New Orleans – Day 1

We arrived in New Orleans on a Friday around 10am and shared a taxi with one other lady to our hotel Astor Crowne Plaza in the French Quarter. It is on the corner of Canal Street and Bourbon Street and at night we could hear the fun, crowds, and music down below from our 5th floor room on the Bourbon Street side.  The location suited our plans to have a good time and the noise outside did not at all prevent us from getting our sleep on. The double queen room was snug but the beds were comfortable. There were small cockroaches in the bathtub and on the bathroom floor, and although my co-workers placed a complaint, nothing was done until I washed them away the following morning.  Overall, it isn’t worth the price, however I paid one-third, so I can’t complain that much.

We were starving upon arrival and walked around the corner to Red Fish Grill for lunch.  I’m not a fan of oysters but I tried the fried oysters (anything fried is good right?), and eh, still not a fan. My food mission was to not have any meat, so I had red fish.  It was a good start to our day.  We then proceeded to walk about in the hot sun ducking into stores here and there to see the wares.  One of those stores was Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo where my co-workers got psychic readings from Phil. They couldn’t stop raving about him the remainder of the trip and days afterwards. We also stopped for hand grenades at one of the Tropical Isle locations.

Tired, for we had worked the day before and stayed up all night to pack and prepare for this trip, we returned to the hotel for a quick nap. We had dinner reservations at NOLA Restaurant where I again had some type of fish. One of us is a vegetarian and NOLA surprised us by making up a vegetarian meal that wasn’t on the menu and that didn’t end up being a bunch of grilled vegetables on a plate or pasta tossed with boiled veggies. For dessert, we went to heaven and back over the Profiteroles (salted caramel ice cream, chocolate ice cream, fudge, peanut brittle) and the Warm Ooey Gooey Cake (moist chocolate cake, marshmallows, toasted coconut, coffee ice cream). Delicious!

Afterwards, we explored Bourbon Street at night and popped into The Oz, where apparently everybody sins! Let’s see, one sentence description – there were “boys” dancing atop the bars showing off their bodies and patrons, um, appreciating them.