NOLA Diaries: Part 1

The man on a tricycle

best andouille sausage also!

I can't believe I have been away for so long. I know my excuses are getting old and my ever declining page views show that you have deserted me. A few weeks ago, I went to New Orleans for spring break and it was a quite enjoyable and memorable. It might be puzzling why we went to NOLA instead of South Beach or Cancun; first of all I did not want to see the same people I want a break from and secondly cash-flow! We decided to drive, that is, four of us decided to drive cross country with only three of us knowing how to drive and out of the three, only two us quite confident in our driving, well it was quite an adventure.

We left Dekalb around 9:30 am in a Toyota Yaris, quite a small car, but we were so giggly and excited. It was a 13 hour drive but we had a few gas and bathroom stops so it became a 15 hour drive. We went through 4 states: Arkansas, Tennessee (Memphis), Mississippi and Missouri. We got to our hotel at 12:30 am and we went straight to bed. Now we are wanted the best experience on a very thrifty budget so the first thing we checked were free things to do in NOLA. 

First of all, always check the weather when you travel, we left cold and freezing Illinois and jumped straight into rainy New Orleans. The first day we debated going to Florida but when we thought about the drive and hotel cancellation we decided to sit our behinds down and make the best of the trip. Free breakfast was part of our package in the hotel so we had to wake up around 7:30 am to have breakfast after which we went back to bed and then proceeded to Walmart to stock up on basic stuff like bread, peanut butter, water and may I say they have such a wide range of make up for colored girls in their stores! In Illinois, you never see Black Opal in drug stores but in New Orleans even cover girl's products were predominately for colored girls which was refreshing. I digress, so we decided to take the car and just drive around, so armed with our list from trip advisor we set out to downtown NOLA. When we got there, we drove around and saw different parking garages but then we are cheap and none of our parents own oil rigs in Nigeria, we saw one for $5 which was quite far but it offered a free shuttle service to where we could take a trolley. So after we got on the shuttle and the very charismatic driver started talking and making us laugh, (remember we are single and on spring break) so we welcomed the innocent flirtation and maybe we got a little carried away with it. Truth be told the guy was so nice and telling us what to do that we forgot to ask when the shuttle stopped running and even the name of the parking garage (my friend even forgot her purse). Well we took the trolley to Frenchman street and it was amazing, with the picturesque wall paintings (we took over 30 minutes taking pictures at a single spot) and then we got hungry. We ate at a hot dog spot (try the andouille sausage, its a masterpiece) and the guys are so nice there. After we got to the spot where the shuttle dropped us, that's when it dawned on us we had no idea how to get to our car. I think we did not realize how lost we were until we had walked around for like 30 minutes and asked if anyone knew a parking garage that offered a free shuttle, it was nothing short of embarrassing. My friend remembered the company who ran the garage but apparently they ran multiple garages and I remembered the garage was behind the highway which did not help either. After 3 hours of walking around, a few freaking out moments and an helpful bus driver we got to the garage. It was like homecoming, we ran to the gate with so much gusto only for us to realize the gate was locked. We did not know whether to cry or laugh, I think we did a little of both but at least we knew where the car was. We took a cab back to the hotel and had to wake up early the next day to get the car which was, thankfully, still there. The one good thing that came out of our ordeal was we knew our place around and we were like pros navigating the streets of New Orleans.
Another reason we went to NOLA was of course for the food, mind blowing! It's like the people are so happy and carefree it reflects in how they live their lives.
Food you must eat
1) Jambalaya/ Crawfish
2) Pralines, the best and affordable is from Leah's Pralines
3) Po-boys from Johnny's place, cheap but they only accept cash though
4) BEIGNETS of course from Cafe Du Monde, if there's one thing you do to prove you went to NOLA, this is it!
5) Have a hot dog, preferable andouille sausage
6) Have an alligator
7) This is strictly for above 21, have a hurricane and hand grenade. They are relative sweet so you tend to take a lot, then get drunk.

Our cute and faithful car

NOLA trolleys, its kinda cool

Bourbon is good, but Frenchman Street is the hidden treasure

The Hotel 

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