New Orleans!

Two years ago, our friends, Dino and Monica, went to New Orleans for Halloween.  They invited us, and we didn't go.  We have been regretting it ever since.  So this year, we mentioned it to them, they were on board, and we booked our trips!  Despite growing up just a few hours from NOLA, I had never been, so I was very excited about this trip!  I grew up eating a lot of cajun food and seafood from the gulf, so I knew I would be right at home with the food!
I don't have many pics of our first day because I didn't carry around the camera, but I got this on of our first night on my phone...

Ryan at The Sazerac Bar at the Roosevelt Hotel.  This is where they invented the Sazerac drink, apparently. He was a happy man.  It was a great bar.  Very fancy.

The next morning at the famous Cafe Du Monde.

Before

After.

My first experience with beignets.  Oh my word.  I made sure we went back the next day!

 I loved New Orleans.  We stayed in the French Quarter, and it's so beautiful.

 We ventured over to the Garden District and visited Lafayette Cemetery.  It was a little eerie, but I thought it was kind of beautiful.

This tomb, with the fancy ironwork is known as LeStat's tomb...the character in the Anne Rice novels.

We had a fabulous lunch at the Columns Hotel.

I had a shrimp po' boy.  Yum!

 I LOVED the homes in the Garden District.  Walking around here was really the only thing on my to do list....everything else was just extra!

This is the house from Benjamin Button.

Most visitors of this intersection are here to see this house (above).  This is Anne Rice's former home.  But...

I wanted to see THIS house right across the street!  This is Julia Reed's House on First Street.  I love Julia Reed, and I couldn't wait to see the house I had read a whole book about!  I'm pretty sure I saw John (her husband) getting out of his car as we approached the house, but I was trying to play it cool.  The New Yorker in me was calm...while the Southern girl in me wanted to jump up and down. :)

 These are my dream homes.  I love them.

 On Saturday, it was snowing in NY...the ground was white where we were from the all of the powdered sugar on the beignets.  And in October, that's how it should be!

We enjoyed our donuts and coffee on the river on Saturday.

We saw the Natchez river boat leave the dock.

 And Ryan got a $10 shoe shine from a hustler. :)

 The boys sitting on a fountain in the sun...looking at their phones, of course.

 We went into an AMAZING bookstore.  They had so many cookbooks.  I wanted this one signed by Julia and Paul Child...but it was a little over my allotted vacation budget.

 If you are ever in New Orleans...visit this shop.  You will love it.

After shopping for cookbooks, we stopped for a snack.  We LOVE raw oysters.  These were wonderful.  We made our own cocktail sauce, and the horseradish was SPICY!  Just looking at this picture makes me want more!  Sidenote:  We had our oysters at Felix's.  According to Julia Reed, you either eat your oysters at Felix's or Acme, but never both.  We chose Felix's because Acme, which is across the street, is very touristy and was crowded.

I just love the architecture.

This was my Halloween costume of choice.  Sookie from True Blood.  The author of the books happens to live in my hometown, and since I was in Louisiana, I thought it was appropriate.  It also required very few props and crazy attire.  Please note the bite mark and blood on the neck.  That was hard to accomplish with the very runny fake blood I got, but with a little help from the hair dryer, I got it to work.

We went on a vampire tour around the French Quarter, then we walked around a little.

Bourbon Street on Halloween was a little crazy.  As we were walking around, we walked by a bar with a really great band playing, and the hostess said we could go up to the balcony.  I thought you had to be someone special to be up on the balconies, but apparently not.  Or maybe she just thought we were special?

We enjoyed the view from up here much more than down on the street!  It was fun just people watching and seeing the sometimes very elaborate costumes.  We really didn't really participate in the shenanigans going on that night, but it was still lots of fun just to observe!

It was such a WONDERFUL trip!  It was just what we needed!  It was so relaxing...we ate, had a cocktail, walked around, and repeated that about 4-5 times a day!  We didn't really eat 3 meals a day...more like 4 or 5!  the food was spectacular and the atmosphere of New Orleans was so great!  I can't wait to go back!