NOLA

My mom, aunt, sister and I finally took our girl's trip to New Orleans. We've been talking about this trip for what seems like forever. New Orleans totally blew my mind. It's unlike any place I've ever been. It felt like walking through a time machine. We all appreciate ghost stories and creepy history so it was the perfect trip to take with these gals. I have been very intentional about being in the moment recently so I was thoughtful about using my phone (or thoughtful about not using my phone) so I didn't take many photos but here's a few that I snapped.

We stayed at the Biscuit Palace, which was an INCREDIBLE space. It was a 200 year old space that was converted from a mansion and recently renovated into a boutique hotel. We loved the space and the building managers. We were in a perfect location between Frenchmen's Street and Bourbon Street and walking distance to everything in the French Quarter. The building was sort of falling apart. You can see in the last photo that the ceiling under the stairs collapsed during our first night, which added an element of adventure to our stay. Our first stop upon arrival was Lafitte's Bar, which was a block from the Biscuit Palace. It's an old Blacksmith that has continued to operate with candlelight and strong drinks (I also learned it used to be owned by a pirate and operate as ground zero for illegal operations). Lafitte's was one of the coolest places we visited.

Obviously food was one of the most exciting things of our trip. We enjoyed po boys, etouffee, a snow ball, dirty rice, crawfish and my sister made us go to Mother's for authentic nawlins everything (including bread pudding).  The first photo is from a coffee shop called En Vie which has breakfast in a cup and that might have been my favorite food because it had grits, eggs, bacon and potatoes all shoved down in a cup and eaten with a spoon. I also really loved the district donuts. The best best part of NOLA is drinking while you walk around. We had A LOT of champagne and mimosas. 

We spent most of our time in the French Quarter and were very lucky to have tickets to see Preservation Hall, which was incredible. The street music was amazing and I loved hearing music everywhere we walked. We did take a day to explore Magazine Street. We took the street car all the way down to Audubon Park and were able to check out some of the amazing and gigantic mansions and an old creepy cemetery. We had all read Anne Rice's book "The Witching Hour" before going on the trip and were able to see her home, which is the home written into this book. I didn't take any photos from that experience. My most favorite thing I did was go on a walking "ghost/voodoo/pirate/vampire/zombie" tour of the French Quarter. We saw all the famous ghost spots and I hope to go back someday to explore more. My other favorite thing was the artist night market. Ask me someday about the ghost that haunted our room at the Biscuit Palace, too.