This past weekend my boyfriend and I went to New Orleans to celebrate his 21st birthday and explore. This trip was really special, not only because neither of us had been to the city before but also because it was our first trip alone together. We both had a lot of fun and got to see the city's different neighborhoods and people, both good and bad. As usual, I took a LOT of photos, and I wanted to share a few of my favorites here. I hope you enjoy them!
Day One:
The French Quarter
We spent our first day exploring the French Quarter, which has a lot to do and see in crammed into one district. We determined that we hated Bourbon Street pretty quickly but that Royal Street and the rest of the French Quarter was really beautiful. Among the things we saw Friday were a free museum of the late Germaine Wells' Mardi Gras costumes, various commercialized voodoo shops, the St. Louis Cathedral, street performers, lots of art galleries, and the Mississipi River. Our two favorite galleries were the Antieau Gallery for its whimsically beautiful artwork and the George Rodrigue Studios because of the funny little blue dog that was the subject of most of the works. The blue dog became a running joke throughout the trip, and we saw it almost everywhere we went. We also found the most beautiful vintage shop I have ever seen with the most insanely high quality vintage dresses that I almost cried over, both because they were so beautiful and so out of my price range. Of course being the world's biggest sweet tooth, I absolutely had to try Cafe du Monde's famous beignets, and I was not disappointed.
Day Two:
The Warehouse District
Our second day was gloomy and rainy, so it was a good thing that we had planned being indoors at the National World War II Museum anyways. The museum was incredibly well designed with very immersive exhibits. I am actually working on putting together an exhibit in one of my classes on the Occupation of Okinawa right after WWII that goes up next week, so it was really cool seeing how the museum had used a lot of the ideas we have for our design so successfully. It made me feel even more excited and proud of my class's own exhibit, which opens next week in Tallahassee (everyone in town should check out the information for it
here). My only complaint about the museum was how crowded it was and how we were often forced to go at the crowd's pace, fighting to see objects and read labels.
We were starving after leaving the museum, and walked through the pouring rain to a local restaurant called Corporation Bar and Grill that I cannot recommend enough. We both tried our first Po Boys there and loved them. We had come for the food, but we stayed for the friendly environment and shelter from the rain. The staff was super nice and they brought us two rounds of food on the house: Coconut Shrimp and Lobster Ravioli. We were both bursting at the seams from lunch but we tried to eat as much of the delicious food as we could. Eventually we left with lots of leftovers because we felt bad about being given so much free food on such full stomachs but couldn't bare to turn down such delicious food either.
Braving the heavy rain and winds, we headed to Julia Street because they were having an art walk that night and I wanted to see all the galleries. We did get to see some great art, but the environment itself was not something I had ever experienced before, and was a bit uncomfortable. The people at the art walk were almost all very clearly upper class, which didn't bother me or make me feel uncomfortable at first. Then one guy said he liked my style and asked where we were from. When Elijah asked why he knew we weren't from there, he said that it was obviously because of the way we were dressed, which annoyed me because his previous compliment on my style seemed to turn into a backhanded compliment. His partner then said that one of the artists was giving a talk and that we "should listen and learn something." Elijah and I were both annoyed at how patronizing they and a lot of other gallery-goers suddenly seemed. It bothered us even more how a lot of people in the gallery pretended to listen to the artist whose work they were considering buying for thousands of dollars while actually drinking their wine and whispering amongst themselves or checking their phones, including the guy who had told us we "should listen and learn something." Going to the other galleries afterwards, we noticed more and more how a lot of the people seemed very classist with airs of superiority. Of course, this was not the case with everyone, and we did have some nice exchanges with some of the gallery-goers without being patronized or looked down upon.
The rain and the snooty, classist people combined made us call it a night pretty early Saturday, but don't let my little rant deceive you. We still really enjoyed our day exploring the Warehouse District.
Day Three:
City Park
Our third day was chilly and still gloomy, but that didn't detract from the beauty of City Park, where we headed to explore. Since we got there earlier than the New Orleans Museum of Arts opens on Sunday, we went to their sculpture garden right next door first and saw some really wonderful and thought provoking sculptures, as well as the funny blue dog. Afterwards we went to the museum, where my favorite parts turned out to be some of their modern American art and the amazing exhibit Traditions Transfigured: The Noh Masks of Bidou Yamaguchi. In the Noh mask exhibit, it was really nice to see how the artist converted some women of the western art canon into Noh masks, as well as traditional characters from Japanese plays recreated in Noh masks besides the Japanese prints where the artist drew the forms from. The artist had also converted Angelina Jolie into a Noh mask in her character as Maleficent.
After the museum, we headed to lunch at a Chinese place, which happened to be next to a really cool ice cream place that I fell in love with. They had some really unique flavors, but I stuck with strawberry cheesecake and praline. It was so good that even Elijah, who doesn't usually care for sweets after a full meal, really enjoyed it.
After lunch we headed back to the park and went to the small amusement park they have in order to get to Storyland, a little park built out of scultptures from different fairytales. Before finding it we came across the New Orleans Botanical Gardens, which was small but lovely. Finally we found the entrance to Storyland, which was full of kids. That didn't stop me from taking pictures with some of my favorite fairytales and nursery rhyme characters, or from sliding down the dragon slide two times. It was a really cute park, but I do wish they hadn't ripped off Disney in a few places and tried to portray their own idea of the original fairytales.
Day Four:
French Quarter (again) and the Garden District
On our last day, we had a bit of a lazy morning enjoying the Airbnb that we had stayed at over the weekend. It was a warehouse that our host had converted into a hostel and music venue by using recycled and repurposed materials. There is so many details and quirky things that made it such a nice place to stay, along with the the interesting and laid back people that live and float through there. We ate all our leftovers on the roof with a view and I took some pictures to remember it by before we left. The hostel was called
Plan C Art Hostel & Music Venue, and I really recommend it to anyone with an open mind and a small wallet that wants to travel to New Orleans.
We had a Groupon for lunch at New Orleans Creole Cookery, so we went back to the French Quarter and explored more of Royal Street before. We found lots of really great antique shops, including one with lots of nineteenth century guns and swords. One of the antique shops sold truffles that looked too good for me to resist. Both flavors that I bought were really tasty, but predictably I loved the white chocolate strawberry cheesecake truffle the best. Finally it was time for lunch, and we chose to sit in their courtyard by the fountain. Elijah finally got to try raw oysters that he had wanted to have the whole trip, and we shared a dish of Pasta Orleans as the sky finally went from grey to blue again overhead.
After lunch we headed to the Garden District to try and look at all the really nice houses, but ended up looking through more antique shops and interesting little stores instead. I had macaroons at Sucre, a famous New Orleans ice cream shop, and then we headed uptown so that I could eat ice cream at Creole Creamery, another famous New Orleans ice cream shop. I had one scoop of Apple Cinnamon and one scoop of amazing Lavender Honey, but one of the things I was most excited about was the waffle cone, that was baked into itself at the bottom so that ice cream didn't drip out.
To finish off the night, we headed back to the French Quarter to enjoy the riverside and see the St. Louis Cathedral one more time before catching our midnight bus back to Tallahassee.
Day Four and a Half:
Homeward Bound
After a great weekend, we headed back to Tallahassee on an overnight Megabus. Since the bus was really empty, we got to sit in the front row of the second floor, and in the morning we got a beautiful view of the road as we came into Tallahassee.
I am really glad we went on our pretty last minute trip, and we both enjoyed everything about it. I can't wait for more adventures together with Elijah!
Outfits:
Day One:
Dress: Forever 21/ jacket, purse, and ballet flats: Target/ boots: JCPenney (four years old and they finally broke)/ necklace: Miami Twice/ earrings: Sale Rack in Miami
Day Two and Four:
Dress: Forever 21/ shirt: vintage from Miami Twice/ scarf: vintage from Ebay/ earrings: Claire's/ jacket, purse, ballet flats, and necklace: see above
Day Three
Shirt: thrifted from my mom's closet/ shorts: Forever 21/
everything else: see above
