New Orleans made it on the list because of some super cheap airfare. It's about an hour-long flight. Seriously, as soon as you hit cruising altitude, the plane starts to descend. My kind of flight.
I booked a room at the Hampton Inn in the French Quarter, about a 5 -10 minute walk from Bourbon St, Jackson Square, Harrahs, and a grocery store. That's pretty much all we needed.
Y'all, this hotel was so clean, so nice, so friendly, and in a great location. Plus it was free because I used points. Hampton Inns always have a fridge and a microwave in every room, and they have a really good breakfast. I was very pleased and would absolutely stay there again.
I didn't plan much for this trip. We have both been there before and have done some of the touristy stuff, so we kept it pretty mellow. It was a quick trip, and everything was within walking distance, so we didn't rent a car and lyfted to/from the airport. I packed outfits that looked cute with tennis shoes, traded my roller bag for my cool collapsible backpack (it fits under the airplane seat and came in handy when we had to carry groceries ie: bottles of booze for several blocks).
It all worked out beautifully. Here's what we did:
Saturday:
Fly in, check in to hotel, go to grocery store, walk down Bourbon St.
The great thing is you can walk around with booze, so we bought our own at the grocery store, had a couple pregame drinks at the hotel, then poured them into a coffee cup and made our way to the party scene. Hand grenades may be a Bourbon St. tradition, but they are disgusting and sugary and you couldn't pay me to drink one. Coffee cup wine is my jam.
The people watching is A+ and if you don't like the music blasting from one of the bars, walk/dance a few feet and you'll get another option. We didn't even go into any of the bars, we had enough fun walking around, stopping to boogie with the crowd every so often. FG even caught someone flashing their boobs at the balconies for beads, but I missed it.
Sunday: We slept late and then headed toward Jackson Square. I ate a sandwich before we left, FG stopped to get some gumbo, and then we wandered around town.
No itinerary, there is plenty to see. Musicians on every corner, art displayed everywhere you look. I wish I was rich enough to fall in love with a cool piece of random art on vacation and ship it home to display on my living room wall and casually tell people who compliment it, "Oh, I bought that in *insert location here*."
...one day.
We walked up on a bunch of random, fun things... like skeletons throwing beads, which I thought was pretty creative.
Some of the balconies are decorated so beautifully. Tons of flowers, plants, people chillen on the patio smoking doobies and waving sleepily. I don't even know which route we took, but at one point we ended up by the river, which was a great spot to stop and sit for a while.
Fortunately the weather was gorgeous, plus the Saints won so everyone was in a great mood, so it was very pleasant to wander around outside for hours and stop into a few of the shops. I try to get a Christmas tree ornament from new places I travel, and I found a super cute santa riding a gator.
At some point FG stopped to try beignets while I drank coffee, and we listened to this cute musician for a while, then kept on walking.
We stopped at the hotel so I could eat a frozen Amy's dinner, then we headed to the casino and gambled until we (FG) ran out of money. As we were heading back to the hotel, we decided to go to Bourbon street again, and it was just as crazy as the night before, just a little more ratchet since it was later in the night.
Monday we requested a late checkout, and had planned to go bowling but they weren't open yet, so we went back to the casino and overall I won $16 on roulette (lucky #3). FG tried another gumbo place, (which he said was better than the first), and we headed to the airport.
Overall, it was a good trip. Very relaxing and lots of fun.
Also now I have a craving for gumbo so I guess I have to make it.
Other neat things to do:
-There are a few ionic restaurants but since I can't eat at any of them and FG just wanted gumbo, visiting them wasn't a priority. Do your own search if you're interested.
-I will say that on Bourbon Street, there was a bar, Napoleon's Itch, that made mojitos and hurricanes using fresh herbs and juices instead of that nasty premixed stuff. Cash only, cute gay dudes bartending, worth every penny.
-Hiking
-Frenchmen Street
-Cemetery, plantation, swamp, etc. tours
-Ride the streetcar (we mostly dodged it crossing Canal St.)
-Riverboat
-I've done the cemetery tour and would recommend it. It's so cool and unique. If we had time we would have wandered around the mausoleums for a while.
-I've also done the plantation tours (Oak Alley is a drive but it's really neat.)
This is the last official trip of the year. We're looking at a weekend in December for one more trip, but right now nothing's planned. It's been good, y'all. From Atlanta to Denver to NOLA, lots of fun places pinned on the map.
No comments:
Post a Comment