The Tuesday Ten | New Orleans Vacation!

New Orleans cuisine is tasteful, southern,
spicy, and full of seafood. We ate at some amazing restaurants. Most of the
restaurants in the down town area are not chain food spots, rather they are
hole in the wall, authentic, or locally owned. Those are what makes their food
the number one thing we loved about this trip. We ate shrimp, tuna, craw fish,
gumbo, alligator, drum fish,  red beans,
beignets (see #2 below), popcorn rice, steak, po-boys, and so much more. The
food is amazing. We tried a new restaurant every day and only went back to two restaurants
more than once (also, #2 below). Some of our favorite restaurants were Palace
Cafe, Bourbon House, Red Fish, American Sector, Cafe Beignet, Lucky Dogs, and
Cleo’s to name a few. If you are ever in the area I highly recommend stepping
out of your comfort zone and trying something new. I liked everything we tried!

2.      Beignets, Cafe Du Monde

The only two restaurants we went to more
than once were Cafe Du Monde which we visited about 4 times. We also went to
Cafe Beignet 3 times (two different locations). Beignets are my absolute
favorite thing we ate in New Orleans. Though we had Beignets at both Cafe’s I’d
recommend Cafe Du Monde over any other. They are to die for. What are Beignets?
They are a square French Donut with no center hole. They are made out of French
Bread dough, deep fried to perfection and topped with mounds of powdered sugar.
Yummy. One order comes with 3 doughnuts at every place we went. Cafe Du Monde
charges $2.49 ish for a single order of 3. How can you not love that price and
the taste? Oh man! However, servers at the Cafe are slow and are not in a hurry
to help you out. It’s a seat yourself and there usually is a line. Grab the
first table that’s unoccupied even if the table isn’t cleaned off. They’ll
eventually come around and clean it and get your order. The main location is
ideal for the entire experience but they also have a location in the River Walk
mall now as well.

3.      French Quarter

The French Quarter of New Orleans is full
of history, amazing architecture, a vast amount of shopping stores and
restaurants, mounds of people and amazing sights everywhere you look.  A few of my favorites are Jackson Square,
Pirate’s Alley, Flea Market, Cafe Du Monde, live music everywhere and any type.
We especially love the jazz music and enjoyed watching a small band play at
Cafe Beignet.  If you are in the area on
a Friday or Saturday make sure you walk down town French Quarter and see all
the street performers and vendors. There are artists of all kinds on the
streets trying to make money whether its playing music, clogging, selling their
paintings, art or even hustling people for shoe shines or more. There are
however, mounds
of homeless people and people on the street begging for money.
That was a sad downfall for this city, but you get used to it after a block or
so. The French Quarter buildings are worth the walk. We took a different street
every time we went out just to look at the buildings and unique shops around
the area.

4.      World War II Museum

What a touching experience. We started our
World War II Museum tour by having lunch at a restaurant called the American
Sector. It was delightful and fun. The table next to us had two gentleman, one
elderly man and what seemed to be his son. Kent, our friend that was with us,
asked the waiter to confirm if that elderly man was a World War II vet, which
he was. Kent told the waiter he wanted to cover their tab. Kent said it wasn’t
every day you ran into a World War II veteran and that occurrence isn’t going
to be around for long. Kent’s dad was a World War II veteran and passed away
last year. It was a great way to start our day at the museum and so humbling to
see how dedicated Kent was to giving back to those who served our country in
this horrendous war.  The Museum was so
touching, heart aching, solemn, gut wrenching and courageous. We saw many war
artifacts such as uniforms, guns, tanks, planes, shoes, first aid kits, gum,
cigarettes, and more. All from the WWII era and all donated by someone. They
had many live footage movies and photos with commentary about war.  My favorite part was the Road to Berlin. It
was the most touching and I ached for all those men and women who fought the
war. There was a part about the concentration camps that just made me want to
cry. Andy said his stomach was turning and I agree it was an eerie experience.
Andy has actually visited one of the concentration camps in Germany previously
on one of his trips and said after seeing the physical camps and learning more
at the museum it was gut wrenching. The museum had an entire building with
planes in it. There were three stories worth and we walked the tracks to see
above each of them. Overall, it was a humbling experience and an amazing
museum.

5.      Swamp Tour

The Swamp tour was definitely fun. We took
a small air boat out on the private lands of the company we booked with. There
were 6 of us and the captain. It was amazing scenery, creepy swamps, beautiful
trees and lands, quite a lot of alligators and overall one of my favorites from
the trip. I learned about alligators: they only see in black and white, they
really like chicken and marshmallows, and you can hold their mouths together
with two fingers because all their power is on the clamp down of their bite not
on the opening of their mouths. Many people in New Orleans surrounding areas
have alligators as a pet and keep them in tanks until they are bigger to go
into the wild, which we got to hold. During their first 6 years they grow 1
foot each year, then after that they grow an inch a year. It was a hot day out
on the boat but we had a lot of fun.

6.      Marti Gras World

I knew a little about Marti Gras when we
got to New Orleans. I’ve seen what’s on TV and I’ve been to New Orleans before
but I learned way more than I expected! Marti Gras goes on for nearly two weeks
before “Fat Tuesday” the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. During those
two weeks they have parades nearly every day or multiple parades each day. We
learned that last year they had nearly 55 parades leading up to Ash Wednesday.
In order to obtain a parade permit an organization has to have at least 14
floats and can contain up to about 54 floats. The floats are vast and amazing.
Most of them do not fit down Bourbon Street like I was assuming. The larger
parades go down Canal Street which is one of the major streets just on the edge
of the French Quarter. The main chassis of the floats costs about $50,000 to
$60,000 for a standard size. Then each year they take all the props off,
repaint and re theme the entire float. That usually costs $6,000 to $8,000 per
float. And each year the themes for all parades are different. At Marti Gras
they own all the props, costumes, and work on the floats. They redo floats and
rent out their props to many organizations. They do Disney rides/exhibits and
even casinos or hotels.  Their work is
astounding. Creative, amazing hand detail in Styrofoam, wood, paper Mache and
more.

7.      Cemetery Tour

We got to tour
two cemetery’s on our trip. St Louis #1 is the most famous Cemetery in New
Orleans. it’s not as big as I would have expected. We weren’t able to go in on
our own and had to have a guided tour but it was worth it. Interesting tombs we
saw include the second famous tomb in America of the Famous Voodoo Priestess of
Marie, Nicholas Cage, and more. I’d never been to a catholic cemetery before
and they were filled with such history, character and a certain level of eerie
/ creepiness. They were very intriguing.

8.      Haunted Tour

A fun evening full of some interesting
history stories, amazing buildings, lots of walking and down town French
Quarter charm. We headed out to Rampart Street and met up with our Tour group
at 8 pm one night. We walked the streets of the French Quarter and learned
about some of the haunted houses/buildings and stories behind them. Though I
didn’t see anything I still believe some of the stories. Others, I’m unsure. It
was worth the $16 we paid per person and we had a blast out of the heat and
enjoying the French Quarter at night.

9.      Shopping

Oh the shopping in New Orleans is nearly
like none other. Nearly every street you go on you run into a shopping
opportunity. There are handfuls of stores that are nearly identical and sell
the exact same items with slightly different prices. I can’t recall how many
shops we went to that sold the same masquerade masks but I would bet there are
over 50. The River Walk Mall is an awesome place to shop and there is another
mall right on Canal Street that we didn’t make it to. We didn’t do a lot of
shopping except for at the French Market or Flea Market which is down by the
River in the French Quarter or just some small shops here and there. Some of
the shops have some unique and amazing items, lots of fine arts and
photography, antiques and more.

10.   Bourbon Street

How can you go to New Orleans and not go to
Bourbon Street, right? It’s the one street that New Orleans is well known for
and it doesn’t disappoint. There is always something to see on Bourbon Street.
I didn’t count how many blocks makes up the bulk of Bourbon Street but I’d
guess between 8-10, maybe a little more. There are bars or walk up drink
counters on every block both sides of the street nearly the entire way down.
There are a few restaurants, and stores but mostly Clubs/Bars. We went to a
couple of really fun bars while we were out and about. Two of my favorites come
to mind. #1 – The piano bar. There are a few on Bourbon Street but the one we
went to was Ticklers. The three guys on the pianos were amazing. Two of them
went from the piano to the drums and back. They literally could play ANY song
requested and it was an awesome entertainment and made for a super fun outing.
People get into dancing and it was overall a great time. #2 – A fun bar called
the Beach. They had a live band playing the night we went and they were
awesome. They sang songs from the 80’s and 90’s and got the crowd to dance and
sing with them. We met an older couple from Australia that totally got into
dancing and made the night super fun.

Bourbon Street also has many people begging
and hustling for money. Playing their music, clogging, or just sitting on the
side of the street asking for money. The smell reeks but if you can manage it,
it’s totally worth it just to see. Saturday night was the hoping night and was
full of people.  

And of course the beads. There are people
on the balcony’s of the bars and buildings every night or day tossing beads
out. Not only for your “typical” expectation of how beads are earned
but even to kids, or anyone passing by. We got thrown our fair share of beads
and by the end of the night the street is covered with broken beads, strands
that got dropped or missed… and once they fall on the street you DO NOT want
to pick them up. Yuck.