I am behind on my posts — eek! I will be writing posts for N and O today to get caught up.

My post for N is about New Orleans. My husband and I took our first trip there over spring break. This was more his choice than mine. He mostly wanted to be able to overdose on gumbo. We only spent 2 nights and 2 1/2 days there, so we didn’t get to do everything we wanted.

For lodging, we decided to splurge since we were only going to be there a very short time. We stayed at a hotel right on Bourbon Street and got a room with a balcony that overlooked Bourbon Street. The hotel was nice and I loved having the balcony. Yes, it was loud because there’s plenty of street noise on Bourbon, even in the midst of a pandemic where the bars gave to close at 11:00 PM. The noise didn’t bother me, though.

We ate at Acme Oyster House and Oceana — both of which were fantastic! we even did dinner once night at Sazerac Fountain Lodge, which was also nice — and of course we had Sazerac to drink! We also grabbed a frozen Irish coffee at Erin Rose since this is the place that inspired the frozen Irish coffee at one of the places we enjoy going to in Key West — Maryellen’s! I can’t say anything bad about the food and drink we had. Jim had his fill of gumbo, so that was a success! I will say that it has been a while since I was in the South so I had forgotten how the service at restaurants can be sometimes — slow, no rush to get things done, long. For someone from the North, this can be frustrating!

We also did a swamp tour, which was really enjoyable! I am so glad we ended up not choosing an airboat tour of the swamp, as those things are so incredibly LOUD! We did get to see alligators and learned a lot. I have to say, the swamp tour was my favorite part of the trip.

Overall, though, I did NOT find New Orleans to be enjoyable, and if I never go back, I’m totally fine with that. I was warned that it was dirty and a bit seedy — and that was 100% accurate! And I couldn’t tell if the ickiness was from the locals or the tourists or a little bit of both. I didn’t mind it during the day so much, but once nighttime came, it really transformed into something unpleasant, in my opinion. And I’m no prude, folks (we did stop in a strip club for a drink — see, not a prude), but the experience on Bourbon Street at night was one that kept me constantly on my guard and trying to avoid eye contact with anyone. AND it wasn’t even that crowded (see aforementioned pandemic). I just felt unsafe, and I got the impression that Bourbon Street was just fine with everything going on.

If we do go back, we already decided we would NOT stay in the French Quarter. Instead, we would just Uber in for the places we wanted to go, and then skedaddle out of there once dark fell. All in all, NOLA was quite an experience!