This evening we are going to our first NFL game so first thing today we walked up to the Superdome to see if we could pick up our tickets, unfortunately what they hadn’t told us was that the ticket office doesn’t open until 3pm on game days so we walked back to the hotel and set off on our walk around the French Quarter. This is the original New Orleans and covers 13 x 7 city blocks and runs along the Mississippi River from Canal Street to Esplanade Avenue (13 blocks) and comes inland to North Rampart Street (7 blocks). It is the oldest neighbourhood founded in 1718 which ironically is when the town was ruled by the Spanish and a lot of the houses are from that period although a number were built under French rule. We have a walk that identifies the main houses, hostels and warehouses from the early history , most of the houses seem to still be standing although mostly changed into shops or tourist attractions. The thing I find most stunning is the amount of ironwork that is still on the houses, but this probably reflects the fact they didn’t take it all away to make ammunition during the Second World War. In the end we only did half of the walk as we decided Jackson Square was as good a place as any to stop and continue tomorrow. Just by Jackson Square is St Louis Cathedral which is apparently the oldest cathedral in the United States although I am sure we have already seen this somewhere. We went inside and it was quite plain but all the same quite nice. From here we walked down to the river and along the front a little then after watching the steamboat set off on its lunchtime Jazz cruise we walked back to the hotel. We had a bit of a sit down in the room then went off in search of lunch and walked up to the Superdome to get our tickets. This time the ticket office was open and we finally picked up the tickets for tonights game. The game didn’t start until 6pm so we went into the Champions Square which is an area outside the stadium where they have food and drinks and also a band playing a free concert, they were actually quite good, so we sat and watched them for a while having a couple of drinks then we went into the stadium. This is the largest fixed dome structure in the world, the roof is 9.7 acres or 440,000 square feet. From the floor the roof is 273 feet, St Louis Cathedral is 172 and that looks quite high! We walked all the way round which is just over half a mile (.65 of a mile) then went and found our seats which were quite high up but gave us a great view of the whole pitch and our seats were right on the halfway line so we could definitely see all the action, we obviously picked 2 great seats out of the 73,208 they have when the football is on. The time before the game flew by as there was quite a lot going on then we went for the introduction of the team. Only the Saints were introduced with all of the pyrotechnics and light shows, the Texans just came on in the shadows. I guess the same happens the Saints when they play at Houstoun. I don’t think I have ever been anywhere that was so noisy, the Football fans are very different to the baseball ones, Chris and I were two of probably only about 10 people in the whole stadium that didn’t have either Saints or Texans shirts on and a number of them were dressed up for the game, there were quite a few Bishops and Nuns for the Saints and cheerleaders and cowboys for the Texans! The game was great if a little difficult to follow at times as whenever anything happened the people in front of us all stood up! The Saints played well in the first quarter but then for some reason completely went off the boil and by half time were loosing. I got a bit confused as they change ends every quarter which has completely passed me by when we have watched it on the TV. By the end of the 3rd quarter the Saints had at least scored but they were not the best team (something I wouldn’t say out loud in the stadium!) Somehow in the 4th they managed to take the lead then with 30 seconds to go the Texans scored and went into the lead by 1 point. The Saints quarterback and receiver somehow got their act together and managed two plays which got them to 55 yards from their goal so with 3 seconds on the clock they kicked and managed to score a field goal so won by 2 points! What an ending to the game, it was fantastic. Then it was just a case of getting out and walking back to the hotel, it was a brilliant experience to go to the match although it made it quite a late night by the time we got back.
