USA 2016

Beautiful Windy City panorama (wind not pictured)

The 2016 edition of the Goulds’ annual Stateside trip saw a move away from the West and East coasts, instead taking in a chunk of the Midwest and some good ole Southern comforts.

Masochists can read all about my 2011 visit to Chicago here, complete with tortuous title pun. My wife and I covered much of the same ground this year, the main difference being an increased, nay all-consuming, focus on food. Indeed, this entire holiday presents further evidence that we are now selecting destinations purely on the basis of treat availability, and in the sincere belief that calories consumed abroad will magically have no effect. Hence we enjoyed a Ghirardelli hot fudge sundae and stocked up on bags of their absurdly moreish chocolate squares, abandoned our salads at the Michigan Avenue branch of the Cheesecake Factory halfway through to ensure room for the mountainous slice of eponymous dessert, and made sure to sample some of the Garrett company’s World Famous caramel popcorn (funny how quite so many eateries have World Famous dishes, isn't it?).

Crown Fountain, Millennium Park

In addition, Xoco offers hearty Mexican street food – think Wahaca with more emphasis on meal soups. I had some incredible banana cream pie pancakes at Wildberry, although even I struggled to finish all five. And a hipster cafe opposite our hotel called Goddess and the Baker boasted some mammoth pastries (including a glutinous concoction called a raspberry cruffin which probably worked better in theory) and of course a staff showcasing a diverse range of tattoos and body jewellery.

Speaking of cooler-than-thou joints, Longman and Eagle up in the Shoreditch-ish district of Logan Square deserves another shout out. Dishes such as the deconstructed fried chicken and chocolate soda float really are deliciously inventive, and the nose-to-tail, farm to table concept is far more than superficial hipster posturing.

I wonder who owns the building on the right? Not that he's insecure at all, no sirree!

New sights this time included Lincoln Park, whose free conservatory and zoo make it well worth a visit, and Navy Pier, which definitely isn't if you’re British and expecting a Ye Olde rickety-yet-charming wooden pier with penny arcades, Gypsy Rose Lee etc. If you’re happy with a bunch of chain restaurants and an unimpressively "big" wheel though, fill your boots.

We also experienced the joys of Union Station, trains being our chosen method of transport across the country this time around. I’m not quite sure what romantic notions of long-distance train travel we were expecting, but the reality of Amtrak is hulking metal trains with very basic refreshments yet friendly and efficient service. I’d never slept overnight on a train before and after half an hour of fruitless attempts to nod off amidst the constant buffeting and rattling I thought I never would. Thankfully I managed to doze off for a few hours. #firstworldproblems

Cool civil rights mural

The Memphis air was already about 25 degrees when we arrived around 7am, and quickly climbed to the mid-thirties. Welcome to the South, y'all. First stop after dumping our luggage was the Civil Rights Museum, housed in the converted Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was gunned down in 1968. The museum is impeccably laid out, the overall experience one of immense profundity and one which is impossible to write anything funny about.

We then took a stroll down Main Street, which of course was nearly deserted in the relentless afternoon sunshine. Downtown Memphis is predominantly nocturnal, centered around the hubbub of Beale Street whose gaudy neon signs start flashing early each evening and don’t stop until sunrise. There are no major shops of note, hotels and restaurants by the score, and the majority of the museums are of the far more frivolous, popular music variety. Which isn’t to say that Memphis’s place in musical history isn’t hugely important in its own way - the Sun Studio tour genuinely felt like standing on hallowed ground.

Which brings us inevitably to Graceland. I was struck by it’s similarity to Disney World, and was unsurprised to learn that the owners are consulting with the Disney Parks gurus with intent to further develop their property. They’re already about to open a super-deluxe resort hotel to replace the smaller existing guesthouse, which is called (you guessed it) Heartbreak Hotel.

Chez Le King

The theme park feel starts with the highly regimented way you queue up for minibuses from the ticket centre to take you a whole 200 yards or so across the road to the mansion itself. What’s notable about the house is how small it is – no superstar worth his or her salt would purchase such a modestly-sized property in this day and age, but then Elvis was the first of his kind. And it’s not like The King scrimped on the décor – the rooms that you’re allowed to see are fantastic monuments to seventies kitsch, especially the fully carpeted (walls and ceilings too) Jungle Room. Initially we felt like herded cattle, but once you get outside and then onto the memorabilia exhibits you have room to breathe and drink in all the history.

Like any good theme park, Graceland tries to give you a full day out – several restaurants offer perfunctory meals and the gift shops stock incredible amounts of merch. Mickey Mouse or Elvis Presley, real or fictional, alive or dead, when icon status is achieved the brand perpetuates itself. The smaller exhibition rooms which are included in the different ticket packages are of varying shades on the shitometer, but one has to marvel at how they have built up so much around what is basically a dead guy’s house. And the soundtrack, of course, is one of the greatest.

None of these people are walking with their feet 10 feet off of Beale. Stupid song.

Beale Street is the beating heart of Memphis, a three-block stretch of bars with music pumping from all directions, most of it live, and street drinking positively encouraged. The hedonism was emphasised by the presence of (a) half the local police force, and (b) the Christian protestors denouncing this modern-day Sodom and Gomorroh through their megaphones. One might suggest they should get out more; on the other hand, if they were ever to witness Bourbon Street their heads would probably explode (see below).

Lame as we are, we didn’t stay out very late on either night we spent in the city, but mention must be given to the Blues City Café (‘Put some South in your Mouth’) with its divine racks of ribs, and to the huge disposable cups helpfully labelled Beale Big-Ass Beer.

One of hundreds of beautiful French Quarter buildings

Such was the hysteria of our fellow carriage occupants, the train to New Orleans felt more like a school coach trip. It turned out that the boisterous young black people in front of us and the chattering white couples behind were all going on the same cruise to Mexico. One of the old Southern dames sounded almost overwhelmed by the experience – I half-expected her to preface every awed statement with ‘Ah do dee-clare!’ It turned out that this was the first time she’d ever been on a train, and she was embarking on what was clearly the trip of a lifetime. A helpful reminder for people like us to try not to take our frequent long-haul travels too much for granted.

Tourism in New Orleans, or Nola, or the Crescent City, or the Big Easy, or possibly the Who Dat Nation, is centered around the French Quarter, the prime stretch of real estate first colonised by our Gallic friends in the 18th century, which is at a slightly higher elevation than the rest of the city and thus did not get flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. My hilariously naive idea of its most famous thoroughfare, Bourbon Street, was of a bigger, jazzier Beale Street. Remove the live music and dial up the hawkers, deadbeats, identikit bars and all-encompassing air of sleaze (hello, Larry Flynt’s Barely Legal club) and you’re still not even close to capturing this wretched hive of scum and villainy. We quickly made our excuses and left.

St Louis Cathedral and Jackson Square

The real picture-postcard essence of the city is in fact just off the French Quarter in Frenchmen Street, which has a couple of blocks chock full of jazz and soul bands playing through to the small hours, most of them in the clubs and bars but a few on the sidewalks too.

The narrow, character-packed streets of the French Quarter contain more than enough to keep the average visitor occupied for a few days. Ticking off all the local culinary specialities takes a lot of time – gumbo, jambalaya, po’boy sandwiches, beignets, pralines, the list is extensive, so it pays to visit somewhere offering sample plates which cover multiple items at once. The food at Coop’s Place more than lives up to its billing, although the dive-bar vibe and er, confrontational waiting staff (who we loved) won’t be to everyone’s taste. Café du Monde and Café Beignet both specialise in the city’s famous deep-fried, sugar-soaked doughnuts, although the former with its open-air courtyard setting adjacent to the French Market and a stone’s throw from the Mississippi wins in the atmosphere stakes.

Al fresco music on Frenchmen Street

Across the street is the focal point that is Jackson Square, at the top end of which stands the beautiful St Louis Cathedral, flanked by two decent museums housed in the Cabildo (an old courthouse) and the Presbytere. The former covers the history of the city up to the 20th century, while the latter fills one floor with a moving exhibit about Katrina (essentially a warning against human short-termism) and the other, in a perhaps deliberate juxtaposition, with a celebration of Mardi Gras, Many smaller museums are also dotted around the quarter, while walking tours aplenty can fill you in on more historical detail during the day, and voodoo and other ghostly hokum in the evening.

Larger museums located further downtown include the clean and modern World War II Museum which offers an interestingly American perspective on the war and especially the Pacific campaign (they more or less won it by themselves, you’ll be grateful to know). Then there are the old streetcars which act as living museums themselves. The St Charles Avenue line trundles its way up one of the self-styled most beautiful streets in America, offering a way of seeing another side of a city not blessed with great public transport options as it passes by imposing mansions and other fine examples of Southern architecture.

Superdome, not-so-super team

Let’s stop pretending that we were in N’Awlins solely for the cultural stuff, however – our (okay, my) unquestioned highlight was seeing Monday Night Football (™) at the Superdome, as the city’s beloved Saints hosted divisional rivals the Atlanta Falcons. Having seen three of the regular NFL International Series games at Wembley in recent years, I knew what to expect in terms of noise, spectacle, insane levels of sponsorship, etc, but there’s still a lot to be said for experiencing this stuff in its natural habitat amongst rabid hometown fans. Rabid, at least, until the end of the second quarter when it became apparent that their team’s defence had the resistance of a sheet of wet bog roll. A special shout-out to the Kickoff Tee Retrieval Mascots, sponsored by some hotel or other.

An entirely different experience to both of our trip’s previous stops, New Orleans’s unique tapestry of French, Spanish, Cajun and Creole influences gives it an “anything goes” vibe – see the hedonistic celebrations of Mardi Gras, the thriving gay scene, hundreds of live music venues, the cornucopia of culinary delights, the deep seam of supernatural silliness and yes, the happy hordes of human detritus lining Bourbon Street. Visits to places like the Civil Rights Museum and the Katrina exhibit at the Presbytere do rather temper such optimism regarding equal rights and melting pots, emphasizing just how far there is to go in America and elsewhere. But the defiance displayed by the New Orleaneans (trust me, I Googled it) in their post-hurricane rebuilding and their determination to keep the party going for tourists and residents alike is infectious.