I am back from my New Orleans trip! Actually I have been back for a few days, but I was so busy trying to catch up on work this is the first chance I've had to update the blog here.
Let's see... so. our traveling party was of three: Myself, my sister Julia, and her friend Sam aka Spike. We were going to drive straight through from Santa Fe to New Orleans, no hotels or anything in order to make this nice and affordable. We used Spike's car, and his mom lent us one of those Garmin GPS devices to give us directions, which came in handy since we got lost early on (before we'd figured out how to turn the machine on.)
We began by stopping at the library and checking out several books on tape -- more than we could have reasonably listened to, given War and Peace and Ulysses alone would have taken up more than the total driving time of the trip. I think we made it to casette 4 of War and Peace before we got tired of that one. We never bothered to actually listen to Ulysses, instead opting for the extra special NPR radio version of Return of the Jedi, where Han Solo sounds like a 70 year old crackhead. Jesus Christ, didn't they realize what a bad idea it was to make Jabba, Chewbacca and Artoo talk so much without the option of subtitles? Again, I don't think we made it more than halfway through this. The only tape-series we listened to all the way through was the short fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, which really demonstrated just what a good writer that man was since his were the only listenable things we had.
So, we drove through New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana, with Julia and Spike trading the driving duties (I never learned to drive, so I was but a passenger. Spike at one point lamented that I couldn't help with the driving, to which Julia scolded "Dude, do you really want to see how Talia drives?") There are an awful lot of antique stores in towns with total populations of less than a thousand. We drove through the Elysian Fields of Texas and saw actual mist! I'd never seen real mist (as opposed to fog) before. We tried to take photos but it wasn't really working out the bug-spattered window of a moving car.
One of our stops was in Natchitoches, where I got red velvet twinkies in the gas station.
We arrived at the house we were all staying in about 2 or 3 in the afternoon. See, the theoretical reason for this whole trip, was a highschool friend of Julia's and Spike's was graduating from Tulane. This girl is named Mara, she is Austrian by birth, and she has a longterm live-in boyfriend from Croatia named Matej. Mara's mother is called Barbara, also Austrian and still possessed of the accent. Anyway, Barbara had rented an entire house for the weekend because so many people were coming to New Orleans for Mara's graduation, so we were getting to stay there for free. Spike slept on the futon, and me and Julia shared one of the bedrooms. Others in the house were: Barbara, her boyfriend who I think was called Edgard, her other daughter Runa, Runa's friend whose name I can't recall, and another friend of Barbara's named Anita.
On the first day we didn't do a ton of stuff... we left almost immediately on arrival to get Indian food, because everyone else who was at the house was hungry and had been waiting on us. The Indian restaurant was already closing up to prepare for dinner though, so everyone ate really fast (well, I didn't eat. I have trouble feeling hungry after sitting in a car all day; in fact cars tend to make me want to do the opposite of consuming food...) then we wandered about to shop. There was an antique store, where I discovered my new fashion accessory should become the mantilla -- though the vintage ones they had there were too pricy for me. This store was also where I got my first exposure to the shitty tourist voodoo of New Orleans -- there was a basket of mass-made and quite new voodoo dolls in the front of the antiques shop, of a brand I would encounter again in basically every tourist spot in town.
Let's see... we went back to the house to finish unpacking, then later went to this "wave goodbye" event at Tulane, where there was free food. I was actually a little hungry by this time, but the lines were so long and everyone was running out of food, so I didn't get much to eat. I had a very good grilled oyster though -- the inside wasn't all slimy like when my mom makes oysters. Then we went to Mara and Matej's apartment on the campus -- Matej is an RA or something like that, so they have nice rooms. At this point I was falling asleep even as I tried to interact with people, so I hitched a ride back to the house with Barbara and Edgard, who were intending to pick up food for everyone. Then I took a shower and went to bed.
The next day I awoke upon a deflated air mattress. This day was Mara's graduation, but I wasn't going to go -- instead, Julia dropped me off SOMEPLACE NEAR the French Quarter so I could go exploring and do the stuff on my to-do list. Now, the map I had made of the areas I wanted to see, did not include wherever the hell Julia dropped me off. So, I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to get to where I wanted; I actually had to use the position of the sun to figure this. Eventually I caught sight of the LUSH store, which was one of the places I wanted to go, and so I now knew where everything I wanted was at. Now, I'd been hoping to find a cafe or something to get some breakfast, but actually I hadn;t seen any in several blocks. However, next to the LUSH store was a Daiquiri shop -- open at 10 AM or whatever time it was! -- so I went in there to have a daiquiri for breakfast, and to rest because I was already tired from walking so much.* The guy at the daiquiri store fell in love with me, I think he was called Jersey. He asked me out and I sort of considered accepting because I'd have gotten free sushi in the deal, but in the end we parted ways to probably never see each other again. I do recall he expects to be a famous poker player though. It was nice to meet a fellow with some ambition in life, for we have so few of those in Santa Fe.
Anyway, then I went next door to LUSH, and my second biggest expense of the trip was there, for I bought $45 of soap. Apparently one of my favorites, Ooh-la-la Soap, is being discontinued. I also got my favorite Flosty Gritter bubble bar and some other things. Then I proceeded a few blocks, and went to the next stop on my list the Pharmacy Museum. I was nicely buzzed at this point, with 36 ounces of peach daiquiri in me (and that wasn't even a large.) I began to explore the museum and made a marvellous discovery! -- they had a little hoodoo section, with an open, authentic early 20th (? Could even be 19th) century RECIPE BOOK! I quickly copied down the recipes for Fast Luck and Van Van oil, which are of the utmost importance. I will probably make a post of these amazing finds on that blog I have, once the museum writes me back with some more information about the date and origin of that booklet. I also learned many other interesting things, like why women were always dying in childbirth so much, and what living leeches look like.
After this, my goal was to start examining the voodoo shops (although, unfortunately, nothing was going to rival my finds at the Pharmacy Museum.) But, first, I was hungry again -- I'd killed a couple hours in that museum -- so I went to find some nearby food. I found myself at the Chartres House which was built in 1788. Some random tourist asked to take a photo of me while I was waiting outside, because he liked my outfit so much. Then I went in, and I sat at the bar even though I was just intending to get food -- it seemed dumb to take a whole table to myself. Well, at the bar, a professor from the University of Houston sat next to me, forced me to drink a Bloody Mary but he also paid for all my food. Free lunch, once more! This was a kickass town.
From here I began to scout the voodoo shops. They were actually kind of disappointing, they usually had a poor selection and were quite expensive -- tourist voodoo, not really for serious practitioners. Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo, Esoterica Occult Goods, and Voodoo Authentica were the best, which might not be saying much. I found myself at a strange little Egyptian shop at one point when I wandered too far down Chartres Street and nearly left the district, and I actually bought more oils there than at the voodoo shops -- they were much more reasonably priced.
In the afternoon I wound up at a place called Bottom of the Cup, that was a tea house that also sold a lot of incense. I bought some Spiritual Sky incense, because I miss that brand -- no one around me sells it. Also got some maple cream tea while I rested a while. Other stores I visited included a jewelry shop and an antique weapons shop, though I wasn't in a position to by anything from either. Then Julia called -- the graduation was done now -- and she came with Mara, Matej and Spike to pick me up, and we all went back to the rented house to have dinner, kind of a barbeque deal. There was a swimming pool at this house. Neither me nor Julia has been swimming in years, and neither of us even own swimsuits at this point, I believe. But, we decided to go swimming in the pool -- Julia borrowed a suit from Mara, and I improvised one from my better quality underwear. There are photographs, proving this amazing event happened, I think Julia put them up on Facebook someplace.
Once more I went to bed earlier than eveyone else, me having been the only one who spent the whole day walking. We were impressed with Mara though, who apparently remained out the whole night to party.
The next day, I woke again on a deflated air mattress -- that thing must have had a hole or something -- and we began to prepare at once for our breakfast reservation at Brennan's. Luckily Mara, still awake from the previous night, was able to get there on time to hold the table for us. Me, Julia and Spike got in a little late, though not too bad, due to parking issues. Barbara, Edgard and Anita got in hella late -- they apparently didn't even leave till a half hour after the reservation time, then took another 40 minutes to park. Luckily, a classy place like this that serves cocktails for breakfast, they're not going to kick people out for holding up the table, especially not when everyone's on their second $10 drink.
My drinks:
Coffee
Brandy Milk Punch (I make these better at home, actually. I should have demanded they use a VSOP.)
Absinthe Suissesse
The waiter became my newest boyfriend, or so I am told. He mostly asked about my outfit and when he learned I sewed it myself, mentioned he also makes clothing. Anyway, just for myself I spent $75 on breakfast, which seems to be the main fun of Brennan's -- just to be really extravagant. Truly, though, the bannana's foster alone was worth the cost of the prix fixe, it was really really good.
Stuffed to the gills, we then headed out to try to see a few more sites. Unfortunately, it was Sunday, so a lot of things were closed. So, that afternoon, our party of three packed up our things and headed back to cold, dry, dusty Santa Fe; a town that exists merely to hasten my demise. We got back on my birthday, and when we walked in my mom was making a cake for me. Then my grandpa showed up, and we all ate cake. A fine close to the trip! Also when I returned, the proof copy of my new book was waiting, and I got an idea for another book and so I threw that together really fast (It is -- The Murders in the Rue Morgue, with a new cover.)
Here endith the tale of Nouveau Orleans.
*Of note: I give a great thumbs-up to Bare Minerals Mineral Veil powder, I was hot and sweaty, in freaking New Orleans, but I wasn't greasy looking yet.
Let's see... so. our traveling party was of three: Myself, my sister Julia, and her friend Sam aka Spike. We were going to drive straight through from Santa Fe to New Orleans, no hotels or anything in order to make this nice and affordable. We used Spike's car, and his mom lent us one of those Garmin GPS devices to give us directions, which came in handy since we got lost early on (before we'd figured out how to turn the machine on.)
We began by stopping at the library and checking out several books on tape -- more than we could have reasonably listened to, given War and Peace and Ulysses alone would have taken up more than the total driving time of the trip. I think we made it to casette 4 of War and Peace before we got tired of that one. We never bothered to actually listen to Ulysses, instead opting for the extra special NPR radio version of Return of the Jedi, where Han Solo sounds like a 70 year old crackhead. Jesus Christ, didn't they realize what a bad idea it was to make Jabba, Chewbacca and Artoo talk so much without the option of subtitles? Again, I don't think we made it more than halfway through this. The only tape-series we listened to all the way through was the short fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, which really demonstrated just what a good writer that man was since his were the only listenable things we had.
So, we drove through New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana, with Julia and Spike trading the driving duties (I never learned to drive, so I was but a passenger. Spike at one point lamented that I couldn't help with the driving, to which Julia scolded "Dude, do you really want to see how Talia drives?") There are an awful lot of antique stores in towns with total populations of less than a thousand. We drove through the Elysian Fields of Texas and saw actual mist! I'd never seen real mist (as opposed to fog) before. We tried to take photos but it wasn't really working out the bug-spattered window of a moving car.
One of our stops was in Natchitoches, where I got red velvet twinkies in the gas station.
We arrived at the house we were all staying in about 2 or 3 in the afternoon. See, the theoretical reason for this whole trip, was a highschool friend of Julia's and Spike's was graduating from Tulane. This girl is named Mara, she is Austrian by birth, and she has a longterm live-in boyfriend from Croatia named Matej. Mara's mother is called Barbara, also Austrian and still possessed of the accent. Anyway, Barbara had rented an entire house for the weekend because so many people were coming to New Orleans for Mara's graduation, so we were getting to stay there for free. Spike slept on the futon, and me and Julia shared one of the bedrooms. Others in the house were: Barbara, her boyfriend who I think was called Edgard, her other daughter Runa, Runa's friend whose name I can't recall, and another friend of Barbara's named Anita.
On the first day we didn't do a ton of stuff... we left almost immediately on arrival to get Indian food, because everyone else who was at the house was hungry and had been waiting on us. The Indian restaurant was already closing up to prepare for dinner though, so everyone ate really fast (well, I didn't eat. I have trouble feeling hungry after sitting in a car all day; in fact cars tend to make me want to do the opposite of consuming food...) then we wandered about to shop. There was an antique store, where I discovered my new fashion accessory should become the mantilla -- though the vintage ones they had there were too pricy for me. This store was also where I got my first exposure to the shitty tourist voodoo of New Orleans -- there was a basket of mass-made and quite new voodoo dolls in the front of the antiques shop, of a brand I would encounter again in basically every tourist spot in town.
Let's see... we went back to the house to finish unpacking, then later went to this "wave goodbye" event at Tulane, where there was free food. I was actually a little hungry by this time, but the lines were so long and everyone was running out of food, so I didn't get much to eat. I had a very good grilled oyster though -- the inside wasn't all slimy like when my mom makes oysters. Then we went to Mara and Matej's apartment on the campus -- Matej is an RA or something like that, so they have nice rooms. At this point I was falling asleep even as I tried to interact with people, so I hitched a ride back to the house with Barbara and Edgard, who were intending to pick up food for everyone. Then I took a shower and went to bed.
The next day I awoke upon a deflated air mattress. This day was Mara's graduation, but I wasn't going to go -- instead, Julia dropped me off SOMEPLACE NEAR the French Quarter so I could go exploring and do the stuff on my to-do list. Now, the map I had made of the areas I wanted to see, did not include wherever the hell Julia dropped me off. So, I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to get to where I wanted; I actually had to use the position of the sun to figure this. Eventually I caught sight of the LUSH store, which was one of the places I wanted to go, and so I now knew where everything I wanted was at. Now, I'd been hoping to find a cafe or something to get some breakfast, but actually I hadn;t seen any in several blocks. However, next to the LUSH store was a Daiquiri shop -- open at 10 AM or whatever time it was! -- so I went in there to have a daiquiri for breakfast, and to rest because I was already tired from walking so much.* The guy at the daiquiri store fell in love with me, I think he was called Jersey. He asked me out and I sort of considered accepting because I'd have gotten free sushi in the deal, but in the end we parted ways to probably never see each other again. I do recall he expects to be a famous poker player though. It was nice to meet a fellow with some ambition in life, for we have so few of those in Santa Fe.
Anyway, then I went next door to LUSH, and my second biggest expense of the trip was there, for I bought $45 of soap. Apparently one of my favorites, Ooh-la-la Soap, is being discontinued. I also got my favorite Flosty Gritter bubble bar and some other things. Then I proceeded a few blocks, and went to the next stop on my list the Pharmacy Museum. I was nicely buzzed at this point, with 36 ounces of peach daiquiri in me (and that wasn't even a large.) I began to explore the museum and made a marvellous discovery! -- they had a little hoodoo section, with an open, authentic early 20th (? Could even be 19th) century RECIPE BOOK! I quickly copied down the recipes for Fast Luck and Van Van oil, which are of the utmost importance. I will probably make a post of these amazing finds on that blog I have, once the museum writes me back with some more information about the date and origin of that booklet. I also learned many other interesting things, like why women were always dying in childbirth so much, and what living leeches look like.
After this, my goal was to start examining the voodoo shops (although, unfortunately, nothing was going to rival my finds at the Pharmacy Museum.) But, first, I was hungry again -- I'd killed a couple hours in that museum -- so I went to find some nearby food. I found myself at the Chartres House which was built in 1788. Some random tourist asked to take a photo of me while I was waiting outside, because he liked my outfit so much. Then I went in, and I sat at the bar even though I was just intending to get food -- it seemed dumb to take a whole table to myself. Well, at the bar, a professor from the University of Houston sat next to me, forced me to drink a Bloody Mary but he also paid for all my food. Free lunch, once more! This was a kickass town.
From here I began to scout the voodoo shops. They were actually kind of disappointing, they usually had a poor selection and were quite expensive -- tourist voodoo, not really for serious practitioners. Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo, Esoterica Occult Goods, and Voodoo Authentica were the best, which might not be saying much. I found myself at a strange little Egyptian shop at one point when I wandered too far down Chartres Street and nearly left the district, and I actually bought more oils there than at the voodoo shops -- they were much more reasonably priced.
In the afternoon I wound up at a place called Bottom of the Cup, that was a tea house that also sold a lot of incense. I bought some Spiritual Sky incense, because I miss that brand -- no one around me sells it. Also got some maple cream tea while I rested a while. Other stores I visited included a jewelry shop and an antique weapons shop, though I wasn't in a position to by anything from either. Then Julia called -- the graduation was done now -- and she came with Mara, Matej and Spike to pick me up, and we all went back to the rented house to have dinner, kind of a barbeque deal. There was a swimming pool at this house. Neither me nor Julia has been swimming in years, and neither of us even own swimsuits at this point, I believe. But, we decided to go swimming in the pool -- Julia borrowed a suit from Mara, and I improvised one from my better quality underwear. There are photographs, proving this amazing event happened, I think Julia put them up on Facebook someplace.
Once more I went to bed earlier than eveyone else, me having been the only one who spent the whole day walking. We were impressed with Mara though, who apparently remained out the whole night to party.
The next day, I woke again on a deflated air mattress -- that thing must have had a hole or something -- and we began to prepare at once for our breakfast reservation at Brennan's. Luckily Mara, still awake from the previous night, was able to get there on time to hold the table for us. Me, Julia and Spike got in a little late, though not too bad, due to parking issues. Barbara, Edgard and Anita got in hella late -- they apparently didn't even leave till a half hour after the reservation time, then took another 40 minutes to park. Luckily, a classy place like this that serves cocktails for breakfast, they're not going to kick people out for holding up the table, especially not when everyone's on their second $10 drink.
My drinks:
Coffee
Brandy Milk Punch (I make these better at home, actually. I should have demanded they use a VSOP.)
Absinthe Suissesse
The waiter became my newest boyfriend, or so I am told. He mostly asked about my outfit and when he learned I sewed it myself, mentioned he also makes clothing. Anyway, just for myself I spent $75 on breakfast, which seems to be the main fun of Brennan's -- just to be really extravagant. Truly, though, the bannana's foster alone was worth the cost of the prix fixe, it was really really good.
Stuffed to the gills, we then headed out to try to see a few more sites. Unfortunately, it was Sunday, so a lot of things were closed. So, that afternoon, our party of three packed up our things and headed back to cold, dry, dusty Santa Fe; a town that exists merely to hasten my demise. We got back on my birthday, and when we walked in my mom was making a cake for me. Then my grandpa showed up, and we all ate cake. A fine close to the trip! Also when I returned, the proof copy of my new book was waiting, and I got an idea for another book and so I threw that together really fast (It is -- The Murders in the Rue Morgue, with a new cover.)
Here endith the tale of Nouveau Orleans.
*Of note: I give a great thumbs-up to Bare Minerals Mineral Veil powder, I was hot and sweaty, in freaking New Orleans, but I wasn't greasy looking yet.
wtk10025:
Sounds like a very fine adventure. I admire your taste in breakfast fare. Santa Fe on the other hand, does sound fairly hideous, rather like what I've seen of Tucson, Arizona--bleak.