This is a long post telling about my first vacation in detail. I tried to include the finances of the trip as often as I could, but to be honest, I’m still unpacking - I haven’t even culled through my receipts yet.
Friday
My friends and I spent Friday in transit, pretty much. I caught a cab to the train station in order to catch a train to the airport to catch a flight to another airport to catch a flight to the airport in New Orleans to get a prepaid shuttle to the hotel. We had just enough time to check in, take the bags upstairs, freshen up, and walk over to the concert at the Superdome, which was great! The travel arrangements worked well, except for one snag. By the time we got there, late in the afternoon, all of the double-bed rooms were taken and we had to settle for a one bed room with a fold out couch. One of my more experienced travel companions asked about breakfast service - a subtle but effective hint - and we were compped breakfast for the following morning. We ate lunch in the airport and had concession food at the concert for dinner (we hadn’t really planned ahead on food for Friday. The view from the hotel was outstanding. The entertainment was more than I expected it to be. We saw J Holiday, Rhianna, Chris Brown, and Kanye West from the floor seats, and it was an energetic and fun show. I wasn’t prepared for the size of the Superdome, and I kept looking up at the roof for the hole, but it wasn’t there. There were plenty of places to spend money - vendors selling everything from t-shirts to Greek paraphernalia to sunglasses to daiquiris in pineapples. I didn’t buy anything that night except some jambalaya at the concert that cost more for the bowl than the box of Zatarain’s it came from. By the time we walked back from the concert (we weren’t being cheap on the cab, the traffic was just that bad that Poydras and Canal were all backed up) we had been awake and running full speed ahead for a long time (I had gone out partying with Mister Ant the night before). We fell out asleep as soon as we hit the hotel room.
Saturday Before Sundown
Saturday brought sunshine that filled up the room with light and promise. We reserved space on a plantation tour (my friend paid for it and we paid her back in cash) and then went downstairs to the hotel dining room for our free buffet breakfast of custom omelettes, grits and gravy, ham, waffles, fruit… it was decent fare and a nice place to eat, especially for free. We stopped at the drugstore for a big back of water and other things we couldn’t get through airport security and then we headed through the French Quarter to meet up for the tour. First, everyone was so friendly! I felt at home the whole time I was there. Second, the Quarter was so quaint and interesting and pretty and colorful. I loved it immediately. My camera batteries conked out on me so I bought some more and I’m glad I did because the tour was so picture worthy. Our tour guide was a Louisiana native with a good sense of humor and a wealth of knowledge. I learned what a bayou was, finally. I learned about crab trapping and the need for wetlands protection, the numbing properties of a good mint julep, the differences between French slavery and American/English slavery, and so many other things. At the plantation, I liked the weight of the humidity in the air and the stateliness of the 600 year old walking oak trees. We learned about the architecture and how the verandas and parallel windows helped to keep the homes cool in the days before air conditioning. Of course, we tipped the tour guides. I got lots of pictures of the countryside. There were still old rusted tin roofed slave cabins standing on the side of the road, and sugar cane is still being planted out there in fields as far as the eye can see. On the way back from the tour, we walked through the tourist mall, the Riverwalk, and ate there before picking up little souvenirs and working our way back to the heart of the French Quarter by streetcar. We wandered, taking in the sights, taking pictures, and having fun just hanging around Decatur Street near Jackson Square. There were street performers, artists, passenger mule carts - it was so busy and the energy was so lighthearted and fun. I took video of a little crew of teenagers that had people dancing right out front of Cafe du Monde at the French Market with their drums, tuba, and trumpets. They were good! My friends and I split up - two of us went to dinner and my other friend went on a voodoo tour.
Saturday Dusk Til Dawn
We ate at a nice little corner restaurant on Decatur across from the French Market, out on the veranda watching the sun go down over the city. Before ducking into the restaurant, we watched as the police lifted a purple colored man into an ambulance - it looked like he’d been hit by a car but it turns out that they pulled him over for flicking a cigarette out of a window, they found that he was drunk, he resisted arrest and they had to taze him. Wow. On the veranda, I asked the neighbors at the next table over if I could take a picture of their big plate of crawfish, and as we talked we found that one of them had lived in our Philadelphia for six months after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina. He’s now back at home, and I’m happy for him. I can understand how having to start your life over in a new city can be discouraging, but by my second day in New Orleans, I was so in love with Louisiana, I couldn’t imagine not wanting to come back home if I was in his shoes. After sharing a meal of crab cakes, my friend and went off to wander the Quarter, checking out the architecture - the corridors leading from the street to inner courtyards, the shutters, the tropical colors, and the intricate ironwork. We marveled. My friend was a little nervous about wandering after dark in a strange city, but I figured since we were together, we were safe with each other. We wandered up to Bourbon Street, which wasn’t very crowded since it was still late in the evening, and wandered past Preservation Hall and Pat O’Brien’s on the way back to the hotel. All three of us reunited at the hotel and headed out by taxi to Faubourg Marigny to see a mutual friend from Philadelphia, who was an artist performing at a hookah bar. Good times had by all, we left for Bourbon Street (after finally getting a taxi that didn’t pass us to pick up white people - no I am not exaggerating, it happened twice and it was blatant and I wonder if it was because this time, we were with a man) and this time, Bourbon Street was crowded and loud and colorful. The crowd was a little younger than I felt comfortable with, and the guys were a little too forward with the grabbing, ‘Ey Mama’s and all, so I was glad when my friends decided to come back to the hotel. By this time, my calves were sore from all the walking and my feet were ready for a rest! I slept like a baby.
Sunday Before Dusk
Two of us woke up early to head out to the spa - me for a massage, and my friend for a facial. My therapist was really good at answering my questions and explaining more about massage to me. I liked the whole experience and I am committed to making it possible for me to continue getting massages. After paying and leaving a tip we met up with our other friend and headed over to Cafe du Monde to have beignets (French doughnuts that taste just like funnel cake) and coffee together, which I really enjoyed and I don’t usually like coffee at all! This was by far the most affordable meal I’d had on the whole trip. By this point I had exhausted the cash I brought with me (on transportation, tips, souvenirs, sunglasses-because-I-had-left-mine-at-home, and food) but I went to a drugstore, bought two candy bars (which came in handy later on the airplanes) and got $40 cash back. I had reserved and paid for space on a Hurricane Katrina tour for myself and one of my friends, and when she paid me her half in cash, there was plenty for me to get through the rest of the trip. After picking up some beignet mix for my house and for a friend, two of us left for the Hurricane Katrina tour and our friend who had gone on the voodoo tour wandered the Quarter. The Katrina tour wasn’t exploitative of the people who live there. Its main purpose was to explain why it is important to the residents and the country for us all to commit to rebuilding - even in the low lying areas. We saw failing commercial areas, thinned out residential areas, and many many signs of resilience and the will of the people to renew and replenish their city. I wanted to buy a house myself. The tour showed us first hand how important the levee and canal system are to the well being of the city, and I got a better understanding of how it was possible for the storm surge to be that devastating. We also stopped briefly in City Park at the Botanical Gardens for pictures. By four o’clock, all three of us reunited and walked over to Congo Square, where it just so happened that there was an event starting as we arrived to honor the ancestors who kept our culture alive. There were drummers there from several African countries. I poured libations for the ancestors on the site and we enjoyed the music before leaving. We were chased back to the Quarter by a thunderstorm that threatened but never poured. I picked up some souvenirs (T-shirts, 5 for $20) and then we ate right up the street from Pat O’Brien’s (where my drinker friend preferred a mint julep over a hurricane - sorry Serenity). We had a blackened fish appetizer, and then I had and thoroughly enjoyed crawfish etoufee with a side of jambalaya (finally a bowl that didn’t taste like Zatarain’s that I could have fixed myself) and I had the best pecan pie ever for dessert. I am going back to this place the next time I come back, and I will come back! Our waiter was a charmer - I love that Louisiana drawl! It’s just sexy. (Did I just say that?)
The Neverending Last Evening
Two of us went to another concert that night while the other had fun wandering the Quarter and going to the casino. (Why do they card people before they let them walk into the casino, but let random Pretty Tony sell mixed drinks out of the trunk of his car on the side of the road, and have daiquiri drive-thrus? That doesn’t make any sense. Up north you can just walk into the casino and you only get carded if you look like a child. But you can’t just get drunk anytime anywhere and you sure can’t have a daiquiri in your car, LOL!) The concert was good - Keyshia Cole, Chris Rock, Mary J. Blige, and Maze featuring Frankie Beverly. I really, really had a good time. I was doing the Electric Slide in the Superdome! By the time we got back to the hotel it was time to round up the last of our things and get ready to catch the shuttle back to the airport to wait for the plane to take us to another airport to take us to Philly. We saw the sunrise from the airport while waiting to board our plane. The stupid plane all but reversed my massage’s wonderful benefits and I didn’t really get any decent sleep after Sunday’s fun until I got home on Monday afternoon.
It was totally worth spending money on. But I am not looking forward to adding it all up because I’m almost certain it’s going to be a four-digit number. My friends and I all want to go next year, but we are going to have to figure out how to do it for less, especially if I am going to ever get around to using my passport. But I would actually like to go when there isn’t a big festival full of out-of-towners just to see what it would be like then. I love New Orleans, and I even have a t-shirt that says so.
