people doing this at funerals but hadn't realized this happened at weddings as well. You always are learning something new here! Here's the link to the video!

As we continued up the street we heard beautiful singing as well, one of my most favourite songs, Send in the Clowns…

Here are a few more pictures from our stroll after dinner back to our hotel! We always wander into a shop or two!

I love these street signs!

Sunday we began our day with a session with Dav Pilkey, author of the popular Captain Underpants series. I was a bit sceptical but he was a very modest, very moving speaker, who again has hit reluctant readers and created books they could enjoy. He also happens to live with one of my favourite writer's, Cynthia Rylant. Again it was a busy day with many speakers and we didn't even have time to go home before we went to the Canadian reception at the Marriott. This is always a great event where you get to see old friends (and not just Canadians!).

A bit more street viewing!

Following the reception several of us went off in pursuit of jazz and to drop books off at our hotel. Right around the corner in the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon is Irwin Mayfield's Jazz Playhouse where we spent an enjoyable time.

Monday was our final conference day and was as busy as usual beginning with the closing session with Reading guru, P. David Pearson, and a fill in, Sharon Robinson, nurse, writer, social activist, and daughter of baseball legend, Jackie Robinson. Both were excellent. I went to some excellent sessions and spent more time in the exhibits meeting Donna after my final session as we had a cooking class at 2:00 and it was 1:00 when my final session ended.

We found our way to the New Orleans School of Cooking.

And we settled in with Chef Kevin as he demonstrated how to make gumbo, jambalaya, and pralines and kept us laughing and informing us about New Orleans cuisine and traditions such as sitting down with friends to eat as we did! It was totally fun! And Donna stocked up on pralines for her husband!

Then it was time to do walk down to the river and do some shopping and beignet munching and of course sightseeing...