Girls Trip: NOLA

Ash here and I wanted to write a quick post to recap my spontaneous weekend trip to New Orleans. We spent just about 48 hours in the great city of New Orleans, and I had THE BEST first experience of Mardi Gras...and I am already planning my next trip back!

Mardi Gras is a two month festival leading up to Fat Tuesday, aka the last day before the liturgical period called Lent - which started yesterday! When I say spontaneous I mean we booked our hotel Thursday afternoon (YIKES) and after packing our bags, we made that eight-hour drive the next morning.

Friday

I was amazed by the sites we saw along the way, from palm trees to lagoons, all overseeing the ocean--it was a long yet exciting drive with my mom and cousin in tow.



We arrived Friday afternoon and we were starving, we found the “Best Hamburgers in New Orleans,” Port of Call. I ordered a burger with mushrooms and a baked potato with bacon bits and scallions, it hit the spot after starving myself all morning. My favorite part was their drinks--a large will have you set for the entire night!



After an early dinner, we had to go visit the infamous Cafe Du Monde to try out their beignets and café au luit. Prepare yourself, as this place is cash only and always busy. We quickly devoured an entire order of beignets. We wanted to take a taste of New Orleans home and bought beignet mix and ground coffee. After all this food we fell into a food coma before we were ready to take on the Bourbon Street nightlife.

Bourbon Street is the heart of the French Quarter, the Broadway of New Orleans. It is nine blocks full of bars, with live music, and a stream of beads falling from the sky. There was a never-ending amount of people partying on Bourbon Street, and each bar was filled with hundreds of more people! Luckily, we were able to snake through the crowd and found a bar with Hispanic music playing, we danced until the sun came up.

Saturday

The next morning we had a mission to watch one of their great parades. After brunch, we found a spot along the Krew of Tucks parade route amongst locals who had been out there since the early morning hours to grab the best spot. The parade had about 40 floats, and it took three hours to watch the parade from start to finish. During the parade, the people atop the floats threw beads, toys, and candy to the crowd. People watching had a great, large bag to help collect all the items being tossed.



Throughout the parade there are high school bands from around the southeast that perform, we were surprised to see Cane Ridge High School marching band during this parade, it was so cool to see this hometown band here!! We screamed out “WAY TO GO ANTIOCH!!” And of course the best part was watching the majorettes dance to the music.

The parade we long but left the streets beautiful with streamers and beads hanging from every tree branch along the route. This city truly goes all out for Mardi Gras. The local houses around the city have colorful beads and decorations on their fences, most of them are up for grabs in every style and color.

Sunday

Our last day started with brunch at Toast--and yes I did order avocado toast. We caught a glimpse of another parade and roamed around the French Market. We shopped till we dropped and enjoyed some time outside listening to the live street music. For our final meal of the day, we settled on a classic Shrimp Po’boy and boy did it hit the spot!

To end the trip we bought our very own King Cake cut on Tuesday at home in celebration of Fat Tuesday. Each King Cake is made of brioche with cream cheese and colorful sprinkles, and the fun surprise is the small plastic baby inside. The tradition behind this spirited cake lets each person cut their own slice of cake, and whoever finds the baby in their slice is responsible for purchasing next year’s cake or hosting the next Mardi Gras party.

I did not get the baby in my cake but I will definitely be making the NOLA trip to party in Mardi Gras next year again, New Orleans has so much more to see and taste - hopefully this time with Nic!? What would your destination be for a spontaneous trip? Comment below, because we are open to suggestions. Wait and see what we’ll do next!