New Orleans 2013
Yes, yes, the user icon is the Hernando de Soto bridge in Memphis, but it's also the Mississippi River. Work with me, people.
Thursday night through early Monday afternoon found me in the Crescent City, herself: New Orleans! My companions were pirategirleee (who visited the city last year), psalite (who was our NO virgin), and LJ-less Ellen (who visited back in the early '90s). We did the full-on, jackhole tourist experience in addition to treading lesser trod paths.
Oreo wanted to come along, but I feared he'd exceed the luggage weight limit.
Our plane was late and then we got stuck on the runway for a weather delay, but since we had a direct flight, no harm, no foul. However, the approach to MSY over Lake Pontchartrain was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. We banked HARD and I had visions of the first episode of "Lost" flash through my head. Also, I am terrified of black water. I can't even swim in a dark pool at night. Third, I saw the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway from the air and it gave me the willies. Now, I appreciate bridges for the technological and engineering marvels they are, but loooong or tall bridges terrify me. (That's a lot of terror, n'est-ce pas?)
The ride to the hotel was not terrifying and neither was the hotel itself. We stayed in the Wyndham French Quarter and our rooms on the 19th floor gave us a breath-taking view of both the river and Canal Street. Being located on Royal between Canal and Iberville put us in a prime jumping off point for any direction.
We started Friday with a dip in the (heated, saltwater) hotel pool which was located on the 10th floor. What a strange experience to swim and look out the windows to see tops of other buildings! Hunger finally forced us out of the pool, into regular clothes, and out to the city. We found a hole in the wall -- Jimmy J's -- for brunch on Friday. The girls gorged themselves on delicious looking entrees while I picked at my ham & cheese omelette. We then headed down Canal Street for the Aquarium of the Americas.
En route to the Aquarium, we dropped in to the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium. Now, if you know how much I love creatures with exactly the wrong number of legs, you'll know that visiting this particular museum was one of my poorer life choices. Getting jumped by an animatronic Shelob in the "Underground" exhibit didn't help. But I put on my big girl panties and strode through the invertebrates as bravely as I could. I even ate a bug -- a waxworm coated with sugar and cinnamon which tasted kind of like a praline -- and pet a rhinoceros beetle.
By the time we exited the Insectarium, it was almost closing time for the Aquarium. We sat by the riverbank for a while and watched cargo ships and paddle boats roll by. I spotted a bicycle tour cruise past and made a mental note to look into that for the next trip.
We continued up the Riverwalk to the French Market and found that the absolute best time to visit Cafe du Monde is at 5:20 on a Friday afternoon. We plopped right into a table and requested two orders of beignets of which I ate half a pastry. Mmm... beignet-y goodness. We strolled around Jackson Square, and while psalite and Ellen snapped photos of St. Louis Cathedral, pirategirleee and I poked through the offerings of the various artists. I procured two paintings from a sweet gent who kindly wrote a personal thank you to me on the back of one piece and two bicycle-themed paper art pieces from a slightly brusque gent who asked me to "like" him on Facebook.
We continued shopping our way back to the hotel, stopping at Voodoo Blues for t-shirts and trinkets (I added the vampire bat and black cat below to my collection). We even found Fleurty Girl where I snagged a Sidewalk Side tee and Fleurish car magnet (as you do).
We found another hole in the wall -- Copper Monkey -- for dinner and I dined on crawfish poppers and an amaretto sour (my first alcoholic beverage since surgery). Both were DELISH! We were then accosted by a lewd Jester who grabbed Ellen and me for a photo op. We ended our day with another dip in the pool.
On Saturday, the girls trooped off to Court of the Two Sisters for Jazz Brunch and I rode the St Charles streetcar uptown to visit Wombat, Holly and kids. I spent the afternoon visiting with the adults and seeing all the gorgeous improvements to their home and playing Legos and Munchkin with the kids. They treated me to a fish taco at their favorite taqueria and ferried me back downtown so that I could join the girls on a Ghost Tour. Our tour guide -- the Rev. Jeffrey, himself -- was quite the charismatic character and provided lots of frightening, disturbing, and occasionally revolting stories of love, jealousy, heart-break, depravity, and death from the Quarter's sordid past.
The tour ended in Jackson Square and I decided that a Saturday night would be the best time to introduce psalite and Ellen to the wonders of Bourbon Street. Heh heh heh. pirategirleee wanted to have her fortune read again at Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo, but the reader was too busy. While she puttered around the shop, we saw a broke-down drag queen direct traffic and lots of drunken bachelorette parties. The girls then decided they wanted to try a Hurricane. I took 'em straight to Pat O'Briens. We were doing the full-on tourist thing, remember, and they needed to see the patio with the flaming fountain. We got two Hurricanes for the four of us -- another poor life choice on my part -- and proceeded to get smashed in one of the passageways. Okay, I got smashed due to my tiny stomach and natural tendency toward being a cheap-ass drunk.
This happened:
And so did this:
And also this:
I made another poor life choice by ordering yet ANOTHER drink at the Hard Rock Cafe to go with... whatever I ate. Oh, yeah, southwestern eggrolls. Poor life choice number whatever. Je regrette rien!
The hangover I feared for Sunday morning did not materialize. Whoo hoo! The morning's plan was the Jazz Brunch at Arnaud's where we wound up with the same Cajun maitre d'hotel who served us last year's impromptu post-burlesque show dinner. The dining room was amazing with wood-paneled walls, original (I guess) octagonal tiled floors, leaded glass windows, and astonishing crystal chandeliers. A jazz trio of saxophone, banjo, and string bass cruised about the dining room serenading patrons. I saw gentlemen wearing linen button-down shirts and seersucker trousers who donned straw Panama hats as they left the restaurant. Oh, my Southern heart swooned again and again. And the food... my tiny pouch meant that I could take only a few bites of my chilled fruit cocktail appetizer, Omelette au Fromage entree, and Strawberries Arnaud dessert (in a marinade of port, red wine, spices and citrus finished off with Brocato’s French vanilla ice cream and a white chocolate infused whipped cream). We didn't realize ahead of time that it was a prix fixe menu, otherwise I might have skipped this outing, but then I would have missed the charm of what it might have been like to dine with society back in the golden age.
We waddled back to the hotel for changing into comfy clothes and hopped the Canal St streetcar to the Aquarium of the Americas. I spent a lot of time watching the African penguins, the morays, and the Gulf Coast exhibit which included multiple Southern stingrays, nurse sharks, sandtiger sharks, sandbar sharks, tarpon, and a very large sea turtle. I also made Charlene face her fear of sharks by making her pose in the fake jaws. Heh heh heh.
After the Aquarium, we hopped the streetcar again and rolled down to the French Market for more shopping around Jackson Square. After loading up on packages of pralines, Ellen had the brilliant idea of getting henna tattoos. I've never had one and was game. It took the artist 10 or 15 minutes to create the peacock design on my left hand and the mouse on my ankle. That mouse is a line drawing I've had for years which I want to be a real tattoo someday. I always thought I'd put it on my left shoulder, but I think the ankle might be a better location, even if it'll hurt a LOT more.
We all felt starved after tattoos -- which surprised us all since we didn't think we'd ever eat again after the bonanza at Arnaud's -- and dropped in to Stanley's on the Square. I finally had the one New Orleans dish that had made me cry when I happened upon Anthony Bourdain's "The Layover" episode in New Orleans: a soft shell crab po'boy. Imagine my despair that this one dish was the only thing which made me sick during the entire weekend. Ellen and psalite shared the other half of my sandwich while I purged my system and determined that it was mostly shell and very little meat. Now we know why the restaurant was so empty despite being in a primo location...
When I felt comfortable enough to wander about in public, Ellen and psalite hoofed it back to the hotel while pirategirleee and I stuck around Jackson Square so that I could have my cards and palms read. I want to believe, but I'm skeptical enough to realize that the readers paint in extremely broad strokes. It was fun and mostly complimentary with a few warnings. As soon as we left the reader, a wedding party spilled out of St Louis Cathedral and a jazz procession started up. Our tour guide from Saturday evening had said that it was perfectly acceptable for strangers to jump in as the second line in both funeral and wedding jazz processions and so we did, twirling handkerchiefs with a few other second liners, until we got to Royal St at which point we jumped out of the procession and scooted on back to the hotel.
At this point, we were all broke and exhausted. We all wanted to go back out Sunday night, but our bodies were weak. Instead we sadly packed our suitcases in preparation for Monday's early pick-up from the hotel and flight back to real life. (Oh, and I had a shrimp & fried green tomato with remoulade po'boy in the airport which did NOT make me sick. I CAN eat shellfish, whoo hoo!)
The weather all weekend was gorgeous (which was completely out of the usual for this time of year). All the people I spoke with were characters with fantastic stories to tell. The bike infrastructure (yes, I still keep a weather eye out for such things) appears to have grown even more, and I wanted so badly to join all the cyclists pedaling through the Quarter and uptown. I fell in love with the city again and I want so badly to move south. Must begin negotiations with the Hubbyfink.
Thursday night through early Monday afternoon found me in the Crescent City, herself: New Orleans! My companions were pirategirleee (who visited the city last year), psalite (who was our NO virgin), and LJ-less Ellen (who visited back in the early '90s). We did the full-on, jackhole tourist experience in addition to treading lesser trod paths.
Oreo wanted to come along, but I feared he'd exceed the luggage weight limit.
Our plane was late and then we got stuck on the runway for a weather delay, but since we had a direct flight, no harm, no foul. However, the approach to MSY over Lake Pontchartrain was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. We banked HARD and I had visions of the first episode of "Lost" flash through my head. Also, I am terrified of black water. I can't even swim in a dark pool at night. Third, I saw the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway from the air and it gave me the willies. Now, I appreciate bridges for the technological and engineering marvels they are, but loooong or tall bridges terrify me. (That's a lot of terror, n'est-ce pas?)
The ride to the hotel was not terrifying and neither was the hotel itself. We stayed in the Wyndham French Quarter and our rooms on the 19th floor gave us a breath-taking view of both the river and Canal Street. Being located on Royal between Canal and Iberville put us in a prime jumping off point for any direction.
We started Friday with a dip in the (heated, saltwater) hotel pool which was located on the 10th floor. What a strange experience to swim and look out the windows to see tops of other buildings! Hunger finally forced us out of the pool, into regular clothes, and out to the city. We found a hole in the wall -- Jimmy J's -- for brunch on Friday. The girls gorged themselves on delicious looking entrees while I picked at my ham & cheese omelette. We then headed down Canal Street for the Aquarium of the Americas.
En route to the Aquarium, we dropped in to the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium. Now, if you know how much I love creatures with exactly the wrong number of legs, you'll know that visiting this particular museum was one of my poorer life choices. Getting jumped by an animatronic Shelob in the "Underground" exhibit didn't help. But I put on my big girl panties and strode through the invertebrates as bravely as I could. I even ate a bug -- a waxworm coated with sugar and cinnamon which tasted kind of like a praline -- and pet a rhinoceros beetle.
By the time we exited the Insectarium, it was almost closing time for the Aquarium. We sat by the riverbank for a while and watched cargo ships and paddle boats roll by. I spotted a bicycle tour cruise past and made a mental note to look into that for the next trip.
We continued up the Riverwalk to the French Market and found that the absolute best time to visit Cafe du Monde is at 5:20 on a Friday afternoon. We plopped right into a table and requested two orders of beignets of which I ate half a pastry. Mmm... beignet-y goodness. We strolled around Jackson Square, and while psalite and Ellen snapped photos of St. Louis Cathedral, pirategirleee and I poked through the offerings of the various artists. I procured two paintings from a sweet gent who kindly wrote a personal thank you to me on the back of one piece and two bicycle-themed paper art pieces from a slightly brusque gent who asked me to "like" him on Facebook.
We continued shopping our way back to the hotel, stopping at Voodoo Blues for t-shirts and trinkets (I added the vampire bat and black cat below to my collection). We even found Fleurty Girl where I snagged a Sidewalk Side tee and Fleurish car magnet (as you do).
We found another hole in the wall -- Copper Monkey -- for dinner and I dined on crawfish poppers and an amaretto sour (my first alcoholic beverage since surgery). Both were DELISH! We were then accosted by a lewd Jester who grabbed Ellen and me for a photo op. We ended our day with another dip in the pool.
On Saturday, the girls trooped off to Court of the Two Sisters for Jazz Brunch and I rode the St Charles streetcar uptown to visit Wombat, Holly and kids. I spent the afternoon visiting with the adults and seeing all the gorgeous improvements to their home and playing Legos and Munchkin with the kids. They treated me to a fish taco at their favorite taqueria and ferried me back downtown so that I could join the girls on a Ghost Tour. Our tour guide -- the Rev. Jeffrey, himself -- was quite the charismatic character and provided lots of frightening, disturbing, and occasionally revolting stories of love, jealousy, heart-break, depravity, and death from the Quarter's sordid past.
The tour ended in Jackson Square and I decided that a Saturday night would be the best time to introduce psalite and Ellen to the wonders of Bourbon Street. Heh heh heh. pirategirleee wanted to have her fortune read again at Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo, but the reader was too busy. While she puttered around the shop, we saw a broke-down drag queen direct traffic and lots of drunken bachelorette parties. The girls then decided they wanted to try a Hurricane. I took 'em straight to Pat O'Briens. We were doing the full-on tourist thing, remember, and they needed to see the patio with the flaming fountain. We got two Hurricanes for the four of us -- another poor life choice on my part -- and proceeded to get smashed in one of the passageways. Okay, I got smashed due to my tiny stomach and natural tendency toward being a cheap-ass drunk.
This happened:
And so did this:
And also this:
I made another poor life choice by ordering yet ANOTHER drink at the Hard Rock Cafe to go with... whatever I ate. Oh, yeah, southwestern eggrolls. Poor life choice number whatever. Je regrette rien!
The hangover I feared for Sunday morning did not materialize. Whoo hoo! The morning's plan was the Jazz Brunch at Arnaud's where we wound up with the same Cajun maitre d'hotel who served us last year's impromptu post-burlesque show dinner. The dining room was amazing with wood-paneled walls, original (I guess) octagonal tiled floors, leaded glass windows, and astonishing crystal chandeliers. A jazz trio of saxophone, banjo, and string bass cruised about the dining room serenading patrons. I saw gentlemen wearing linen button-down shirts and seersucker trousers who donned straw Panama hats as they left the restaurant. Oh, my Southern heart swooned again and again. And the food... my tiny pouch meant that I could take only a few bites of my chilled fruit cocktail appetizer, Omelette au Fromage entree, and Strawberries Arnaud dessert (in a marinade of port, red wine, spices and citrus finished off with Brocato’s French vanilla ice cream and a white chocolate infused whipped cream). We didn't realize ahead of time that it was a prix fixe menu, otherwise I might have skipped this outing, but then I would have missed the charm of what it might have been like to dine with society back in the golden age.
We waddled back to the hotel for changing into comfy clothes and hopped the Canal St streetcar to the Aquarium of the Americas. I spent a lot of time watching the African penguins, the morays, and the Gulf Coast exhibit which included multiple Southern stingrays, nurse sharks, sandtiger sharks, sandbar sharks, tarpon, and a very large sea turtle. I also made Charlene face her fear of sharks by making her pose in the fake jaws. Heh heh heh.
After the Aquarium, we hopped the streetcar again and rolled down to the French Market for more shopping around Jackson Square. After loading up on packages of pralines, Ellen had the brilliant idea of getting henna tattoos. I've never had one and was game. It took the artist 10 or 15 minutes to create the peacock design on my left hand and the mouse on my ankle. That mouse is a line drawing I've had for years which I want to be a real tattoo someday. I always thought I'd put it on my left shoulder, but I think the ankle might be a better location, even if it'll hurt a LOT more.
We all felt starved after tattoos -- which surprised us all since we didn't think we'd ever eat again after the bonanza at Arnaud's -- and dropped in to Stanley's on the Square. I finally had the one New Orleans dish that had made me cry when I happened upon Anthony Bourdain's "The Layover" episode in New Orleans: a soft shell crab po'boy. Imagine my despair that this one dish was the only thing which made me sick during the entire weekend. Ellen and psalite shared the other half of my sandwich while I purged my system and determined that it was mostly shell and very little meat. Now we know why the restaurant was so empty despite being in a primo location...
When I felt comfortable enough to wander about in public, Ellen and psalite hoofed it back to the hotel while pirategirleee and I stuck around Jackson Square so that I could have my cards and palms read. I want to believe, but I'm skeptical enough to realize that the readers paint in extremely broad strokes. It was fun and mostly complimentary with a few warnings. As soon as we left the reader, a wedding party spilled out of St Louis Cathedral and a jazz procession started up. Our tour guide from Saturday evening had said that it was perfectly acceptable for strangers to jump in as the second line in both funeral and wedding jazz processions and so we did, twirling handkerchiefs with a few other second liners, until we got to Royal St at which point we jumped out of the procession and scooted on back to the hotel.
At this point, we were all broke and exhausted. We all wanted to go back out Sunday night, but our bodies were weak. Instead we sadly packed our suitcases in preparation for Monday's early pick-up from the hotel and flight back to real life. (Oh, and I had a shrimp & fried green tomato with remoulade po'boy in the airport which did NOT make me sick. I CAN eat shellfish, whoo hoo!)
The weather all weekend was gorgeous (which was completely out of the usual for this time of year). All the people I spoke with were characters with fantastic stories to tell. The bike infrastructure (yes, I still keep a weather eye out for such things) appears to have grown even more, and I wanted so badly to join all the cyclists pedaling through the Quarter and uptown. I fell in love with the city again and I want so badly to move south. Must begin negotiations with the Hubbyfink.