The train station is perhaps a bit too far to walk to the FQ or anywhere else where you might be staying, but a taxi should be within reach ~ much less expensive than from the airport, that's for sure...

I don't like too-too-hot food, either, but you shouldn't be scared to try the local cuisine. With certain exceptions, most entrees you'd order and eat here in N.O. (or anywhere in South Louisiana) will not be nearly as peppery as the "fake Cajun" stuff served elsewhere! People add their own hot sauce, to taste. And hell, you guys live in the Southwest, where the local food is much hotter than anything we eat around here. Our hot peppers of choice, the cayenne and the tabasco, are nowhere near as fiery as those damn jalapenos you eat out there in the desert!

December 28th will probably be a more interesting time-frame, albeit more crowded, than early January. We will be hosting the Sugar Bowl game on New Years, as always, along with a lot of annual New Years hoopla. Plenty of folks from he outlying regions come to New Orleans for New Years, and the streets will be packed with, er, um, merrymakers. Be warned!

If, after asking around, I come up with any "insider" information on affordable lodging (B&Bs, etc.), I'll let you know. Can't promise anything, though, and I don't have any specific idea in mind at the moment.

Hi Ernest! By the way, it's "Donna's," and Monday night is the best night to visit there, when they have the free fried-chicken-and-red-beans buffet along with the all-star jazz jam. I'm not sure if they're even open on Sundays. Drummer and WWOZ DJ Bob French, who was the bandleader every Monday back when we met there, had some kind of conflict with Donna and her husband, so now Bob hosts a very similar Monday-night jam at some other bar (one of the spots on Frenchman St.), and Donna's now features the George French Band on Mondays. George is Bob's younger brother, a bass player and a terrific vocalist. Both are descendants of "Papa" French, one of the pioneers of early-early New Orleans Jazz.