A Trip To NOLA
All That Jazz: A Trip to NOLA
New Orleans is one of the oldest cities in the United States. It is a city steeped in history and is home to one of the most distinct cultures in the South. It is a city where food and fun can be found around every corner and hospitality is second to none. My trip to NOLA was well worth it and what better cure for NOLA withdrawals than to recount the experience here in blog form!
I Did Not Know That Gators Eat Marshmallows
On our first day in NOLA, we got an early start. We wanted to have breakfast at the famous Cafe Du Monde before we went off to visit the swamps. I will admit that I didn't spend much time thinking about how many people there were going to be in New Orleans walking around. I did not consider how many people there were going to be at Cafe Du Monde given that it was such a popular place. I just went and dealt with whatever happened when I was there. I will say that for the substantial line that was formed outside of Cafe Du Monde, it moved very quickly. The ladies who work there do a great job of finding tables and seating customers right away. We were in line 10 or 15 minutes max. It wasn't bad at all.
After we sat down, getting service at such a high traffic place was so difficult. The servers were swamped and they wouldn't even notice any new people that had sat down. We had to make direct eye contact with one of them before they noticed that they should clear off the leftover cups and plates from our table and take our order.
Another aspect of NOLA and the French Quarter in particular that surprised me was its proclivity for cash. There were many cafes and shops that were strictly cash only. Cafe Du Monde was one such place. We didn't figure that out until we had sat down already and a friend of mine had to duck out to the ATM before we put in our order. We didn't want to give up our seat and as long as we hadn't been noticed or served yet, she might as well duck out and get some cash.
But the beignets and cafe au lait did come and I have had beignets before here in Austin but these were completely different. The beignets were buttery soft, the powdered sugar on it was light and sweet, the cafe au lait was rich and creamy. I could tell why people always have to go to Cafe Du Monde for beignets and coffee. The stuff was so addicting. It was there in Cafe Du Monde that I decided "TO HELL WITH MY WEIGHT!" I was going to eat until I need to be rolled around on the filthy garbage smelling French Quarter streets.
After breakfast, we took a short stroll by the Mississippi River. And though I know it's a river, I couldn't help but notice how big and wide it was. There were more than one steam barge on that river and there was still miles of room left over. It's been hailed as one of the most impressive rivers in the United States and I was thoroughly impressed.
We boarded the bus to go out to the swamps. We took a swamp tour through the sight seeing company Gray Line. The bus picked us up near Cafe Du Monde and drove us out to the swamps for the tour. I usually don't get car sick so easily and I don't know if it was because of the streets in NOLA or because of the bus itself but there was so much rocking and bumping that I thought I was going to get dizzy and hurl.
Eventually, we made it out to the swamps in one piece and we went to the bathroom in the gift shop before boarding the boat to go see gators and swampland and other wildlife. As an interesting side note, inside the gift shop, there was a huge albino gator just hanging out.
I had never seen a gator that close before and he was huuuge and albino. It would have been more exciting if he moved around and such but he was just content to stare at the corner and ignore all of us. If I lived in a small tank swimming around in circles with weird tourists staring at me all day, I would also be as boring as possible so they would leave.
We got onto the ferry boat with our local tour guide, a very nice Cajun man. I found the bayou very interesting. I expected it to be gross and muggy. But it was really nice. I found that there was a beauty and a simpleness to the bayou. It felt like it was a return to the food chain and brutal nature where all the creatures are just trying to survive. But at the same time, there was peace there that I really loved. I have always found so much beauty in places that humans have not ruined or changed with our "innovation." It was a peaceful place where the animals ruled and I found that very tranquil.
Our tour guide also took us to an ancient graveyard where they filmed scenes from Interview With a Vampire. That wasn't really all that tranquil. But it was interesting.
After some bayou sightseeing, we finally got to see some gators. After some amusing "Here, gator!" calls out into the bayou, some gators actually did come out from the murky depths of the water and swam toward the boat. I've never seen alligator swimming toward me ever before but all I can say is that they are fast! Our guide told us that a gator can swim about 20 mph. I certainly cannot swim faster than 20 mph so I will take care not to fall into any bayou or swamp. I'd also never seen wild alligator before so the experience of seeing them swimming alongside the boat was a little surreal. I felt like an Animal Planet special!
Our tour guide also told us that alligators can hear and feel vibrations through the water so the more that we revved the boat engine and the more we banged on the side of the boat, the more gators would come toward the boat to check out what the fuss was all about. And that's exactly what happened. At one point, we had two or three alligators around the boat as we were floating past.
Our tour guide then told us that alligators can only see in black and white. Then he joked that if we were wearing white, we should take care not to fall overboard because we'd be the first things the gators would be coming for. After some chuckling, he then told us we can go ahead and try to feed the gators that come to the boat with marshmallows (which were white). That's right. Marshmallows. We were going to feed these vicious predators cute fluffy marshmallows. I didn't even know alligators ate marshmallows! It was adorable!
While I'm still not clear on how exactly a gator can propel itself out of the water, it was still really cool to see one lunge. Even if it was just for a delicious marshmallow. After teasing alligators with marshmallows, our tour guide brought out an adorable baby alligator for us to hold and take pictures of. The little cutie was named T-Boy which apparently meant little boy. We were also instructed to be gentle with T-Boy lest he makes "gatorade." The other tourists didn't find that amusing but I personally cracked up after hearing it. I love puns! Our tour guide is awesome.
The alligator didn't feel like I expected it to. I expected a snake like texture. When I held a snake, it felt rough and dry despite looking so slick. The baby gator didn't feel scaly or rough. He had a soft underbelly and a tougher outer skin. He didn't feel clammy like a lizard but not rough and hard like a snake. For something that'll grow to be such a refined predator, he was really cute.
That night when we got back to New Orleans, we decided to have dinner at Acme Oysterhouse. I didn't expect a line to get in to a restaurant but it was too late to turn back at that point and we really wanted seafood. As luck would have it, a small storm blew into town that night and wreaked havoc for an hour or two on Bourbon Street and its St. Patrick's Day party goers. The temperature also started dropping so standing in the middle of The French Quarter in the wind and rain wasn't much fun. But once we got inside the restaurant, we forgot all about that. Our server was really charming and sweet. The hospitality is probably what I'm going to miss most about New Orleans. You find hospitality here in Texas, too, but the folks down in New Orleans are so nice and make you feel so at home that you find yourself wishing you knew someone from that area so you could come back any time. I had never felt so happy being called "honey," "sweetheart," or "darlin." I had my first taste of crawfish at Acme.
We were going to party on Bourbon Street after dinner but we started drinking at dinner. By the time we got back out to Bourbon the rain had stopped. There was still a slight chill in the air but we figured that was nothing some dancing and drinks couldn't fix. We had absolutely no idea which clubs we were going to go to, which bars had good drinks. We just pretty much let our eyes and ears decide. We heard great music coming in from a this bar/club called The Famous Door and we decided to go in and we spent most of our night there. The Famous Door features cover bands and the crowd gathered watching and dancing were lively. When we got into the bar, there was a really cool guy singing songs on the stage. I wish I found out his name because he had amazing energy and he interacted with the crowd really well. I know he interacted well with me. But then again, I interact with most humans who have reasonable social skills and are not trying to harass me.
We were at the Famous Door so long that we saw two separate performers there. One of my friends put a request in with the band and got props from them because she had picked a good song. We finished dinner and started partying around 8:30 maybe. We left the Famous Door at about 11 at night. We were there for 3 hours. I had so much fun dancing there. If I were to go back to New Orleans, I would go there again.
We figured we'd try to check out other clubs. Didn't really know where we were going, we just let our ears guide us. We heard some hip hop music coming from one of the clubs and we instinctively went in there. I wish I could remember what the name of that club was. But at that point in the night, I wasn't paying attention any more to which club I was walking into. But the scene at this particular club was distinctly younger. As we were sitting and dancing in the backyard patio, I felt like the crowd there were almost all made up of college kids on Spring Break. And as a 25 year old woman, I felt out of place yet failed to care.
The vibe there was a little less energetic. While there were many youths dancing around, I was starting to get tired. It was getting to be 1 in the morning and considering we had started partying around 8 or 9, I was a warrior. I had no idea what time bars and clubs close in NOLA but at 1:30 in the morning, my legs couldn't take it any more. I had to sit down and just let my friend dance with whichever guy decided it was ok to start touching any random girl without permission or without introducing himself first. Seriously, why do men do this? Why not just a simple "Hello, my name is [whoever]. Do you want to dance?" Because girls will say no? Well, girls do say no from time to time. That is suuuch a disaster. But I digress. Club and bar ettiquette (or lack of one) is a subject for a different day.
So after promptly pulling friend away from said guy and shooing said guy away, we left the bar and promptly crashed and passed out in bed.