Hello world! I am back from New Orleans, and I’m ready to share my experiences with traveling to New Orleans and partaking in Mardi Gras for the first time.
I also have a gallery open if you’d like to see the images more closely than what will be posted in this blog.
Day 1
I went and experienced this trip with one of my friends. To start our trip, we flew out at 7 in the morning on Saturday, the 14th. The flight was easy, about 2 hours with the time change. Our trip was 5 days, so we packed light. By light, I mean carry-ons only, no checked bags. We land in NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) and immediately get a Lyft to the hotel. A 20-minute drive cost us $60. I’ve never seen prices that high. That price did set the tone for the trip, though. I’ll get into that a bit later, though.
Well, we paid for Lyft (unhappily, if I might add) and we made it to our hotel around 10:30 AM. Our hotel wasn’t in the best of areas either. If you’re familiar with NOLA, then our hotel was in the 9th district. Which basically means we were in the poor, sketchy area of NOLA. However, that didn’t deter us from having fun. We dropped off our bags at the hotel and got another Lyft to the New Orleans Museum of Jazz in the French Quarter. Getting a Lyft was a terrible experience. Nobody wanted to pick us up at our hotel, so we had to walk away from the hotel to even consider getting a ride. Luckily, there was a Walmart right next door that we went to.
Once we made it to the New Orleans Jazz Museum, we walked through. It was pretty interesting. The above photo shows a quote that I liked that is painted on the wall of one of the galleries. The quote really encapsulates the spirit of New Orleans.
Once we finished at the Jazz Museum, we then started to explore the French Quarter. That’s where we found signs like the ones pictured above in front of stores. We started by looking for the Gallier House, which is a house featured in the show Interview With a Vampire. We kept walking and found Bourbon Street. I will say that I’m not a fan of Bourbon Street. It’s very overstimulating. It also houses a lot of drunk and strung-out 21-year-olds who can’t hold their liquor. You will smell every smell imaginable on Bourbon Street.
We then got some food and ended up at the Krewe of Iris, our first parade of the week. We got a lot of things thrown at us. It was definitely our favorite parade of the week. The photo above is basically everything I got. I only took stuff that I could easily carry. The parades last about 2 hours. Iris specifically had 34 floats throwing items, and in between every float was a marching band. As a former band kid, these bands were a bit weaker compared to others we saw.
After the Krewe of Iris, we went to the Museum of Death. It was cool, but for the $20 price, it wasn’t worth it. I can see taxidermic deer in my grandpa’s basement for free and have the same experience. We can’t take photos in certain museums, so that’s why there are no photos here.
You can’t go to New Orleans and not get beignets. We went to Cafe Beignet on Bourbon Street and had these amazing beignets. Overall, the best beignets of the week. Don’t bother with Cafe Dumonde, they were mid compared to these.
We ended our night by trying to get into Preservation Hall. Preservation Hall is the oldest Jazz hall in the country, and you can’t film well because the musicians are performing. We didn’t buy tickets ahead of time, so we had to wait to see if we could get day-of tickets. Spoiler alert, we did. We even got the best seats in the house. We were right on stage. We ended up paying $50 a person, which is more than I wanted to spend on a 45-minute jazz performance.
After Preservation Hall, we stopped by Pat O’Brien’s to drink a hurricane. My mom told me this is what the tourists do, and I saw why. My friend was the only person of color in the building besides the waitstaff. I felt like I was in a SEC frat party with how many white guys were in SEC polos. This is coming from a midwestern white woman. I downed my hurricane, and then we went back to the hotel. We had been up since 3 AM, and we needed to sleep because we had an early morning.
Day 2
The only thing on our agenda was a tour of the city. The tour picked us up at 9:30 AM, but we needed breakfast, so we left our hotel at 8 AM to make sure we got a Lyft that didn’t take 45 minutes to get to the hotel. Because we left so early, we got breakfast at a place called the Ruby Slipper. It was a fun rustic chain dinner. We were still early to meet at the pickup, so we decided to walk around the area. My favorite thing that we saw was this giant Mardi Gras mask hanging on a pillar in someone’s house.
We got picked up for the tour of the city and had a great time. We saw everything in the city. Below, I’ll add a photo of a tilting house because NOLA is sinking, causing foundations to tilt houses sideways. I’ll also add St. Louis Cemetery gravestones and me with said gravestones. I honestly just want to show off the glitter on my face.
Once the city tour concluded, we didn’t have any other plans besides walking around. We tried to go to the Sazerac House, but it was closed due to the holidays. So was the Pharmacy Museum. We ended up looking at Congo Square, where, after Sunday church, the slaves would go to practice Voodoo, and where they sold Haitian slaves. We even took a closer look at Jackson Square, or what some people call the killing fields, which I’ll talk about later.
Because this was Sunday before the holidays and most everything was closed, we decided the most logical thing to do was get drunk at Vampire Cafe. I can not recommend this cafe enough. You want a fun themed cafe, you have to stop here. I got to drink alcohol out of a blood bag. I felt like a real vampire. Side note, I am 21 years of legal age. However, I didn’t have to show ID for any alcohol purchased on this trip. Fairly sure the laws are flexible for Mardi Gras.
It even has a knight toilet paper holder, that’s how dedicated this place is.
Since we were drunk, we decided to see if Bourbon Street was bearable, well, drunk. It’s barely more tolerable when well drunk. The bars and clubs kinda sucked. I also am not keen on seeing men make women whip out their boobs for some $1 beads on Temu. So we went to get ice cream before trying to see Krewe of Bacchus.
We only made it 30 to 40 minutes into the parade before we called it a night. We were standing in a bad spot, not getting any beads, and we had walked a lot that day, and our feet were tired. We also had another early morning. The marching bands we saw were extremely powerful and impressive.
Day 3
This day was the best. We started our day by getting out of the hotel early again and going to a pretty decent breakfast. We went to a place called Stanley of New Orleans. Before we got breakfast, we had to take a few photos first. The first one of the New Orleans sign, and then why miss the opportunity to take an empty photo in Jackson Square?
As my friend said “it’s like emo Disney World”
Our plans for the day were a tour of Oak Alley Plantation. This was an extremely important part of American history. It used to house 180 slaves. It was turned into a museum in the 1970’s by the Stewart Family. We even got to see their graves, which are pictured below.
After we got back from Oak Alley, we walked down new streets we hadn’t seen before and did some trinket shopping. We stumbled into a few different bookstores and other shops. As an English major, I love bookstores. I feel the need to go into one every place I’m at.
I mentioned earlier that I used to be in marching band, so I obviously had to take a photo of the marching band mural. There were so many murals on every wall of almost every building in NOLA.
To end our night, we did a 21+ walking night tour of everything voodoo, vampires, and ghosts in NOLA. We had bought masks on our first night in NOLA and decided this would be the perfect time to wear them. The first stop we made was the outside of the Pharmacy Museum, and we learned how it was originally used for a “doctor” to experiment on and kill women.
The picture above is St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square. I mentioned earlier that Jackson Square was known as the killing fields, and here is why. New Orleans was originally owned by the French before the US purchased it in the Louisiana Purchase. Because NOLA was French, everyone in the city had to be Catholic. Everyone had to go to church on Sunday morning and then separate whites and slaves in the afternoon, to go about talking and mingling. So, white people, for entertainment, would kill and torture people in Jackson Square. They even got to vote on how the executioners would kill people.
If you’re wondering about the slaves, they went to Congo Square and practiced Voodoo, which white people then caught on to and tried to ban. That is why NOLA is such a hub for jazz, because the white folks thought instruments were a sign of Voodoo and banned slaves from using any instruments. This is also where Hollywood got their misconceptions about Voodoo, from old newspapers.
There is a lot more history about Jackson Square, and if you’re interested, go look up Micaela Almonester her story is fascinating.
Our next stop was a bar called MRB, which used to be the first brothel in NOLA. It also has a resident ghost. The ghost was the brothel madam who killed men. The ghost likes to haunt the men’s bathroom, so I didn’t get to see her. But I did get a very strong green drink and spent the rest of the tour a bit buzzed. I wasn’t the only one before the tour started; a woman was stumbling around drunk.
Now onto the vampire house. It was said that a vampire lived in this house from 1901 to 1903. He told tales of being in historical places and a bit too detailed stories. He also only drank from a certain cup and wouldn’t let anyone touch that cup. The vampire also didn’t own silverware and rented it out when he hosted lavish parties. When he randomly left town (due to someone saying he was trying to drink their blood), he left 3 wine bottles behind, and inside those wine bottles was human blood.
Next stop, the Lalaurie mansion. Here, the Lalauries tortured slaves and tried to hide it from the police, but they eventually found out, and the Lalauries fled to France, escaping their punishments. But you might recognize this place because it was used to film American Horror Story: The Coven. Which is based on a true story.
Our last stop was this original convent. NOLA was originally called the Den of Debauchery. That is because King Louie sent everyone he didn’t want in France to NOLA. So a lot of prostitutes, homeless people, and gambling addicts. When King Louie found out what was happening, he sent nuns to help out in NOLA. They built this convent by hand. Once they were done, the nuns said that they should send over virgins to help purify NOLA. To protect the virgins holyness they were kept under the ship with their coffins, carrying all their stuff. They probably caught scurvy under deck and brought it to NOLA. The virgins stayed on the third floor of the convent. The nuns started to marry off the virgins, but after 10 were married off, their husbands started dying, and they blamed the wives. All the husbands had died drained of blood. So everyone assumed the wives were vampires. They then assumed the rest of the girls were vampires too. So they blessed some nails and put the girls in their coffins and nailed those coffins shut and then sealed up every entrance to the third floor.
The story gets crazier, though. No one has set foot on the third floor in years. A ghost hunter once tried to see if their was ghosts in the convent. He had parked his van across the street and waited in it at night. The next day, people found him drained of blood on the steps of the convent. They checked, and the doors were still boarded up. I say this is proof vampires are real, but they have to be ethical in NOLA. So you have to go through the courts and consent to giving blood. That is how we ended our night.
Day 4
HAPPY MARDI GRAS! We decided to take today easy. We left the hotel late and had brunch. We had brunch at Monty’s on the square. Best pancakes I’ve had in my life. After brunch, we made it to Krewe of Rex, the last parade of Mardi Gras. Then we went to explore the Garden District by ourselves since no tours were operating.
In the Garden District is Lafayette Cemetery, which is where they filmed shows like The Originals. After we finished exploring the garden district, we went back to the French Quarter and did more trinket shopping on Royal Street. We decided was the best street in the French Quarter. We got some ice cream again. I went and got a frozen cocktail in a souvenir cup. Then we had dinner and called it an early night.
Day 5
This was our last day in NOLA, and our flight wasn’t until 6 PM, so we just got to the airport early. We caught up on work and homework for the week. We tried Cafe Dumonde, and then we left NOLA.
But if you look at my photo gallery, you see two photos I didn’t mention in this blog post. They are the Cornstalk hotel. We didn’t stay in this hotel, but I’m a Midwest girl. My grandpa owns a corn farm. I can’t take photos of the Cornstalk hotel in both daylight and nighttime. They are included in the gallery because they are fun and aesthetic.
That is my entire experience with NOLA and Mardi Gras. The only thing I would add would be those museums that were closed due to the holiday, and then trying the king cake. So that probably means I need to go back eventually. If my wallet ever recovers from this trip.
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