I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one.

New Orleans has always seemed like a weird, misty, haunted city to me, and ever since the slew of TV shows and movies (AHS: Coven, True Detective, Rampart) I have been increasingly interested in it. When I booked my flight, I really didn't know what to expect. All I had seen were apartments on Craigslist (I tend to daydream) and said TV shows.

I arrived after a short flight on a cold, rainy day. It was 34 degrees! The rental car people convinced me to get the insurance. People around there aren't used to driving in this weather, you know. My first stop was for some lunch in the French Quarter and walk around. It was pretty empty, making it seem more residential than I thought. Some apartments for up for rent, even the haunted ones. 

The thing about renting a car is how terrified the whole process makes you about being responsible for some company's car. It's a terrible feeling, so I was hyper aware of parking laws and such. When I found a spot with an ambiguous sign, I stopped in a little convenience shop to ask what exactly the sign meant. I wandered around and saw it was a small, fully stocked grocery store. Everything was so inexpensive. In a good way! Coming from DC, or the northeast in general, I usually have to deal with people visiting and being surprised by everything being so expensive. An admittedly delicious, but $12 gin and tonic? Easy.

Breakfast at Coulis

The food was inexpensive and absolutely delicious. I challenged myself to eat only famous local fare and I did, but I didn't even make a dent in the list. Grits for every breakfast, crawfish etouffee, po' boys, beignets and chicory coffee, muffaletta! There is a large Vietnamese population in NOLA, but so does DC so I had to resist the thoughts of banh mi. Same goes for Ethiopian food as well.

Muffaletta

There are so many free, non-touristy things to do down there. One that I wanted to do, but didn't have the time, was visit the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. My next trip, I swear... I can't say no to an art museum. Since I'm not fond of tourist traps, we walked around the neighborhoods and scoped it out. There is a free ferry, by the way, to an old part of the city called Algiers. It was really sweet and quiet. It's also the home to a million cats.

Our AirBnB rental had a large map of Louisiana on the wall. The geography is fascinating to figure out. How is this city built in a bowl eight feet below sea level and at the very north of swamp? You think about the journey the French had in order for them to claim the first livable land off the gulf, coming from the east. For the first time I thought about the logistics of the levee breaks, now having context for the conspiracy theories. I note several neighborhoods were advertised as having not been touched by the flooding. Side note: "Never flooded!" was a selling point on a few places I saw while scrolling wistfully through Craigslist.

The French Quarter is in the middle of the city, or at least in the middle of all the things we wanted to visit. Maybe it was the weather, but the most famous part of NOLA wasn't that overwhelming with people and traffic like I thought. It was so nice walking in the streets on an overcast day. The calm before the storm that is Mardi Gras. Bourbon Street is icky though, for an post-college old lady like myself! The street music was unforgettable. There was this little old lady with a man playing folky blues, and two young bearded guys picking banjos. Everything was perfect.

We stayed in the Garden district to the west of downtown. The houses were enormous and deep, fitting up to eight apartments each. Everywhere was quiet and the architecture was stunning. There were french influences, as well as spanish. But it was quintessentially Southern, something I recalled from visiting South Carolina and Georgia with my family every year when I was a kid. The oaks were lush and sheltered the street from the sun. Everything was so beautiful.

The other area we putzed around in was Bywater/Marigny, which is to the east of downtown. Apparently it's the hipster artist part of town. It reminded me of Baltimore and Richmond.

Everyone would walk by and say hello, or alright. We had to get used to realizing it was meant for us, for no reason other than to be courteous and acknowledge your presence. Then I started to feel bad for southerners who visit the north. Maybe I'm spoiled because I live here, but imagine going on vacation to a place where no one says hello back, it's expensive, people are impatient. A lot of the stores there closed pretty early. There weren't a ton a Starbucks! The more I thought about it, the more I felt like the slower pace of the south could be good for me.

It was warm on our last day, I wore a t-shirt and didn't need a sweater. The last day of vacation is always a weird one. You want to savor the place, but also get in all the relaxing before a long trip home. Since it was a Sunday, my DC brunch spidey senses were tingling. Everyone was out with their dogs, sitting in the sun (while getting drinks they were legally allowed to take with them on their walks home). I was sad it was ending, but happy to finally go home and sleep in my own bed. 

I loved my trip. I'm sad I'm back in cold, stuffy DC. But it's snowing here now, and it looks like I'm going to have a snow day tomorrow. I'm happy with that.

St. Louis Cemetery #1 (Home of Marie Laveau's grave)