New Orleans

Since Will is a super-foreigner of the Frenchiest kind, his dream was to take a trip to the Big Easy, where it is famously influenced by the French. Literally he could not have picked a more expensive place to fly, tickets were outrageous! Anyway, I'd never been and was also dreaming of shrimp po'boys, so we went in May. This trip was truly a dream, from the boutique hotel to the gators in the swamps!

Our hotel was truly divine!  We stayed at the Bienville House in the French Quarter which I would recommend to anyone. Our travel agent got us a great price too!

Oh yea! I arranged for a limo to pick Will and I up to take us to the airport. Will had mentioned he'd never been in a limo, so I though I would surprise him... and I certainly did. Brag moment.

We were ultra tourist on this trip. We took a swamp tour were we met many alligators. This little guy I'm holding is named Elliot. What a sweetie. Will couldn't get a good hold of him and Elliot keep squirming out of his hands. The swamps and bayous of Louisiana were just gorgeous! It looked like some thing out of a movie, or perhaps the Amazon. We certainly saw more that just gators, we saw snakes, huge spiders and many types of water fowl. All beautiful in their own way. 

We also toured amazing old sugar plantations that just screamed Gone With the Wind. The one pictured is the Oak Alley Plantation which is what I think of as a traditional plantation complete with big white columns, we also visited the Laura Plantation which was a traditional Creole plantation, where the family was American with French and Spanish roots. In contrast the Laura Plantation was brightly painted yellow, blue, and red and looked almost Caribbean. 

Since we stayed in the heart of the French Quarter, of course we visited the famous Cafe Du Monde and sampled their finest beignets! Fried food really was the overall theme of this trip to N'awlins. We had fried alligator, fried po'boys, fried crawfish, and then even these fried beignets for breakfast! I felt glad to be out of Louisiana for that reason alone. 

And of course, New Orleans being the most haunted city in America, we went on a haunted tour, went to the voodoo museum and visited Marie Laveau's grave and left an offering.