This last weekend I went with my four best friends to New Orleans. To say it was fun would be an understatement of gargantuan proportion. Here are a few of the things that made this adventure so memorable:
1) While most of this weekend was so much fun I just get warm and cozy feelings thinking about it, Alex and I had one stone cold sobering hour. The walls of our hotel were paper thin and Alex and I were in one of our rooms. The first night we were awoken at 5am (just over an hour after we'd gone to bed) to an argument in the adjoining room. What went from vaguely annoying quickly became terrifying as the fight started to sound more and more like child abuse. We called the front desk and reported the incident, unsure of whether or not this was proper protocol. A few minutes later, the tone completely shifted to silence followed by a knock at our front door and then BANGING on our adjoining door. Alex and I spent the better part of the next hour staring at each other thinking we were about to die, listening to them shout "we know you're in there!" and "we can wait here all day." Well, we were sure we were goners. Though this did end up being a serious situation- the front desk told us later that day that it was a domestic dispute and that family was taken out of the hotel (we think by the police), they were not trying to get into our room, but one member of the family had locked herself in the bathroom and that door was close to ours. HOPEFULLY that's the scariest adventure Alex and I have for awhile...
2) We enjoyed alot of food all weekend long. Muffalletta's, beignets, and alligators (!) OH MY. For dinner Saturday night we wanted to go somewhere special. When we first asked the concierge in the morning, she told us to "just go to the place around the corner from Arby's, it's fine." Being the skeptics that we are, this did not sound super enticing so we decided to reach out to our friends who know New Orleans. A few people had told us to go to a place called "Jacques-imo's" so we went to the concierge to ask for a reservation. To this she said "ohh yea, thats reallllly good" and proceeded to try to make a reservation. Clearly it was a local favorite so they were booked for the evening and if we came as walk-ins it could be a long wait. So we asked where else we should go. To this the concierge replied, "nowhere. Jacques-imo is the best" and refused to give another recommendation. Well, as weird as that was, the right decision. It was SO delicious. After nearly a two hour wait all the way across town, we sat down to one of the most amazing southern style meals. So there was that - we went to the ONLY restaurant in New Orleans.
3) Elevators of the future... As Alex put it, "I never thought elevators were particularly confusing before... why on earth did they decide to change them?" Basically, you had to punch in the floor level you needed BEFORE boarding the elevator (instead of the up down button even!) and then you were instructed which elevator to get in. Once in, you did NOTHING and just waited until you were dropped off on your floor. This was nice and everything until the elevator made sure to put you in a car with a gazillion other people to the point where we worried we were over capacity. But no one wanted to step out because you NEVER know when the next one is going to come.
4) Best cab ride ever. Maybe slightly tipsy, the five of us THOROUGHLY enjoyed the cab driver who pretty much took us on a tour of NOLA. He picked us up at Jacques-imo's and as we couldn't really figure out where we wanted to go, drove us around town, pointing towards where we might want to go until we thought something looked like fun. He let us BLAST top 40 radio and when a Ke$ha song came on and Julie screeched "This is my FAVORITE song! Cab driver, put another dollar in the meter we can't get out now!" happily obliged. If we lived in New Orleans, he'd have become our equivalent to the cab driver in "How I Met Your Mother." He dropped us off, instructing us to "be safe and not venture off the main street," gave us his card in case we wound up in trouble, and then he was gone.
5) Lindsay went and became Southern, ya'll. Maybe it's Tallahassee or maybe its the booze, but at points, without even trying (but often trying VERY hard), homegirl had a drawl.
6) We met a nice southern gentleman who kindly told Maggie how much he reminded her of... SNOOKIE!
Maggie the "smuffalletta head." And we thought we each needed our own...
Being "nice" at Jacques-imo's!
Party in the cab!
Lindsay's Beignet Pants...
Group shot!
