New Orleans

Hey ya,

And the month of adventures begins! Our first stop – New Orleans! I’d already been here, so I knew where to take Mum around to, but we also found a couple of new things to do and see which was exciting too!

Sunday 15 December

Mum and I woke up at the fabulous time of 4:45am this morning! Love that for us! We packed the rest of our stuff up, got dressed, and headed down to the lobby to meet CJ and order an uber. When the uber arrived, the driver told us that given we each had 6 suitcases between us, we couldn’t ride in an Uber X, and we instead had to order an XL. Lucky she had a large car, and even though it didn’t qualify as an XL, she could accept the ride and fit our cases in. She essentially just wanted the extra money that taking an XL ride would give her (they cost more).

We got to Memphis Central Station around 6am for our train ride to New Orleans. We decided to take the train because it was ¼ of the price of a flight, it would allow us to see some of the Mississippi and Louisiana countryside, and allow us to have a different experience. After handing over our bags for them to be checked in, we boarded the train and headed to our allocated seats. CJ didn’t book with us, and even though she asked the attendant if she could sit with us, they put her by herself two carriages away from us. The seats were super luxurious and we had heaps of leg room plus a tray table. The train took off from Memphis around 6:40am, and we watched as the sun rose a beautiful bright red/orange while leaving the city.

I ended up napping for the next 3 hours, and Mum got a few zz’s in too. When I woke at 10am, we spent some time planning our next few days in New Orleans and the next city we’re headed to. CJ came and visited us around 11:30am, and we went down to the café to see what food they were offering. Everything was exorbitantly expensive, of course, but I ended up buying a cup of noodles and some hot water for Mum to make herself a tea with her own teabag (although they still charged me $2.5 for the water, wtf!). After sitting back in my seat with my noodles for just a few minutes, I let go of them for one second to grab my phone, and the whole cup spilled all over my lap. It burned like hell and I had to grab the whole pile of noodles and throw them back into the cup. Initially I was super pissed off because I didn’t have any spare pants with me, I now smelt of chicken noodles and I was drenched, but Mum couldn’t stop laughing at me and I eventually started laughing too. I discreetly pulled off my pants and hung them over my tray table and sat in my underwear for the rest of the ride, with my coat laying over my legs to avoid judgemental looks. I spent the rest of the ride writing for my blog and admiring the scenery, especially the swamps throughout Northern Louisiana and the water as we were coming into New Orleans.

The train arrived an hour earlier than scheduled which was nice. We grabbed our bags and hopped in an uber (we remembered to order an XL this time), and eventually made it to our hostel The Quisby – the exact same place where I stayed with my friends a few weeks back. We checked in to our two-bed room, which had the toilet situated in the shower (very weird). We then spent the rest of the afternoon chilling in the room and then at Office Depot buying supplies and filling out documents so I could send my extra suitcase home with a courier service (it was cheaper than paying for a second suitcase + overweight fees on every flight for the next month).

Around 7pm, Mum, CJ, her friend who’d just arrived from Australia named Shawry, and I headed down the road to Voodoo BBQ & Grill, where I had a burger and fries, and Mum tried her first Po-Boy with pulled pork. We sat there chatting until we were getting kicked out the door around 8:45pm. When we got back to the hostel, we chilled for the rest of the night and eventually hit the hay.

Monday 16 December

I woke up at 8:30am this morning so that I could get my suitcase down to reception for the courier service to collect it, since they’d said pickup would be any time between 9am and 6pm. While we were down there, we grabbed some breakfast, which like last time was bagels with cheese and salami. Mum and I then went back upstairs and got ready for the day.

Back in the months before I left for the US when Mum and I planned and booked a chunk of stuff for this month of travelling, we booked a hop on hop off bus ticket for our time in New Orleans. Although we didn’t really need it now since I knew what we should go and see, we used it anyway so we didn’t waste our money. We hopped on at a nearby stop at the WWII museum, which we initially struggled to find, and took the bus through the garden district, up St Charles Avenue, up the riverside, into Jackson Square and the French Quarter, and then out to Canal Street. We got off here, having been through most of the bus’s stops, and then walked down Decatur Street to get back to Jackson Square.

(The upper deck of our hop on hop off bus where we sat)

(Canal Street)

By this time it was 12:30pm, so we headed to a sports bar called The Corner Oyster House which I went last time with the girls for lunch. For an entrée we shared a cup of sausage gumbo, which is a stew made from stock and meat, and is an official dish of Louisiana. It came with rice, and was slightly spicy but delicious. It kind of tastes like the stew that comes about when Mum cooks goulash in the crock pot/slow cooker. For main I had a Muffuletta, which is a type of Sicilian sandwich that has ham, salami, olive salad, swiss cheese, provolone and mortadella inside (ingredients which obviously appealed my inner wog), and Mum had red beans and rice with smoked sausage.

(The sports bar; spot the Ole Miss flag on the wall in the back)

(Gumbo)

(Mum with her red beans and rice with smoked sausage)

(Me with my Muffuletta)

After lunch, we walked next door to Jackson Square and strolled through the garden and the cathedral.

(Mum in front of the Basilica of Saint Louis King of France Cathedral)

We then headed down along Decatur Street and ran into CJ and Shawry, and they joined us on our stroll through the French Market. It was essentially like the Vic Market, except smaller and boiling hot inside (it was around 23C in NOLA today!).

They split from us after this, hoping to score some tickets for the New Orleans Saints v. Indianapolis Colts NFL game (which they did), while Mum and I strolled through the French Quarter down to Bourbon Street. We didn’t stop anywhere on Bourbon Street as we were planning on returning tonight, but Mum got to see it in the daylight.

(Bourbon Street)

We headed back out onto Canal Street and jumped back on the hop on hop off bus and did the entire route again, giving us an opportunity to get off our feet for a bit and enjoy some breeze to cool us down (the bus was double decker and the top level had no roof), and I also ended up dozing in and out.

(The city's main casino - Harrah's - had an outdoor slots/gaming area so that people could have a smoko and keep gambling. Wtf!)

We got off in Jackson Square again and headed to Café du Monde for some Beignets. It was not busy at all and we were served right away which was great. Mum really enjoyed the beignets, although they again charged her for just getting hot water.

After this, we headed along the Riverwalk and to a ticketing office to pick up our tickets for our jazz dinner cruise tonight. To fill in the hour before the cruise, we headed over to H&M where I bought some scrunchies and a pair of boots (which will be great for the northeast).

We boarded the Steamboat Natchez around 6pm and were sat in the dining room at a table right by the window. Soon after we ordered some cocktails and were then invited up to the buffet to grab our food. They had green beans, creamed spinach, roasted garlic potatoes, pork, angus beef, seafood pasta, primavera pasta, breadsticks, and sausage gumbo with rice. I tried everything except the primavera pasta, and everything was delicious, particularly the creamed spinach and pork. After dinner, we had dessert which was bread pudding with white chocolate sauce and bananas foster (sliced bananas sautéed in butter, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and rum, served with vanilla ice cream). Mum ended up getting a little tipsy off her one drink, so this made things a little funnier.

After waiting ages for our server (who seemed to be this young newbie girl) to bring us our check for the drinks and then collect it, we finally got to head out on the deck at around 8:15pm, and spent the rest of the night enjoying the warm breeze and city lights. We docked around 9pm.

After the cruise, we headed into Bourbon Street so Mum could see it at night and so we could grab some drinks. I had a hand grenade (which Mum tried some of and enjoyed) and she ordered a citrus vodka and soda water. We were both super full from the dinner and tired from the long day, so we headed home in an uber from Canal Street at around 10pm.

We chilled in the room for the rest of the night, had a few visits from CJ and received my final grades from Ole Miss (which were shared in the last blog post). I finally got to sleep around midnight.

Tuesday 17 December

We rose around 9am to get breakfast and then get our stuff all packed and ready for an 11am checkout. We were late, of course, but not that late that we were charged a fee. We stowed our bags in the reception’s storage room, and headed back out to the hop on hop off bus stop at the WWII museum so we could head into the Garden District for a free walking tour that came with our ticket.

(Magazine Street leading into the Garden District)

The tour started at 11am and our guide was a hilarious, enthusiastic and lively middle-aged woman named Paige, who was wearing knee-high Christmas socks with “NAUGHTY” written on them lol. She started off the tour with a little bit of info about the garden district which was fascinating – basically a wife split from her husband and ended up selling the land of his plantation to a developer, who then sold the land in lots to wealthy people such as doctors, lawyers and brokers for them to build houses which they would live in during the social season as it was close to the city. The houses that are there today remain original (for the most part), and therefore are about 170 years old (the area was built up around the 1850s). They were beautiful, but are very very expensive and is the most expensive neighbourhood in New Orleans. She took us through several of the streets and pointed out some houses of interest and told us their stories. One was the film set of the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (features Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett); another was a fairy tale-inspired house that was originally built and owned by a couple who lived there from the first day of their honeymoon until they day they died, and is now owned by Sandra Bullock which she currently lends out to famous friends but is where she plans to move back to when her children are of schooling age; and another was formerly owned by a Rockstar but is now owned by an actor whose names I can’t remember (but I didn’t know who they were).

(Ornate wrought-iron railings are a staple of many homes in the Garden District. They used to be a sign of great wealth)

(The Benjamin Button house)

(Sandra Bullock's house)

(The house of the actor whose name I've forgotten)

After the tour, we walked back to our hotel, grabbing Subway on the way to have later on for lunch. We grabbed our bags from the storage room at the hostel, called an uber and headed to the airport. Once we got there, we quickly put some of the stuff from my suitcase into Mum’s (as mine was STILL overweight despite sending a tonne of stuff home with the courier), and then checked our bags in. Mine was still 1 pound overweight, but because Mum’s was under by a few the attendant let it slide. We passed through security and headed for our gate for our first flight of the day to Atlanta.

Well that’s the end of the New Orleans leg of the trip. Can you guess where we’re headed next? If you have me on social media, you probably already know, but I’ll keep the suspense for those who don’t. I’ll be back in a few days with a new post for a new city!

- Emily xx