What I did on my Spring Break
Report posted & created by Erica Ellis
I have been bugging Lake to take me to New Orleans, Louisiana since forever! I even wanted to go for my bachelorette party, but I was swayed to stay with the bribe of a free house & a limo, it all worked out quite well! Roll around to getting back from London. Lake wanted to go someone oversees for SB, but I know what kind of toll that takes on you & the exhaustion it creates, so I said I didn't want to be gone for the entire week, I needed some down time to just vegg during the break. So we were at a stand still. I kept suggesting NOLA & kept getting brutally rebuffed! That is....until Valentine's Day rolled around. Lake had cutely hidden little Valentine's cards (the kind you hand out as a kid) all around the house.
Side story: when Lake was in India 2 years ago he had done this. He hid all these fun gift cards & notes & cards all around the house & sometimes I'd randomly find them OR sometimes when we'd Skype & he knew I had a bad day he'd be like "oh, hey, go check in the 2nd draw on the left in the kitchen" or whatever.....so sweet!!! Anyway, Valentine's Day kinda reminded me of this!
Back to the story.....
We ordered in sushi & stayed in on Valentine's & I'd already gotten a lovely vase of tulips & Breaking Dawn: Part 1 on DVD. Thought that was it, we aren't big Valentine's people, which is fine by me! So Lake says, oh wait, you have one more present. He hands over a big white envelope with one more card attached to the outside that says: "how bout we go to NOLA?".......opened the envelope & there were our plane tickets! YAY!!!!
NOLA Trip--1st Half of Spring Break
Day 1
Our flight out was scheduled to depart from SA at 12:50pm, we had a layover in Houston & were landing in New Orleans at 3:30pm, this was the plan.....
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Lake & I at Hobby airport in
Houston, we were very happy
to be getting on a plane!! (stand by) |
Well, Sunday morning some crazy storms rolled through San Antonio, by the time we were up & headed to the airport it was a gorgeous day....here.....well, at around 11:30am those crazy storms were demolishing Houston & our plane was still stuck in Houston due to weather. Needless to say, we were delayed...a lot! We ended up leaving SA at 2:40 and landing in Houston at 3:30 (our original landing time in NOLA). To say that people were upset or angry is just an understatement. Everyone was getting super pissy with the desk people....it was people watching at it's finest! What can you do, it's a safety thing, so oh well. At one point, it became just funny to me. We land in Houston & bust it over to Gate 49 to see if we can be put on stand by for the 4:45 flight. There were a few people in front of us, but we ended up being 5 & 6 on the list. Numbers 1 - 4 ended up getting on the flight.....nice....... Good thing though is that we were automatically put on the stand by list for the next flight out which was at 6:05. Checked in there, assuming that we were would be 1 & 2, but NO, there were some "A-Listers" (frequent fliers) who had already been placed on the stand by list ahead of us, so we were 4 & 5 for this flight. Long story short, we had a stand by success!!! And by 7:15 we had safely landed in NOLA & we were eager to get our bags & eat some dinner.....
Oh wait, our bags!
Had we not made the 6:05 flight we were going to have definite seats on the 8:30 flight, well, of course, no one told our bags about our stand by success, so they of course came in on the 8:30 flight. Oh well!
We leave the airport, tired, agitated, excited, & lets be honest, a little stinky.....we catch a cab & head over to take on "The Big Easy"
We stayed at The Hotel Monteleone which is located on Royal Street, one block over from Bourbon & 2 blocks in from Canal Street. This is a really cool, historic hotel & is still family owned! It also is home to one of the oldest bars in America: The Carousel Bar, literally, you sit & the bar & it turns. It takes 15 minutes to make one rotation. Kinda cool stuff! Back to our first evening. While in the cab headed over to town I used my OpenTable App to make a reservation for dinner at NOLA which is one of Emeril Lagasse's restaurants in New Orleans. Luckily they had room for us at 9:30. We got to our room, splashed some water on our face & were off to dinner. As I've mentioned before, I've never been to New Orleans before, so my sense of direction was a bit off. But we managed to find our way over to the restaurant. Looking back on it, the French Quarter is really easy to maneuver, I just needed to get my barrings.
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| our appetizers at NOLA, omg! |
Dinner at NOLA was so good! The food was delicious!!! When we got there we were about 20 minutes early so we grabbed a beverage & waited. There was a very lively group of UK (University of Kentucky) basketball fans there. The SEC Tournament was being played in New Orleans & they just had a game. I'm not a b-ball person, at all, but based on how happy they were, I guess they won, or lost really badly?! We were seated & got looking at the menu. We decided on mussels & stuffed chicken wings to start with. Both plates were some of the most delicious things I'd ever tasted, seriously! And how ingenious is it to stuff a chicken wing! Culinary master minds!! For my entree I ordered a Blue Fin Tuna salad with an Avocado puree & Lake got good 'ol Shrimp & Grits! WOW! Again, WINNING! For dessert we opted for an Ooey Gooey Chocolate dessert. It was ooey gooey because it had marshmallow underneath the cake/brownie portion & was topped with a coffee flavored ice cream, incredible!!! We rolled out of there & headed over to Arnaud's which is just off Bourbon & I believe Bienville. This bar was pretty cool looking, totally reminded me of the bar that Jack goes to at the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. The bartenders were wearing tuxes, very old school! It was way smokey in the bar, so we opted for "Go Cups"
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| ooey gooey at NOLA |
Sidebar: Can I just say, this whole "go cup" thing really intrigued me. Everywhere, get a go cup here, get a go cup there. What an ingenious idea! Not done with your beverage, but your friends are.....Go Cup it is! LOVE IT!
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the "OG" Pat O's in the French
Quarter :) |
At Arnaud's, the bar is actually named "French 75"....this is where the French 75 drink was invented, thank you Mr. Arnaud & your brilliant mixologists! After Arnaud's we went over to Pat O'Brien's on Bourbon, the original! I think it's kinda cool that San Antonio has one as well. Now I've been to all 3 in the US. There's also one in Orlando at Universal Studios City Walk. After we had one hurricane, we made one more stop & then it was time for bed. When we got back to the hotel we were pleasantly surprised to find our bags waiting for us! YAY! I had never been so happy to shower in my life, yuck!
Day 2
We woke up bright & early for our brunch reservation at The Court of Two Sisters which was about 3 blocks down Royal St. from our hotel. This had been highly recommended by various people, so I was really excited. The brunch was a buffet with jazz music, pretty fun. The outdoor patio was really pretty, only problem was that it was raining on & off, not hard, but still rain. We were able to sit under a large umbrella & braved the rain. The patio had a very large Wisteria that covered the entire patio, it was cool!!! Lake & I both enjoyed the buffet & the greatest thing about a buffet is trying a bunch of stuff in little amounts & deciding if you like it or not. This was great! I tried "Turtle Soup" for the first time.
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| Lake & I at brunch at The Court of Two Sisters |
Sidebar: I don't know what's in Turtle Soup, just that it's good & has a very tangy after taste. I was very saddened (not sad enough though) when I learned that YES, there is actually turtle in Turtle Soup. I still feel kinda bad, but WOW was it good!
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| Jackson Square |
After brunch we walked over the Jackson Square & visited St. Louis Cathedral. We kind of just wandered around for the morning & then went to Harrah's.....played some craps, won/lost some money, then we were on a search for Johnny's Po-Boys. We found it, had to wait in line for a bit, but after trying it, the po-boy was well worth the out the door wait!! After lunch we did some "antiquing" down Royal Street then headed over to the Mississippi River to start our Cocktail Tour.
Cocktail Tour
We'd look into this before we left SA. Lake & I were both really excited for the tour!! It was a walking/guided tour. It was so much fun & I highly recommend it! It was through GrayLine Tours. Drinks were not included in the price of the tour, but I believe it was $24 for each of us, our tour guide was AMAZING, so just for all of the historical facts that we got it was well worth it!
First Stop: Antoine's Hermes Bar. We toured the restaurant, got to see some really cool private rooms, they have a HUGE wine cellar (crazy big), & they also had a whole bunch of Mardi Gras memorabilia to look at, it was very educational! We tried a Pimm's Cup at the bar, it's a very British beverage. Pimm's is actually caramelized gin. The drink tasted like Sweet Tea with a hint of cucumber, very light & summery. I really liked it & Lake loved it! very yum!
Second Stop: The Court of Two Sisters. We were back, again! Our tour took us out on the patio & I actually learned that the wisteria tree over the outdoor courtyard is actually over 140 years old, crazy! The recommended drink at the bar was the Bayou Bash. This drink was made with SoCo (which I hate!), home made fruit punch, & a splash of Cabernet on top. It was actually really really good!!
Third Stop: Pirate's Alley Cafe & Absinthe House. arrrrrggggggg! Apparently this is a very popular for the local pirates of the area. They meet nightly & dress up!! kinda funny! As this is an absinthe house, this was the recommended drink of choice. The drink is called "The Green Fairy", you drip water over a sugar cube & it drips into the absinthe underneath. You're supposed to swirl it around & see "fairies" in the liquid. Lake & I decided not to partake in the beverage. Absinthe is actually now legal in the US, but it wasn't up until like 2 or 3 years ago. Although our tour guide did tell us that Louisiana never really got rid of it.
Fourth (Last) Stop: Arnaud's French 75 Bar. And this was the same bar we'd been to the night before. As we were running a little late, Lake & I excused ourselves from the tour to make sure we'd be able to make our dinner reservations at Commander's Palace.
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| 1-1-1 Soup, a-mazing! |
We had dinner at Commander's Palace that night, it's located in the Garden District & unfortunately this is all we actually saw of the garden district, with the way the rest of our plans were broken up, we didn't have any time to make our way back down there....or ride a street car, so oh well! Emeril Lagasse was a sous chef here back in the day....our cabbie told us that he was a "baby chef" there, haha!! Dinner was good, our soups were fantastic, we had 1-1-1 soup, which was a small tasting of each of their soups. So we had a gumbo (not my favorite, but still very good!), a tomato shrimp bisque (which was A-MAZING!) & turtle soup (my 2nd favorite). For dinner Lake had fish & I had a gnocchi plate that was so tasty!! For dessert we split a cream cheese cheesecake topped with caramel that was TDF! It was very creamy & yummy & delicious!! After dinner we met up with one of my colleagues who just happened to be in NOLA with his family. We met up with him & his wife & bar hopped but ended up at Turtle Bay, kinda close to Pat O's. There was a guy playing guitar & during his break John & wife Dejah, who just so happened to have a birthday that night, sang during the break. They were great! Crowd pleasin' stuff!! We parted ways & went to bed, dreaming of our last day in NOLA & the copious amounts of food we would consume!
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| with the Benke's out on Bourbon! |
Day 3
Tuesday morning we woke up to eat our last brunch in New Orleans. We went to eat at Brennan's which was a nice 2 block walk down Royal Street. The family that owns Brennan's actually owns lots of restaurants in NOLA, including Commander's Palace. Brunch was so good! If you ask Lake he'll tell you that it was hands down, the best brunch he'd ever had in his life! I find it hard to argue with that statement. I ordered Eggs Benedict, which I'd never had before & I can't remember the exact name of what Lake ordered but it was basically Eggs Benedict but with a Cajun twist. Whatever it's called, it was so good! At the end of our meal we shared an order of Bananas Foster, which was actually created at Brennan's. They have a rolling cart that rolls around the restaurant & prepares your dessert for you table side, kinda like table side guacamole, but with FIRE!
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| St. Louis Cemetery #1 Tour |
After brunch we didn't have too much time, so we wandered a bit & did some shopping. I find the 2 cutest dresses at a boutique just off of Jackson Square, loved it! By the time we knew it, it was 1:00 & it was time for our Cemetery Tour. I had really wanted to do a night time "ghost tour" of the city, but with dinner reservations each night, we just didn't have any time for that. As our tour started it began to rain & not just "sorta rain" no, it was pouring!! We took a bus from the Mississippi to St. Louis Cemetery #1 which is just outside of the Quarter. We waited out the rain for about 25 minutes in their visitors center. Not that I didn't enjoy myself or the tour, BUT, our tour guide wasn't all that great. She just wasn't very dynamic & didn't really give us too much information that you couldn't find in a book. The cemetery itself was super creepy, but cool. The only really bad problem was that it did stop raining, which was GREAT, BUT like a typical rain storm in the middle of the day, in the south, it was brutally HOT & HUMID after, which probably also took away my enjoyment of the tour. All in all, I'd say skip this. There are plenty of horse drawn carriages that give you a tour of the city & stop at this cemetery & allow you to walk around on your own for 15-20 minutes, I'd say do that instead! After the tour we were ready for a late lunch, because we had late dinner reservations. We went to eat at Napoleon House, which wasn't very far from our hotel. I had the most delicious shrimp remoulade over an avocado. Basically I love anything that is served over an avocado! Since lunch was "semi-light" we walked over to Cafe du Monde for an afternoon snack of beignets & cafe au laits. Can I just say, if you want to go there & NOT have to wait, go on a Wednesday at 4:10pm, NO ONE was there, I mean, it was still crowded, but we didn't even have to wait in line. There were open tables, SCORE!! I'm excited to have tried there "famous" beignets, very tasty, but there coffee was even better!! Loved it! After our beignets we walked down to a market area, then walked all the way back down Royal, it was a good 10-12 blocks, but I fell in love with the streets of NOLA, so it was lovely stroll. We had a late dinner reservation so we grabbed a drink at the Carousel Bar at our hotel, which, like I said earlier, actually turns!! I indulged in a French 007, it was pear vodka, champagne, & cranberry juice. It was really great & our bartender was great as well! Our dinner reservations were at Galatoire's which is on Bourbon Street. It was one block away from us. We had been told, that if we can....get seated on the 1st floor, we had made reservations though & Lake had read up & what he read told us we'd be on the 2nd floor & that the 1st floor was for walk-ins. So we got there & the first floor wasn't full, so we asked if we could just be seated there & they let us. When we first got there the atmosphere was really lively & upbeat, but slowly people started finishing their dinner & there weren't too many people coming in, so it kinda died down. The food was just kinda OK. We started off with Oysters Rockefeller, which I'd never tasted before, they were very very fishy, but good. We also had souffle potatoes which were quite possibly the best thing I've ever tasted!! They served it with a super yummy, rich Bearnaise sauce, they were delish!!!
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| the magical potatoes! |
Sidebar: These potatoes are sliced long & thin, then fried in oil that's about 200 degrees. They then take the fries & freeze them & once an order for the potatoes are placed, they fry them in oil that's like 800 degrees & they POP! So they end up being big & puffy, but hollow because they explode.
Back to dinner. Lake & I shared crabs au gratin, which was OK, but I was expecting more flavor. For dessert though we had a black bottom pecan pie, which was so rich & yummy! That was good stuff!! All in all, I'd say Galatoire's is a good place to go, but there are so many other incredible places to eat at that I wouldn't put it on the top of my list of "must eats." After dinner we went to Jean Lafitte's Bar which is way down on Bourbon. I grabbed a hand grenade before we began our trek. This had come highly recommended by a friend & pretty much everyone on the street I saw was drinking one, so I thought....why not....when in NOLA?!?? It just tastes like melon, which can be very dangerous! It was good, but strong & sneaky, it's like, oh yeah, yum, then BAM, buzz city! haha. That was pretty much all I needed for the evening, I was good. We were back in the hotel, not too late & packed up to get ready for our flight the next morning.
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heading to dinner our last
night out in NOLA :) |
And so that was our trip to NOLA, lots of fun, lots of food! I'm so glad that Lake finally gave in & we were able to experience....."The Big Easy" :)
Valley Trip--2nd Half of Spring Break
Thursday morning I woke up early, ran a quick 2 miles with Anne & was off to drive to the Valley. It was a quick 2 day trip, but lots of fun!! I hadn't been down there since the end of November, so it was nice to visit & see family & friends. Thursday afternoon my friend Monica came over with her two adorable girls to play with Maryn & Hayden who were down in the Valley with my sister in law. Watching Lily & Maryn play was too cute!! They were both so sweet with each other, awwwwwwww! It's hard to imagine how "grown up" they are now! They aren't little babies or even toddlers anymore, they're little girls!! Monica has a second daughter named Mallory who is about Hayden's age, so yeah, they just kinda stared at each other the whole time, still very adorable though. :) After the visit Leah & I went to have dinner with my cousins on my dad's side of the family. We had a great time & they can always make me laugh! On Friday, I woke up, ran 4 miles, then was lazy, which was very much needed!! I also got a hair cut at deSanchez with my old stylist, I only cut about an inch & a half, so nothing too drastic. I needed it though! The whole reason why I went down there was to help my BFF celebrate her 30th birthday! Monica had her party at Tipsy Canvas in McAllen. Basically, you have an "instructor" who guides you through a painting & everyone paints that same thing, they can just use the colors of their own choosing. We painted "Tipsy Tulips." This was much harder than I thought, but it was so much fun!! I think it had more to do with the fact that I was getting to spend time with my life long friends, but the food, drinks & painting didn't hurt either!! ;) Saturday morning I woke up & drove back to SA.
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| Mon's 30th Birthday at Tipsy Canvas in McAllen |
Phew, so that was it, that was my Spring Break! All in all, it was so much fun & also very tiring!!
SPRING BREAK 2012, wohoooooo!
