Just got back from New Orleans where we went for the New Orleans Burlesque Festival. I love that city so much. The food was divine, the liquor flowed freely and the entertainment was fabulous! Wed spent our days between Harrah’s and the Hilton. Both were nice but I preferred Harrah’s. Their bathrooms were pretty epic and the hotel itself was beautiful.
Thursday night was the VIP pre party. Matt and I went and met quite a few fun people.
Later that night Matt and I hit one of the bars at Harrah’s. I thought the bartender had the hots for me because he kept giving me free drinks all night but then I found out it was ladies night. Haha! The actual bar was made out of ice, nice for keeping your drinks frosty cold.
Not one of my finest moments. Heh.
That pretty much summed up my night. I went back to the hotel and Matt and Chris went out and foraged the wilds of the French Quarter for food. They ended up at Yo Mamma’s for burgers. At this point Matt was what will always be called “Double Rainbow” drunk. He was quite content with life.
The next day we headed back down to the French Quarter for lunch. We ended up at Stanley’s which was awesome! I had an eggs benedict poor boy. Yum, yum, yum.
I have no idea why, but we some some of the coolest vintage bicycles in New Orleans. Here are just two:
Friday night we went out to dinner with Bob and Shanna who were nice enough to hook us up with a hotel room for our entire stay! We ate at Besh in Harrah’s and the martini’s were flowing!
Late Friday night was the Risque Soiree at the House Of Blues. What a fun night! The show ran really well and I got to see a ton of new performers.
Saturday morning brought beignets and coffee from Cafe Du Monde:
Saturday night brought Ready, Set Strip! at The Parrish in the House Of Blues. It was a fabulous show and we got a chance to get some snap shots back stage.
After the show on Saturday we went and walked down Bourbon Street. The only way I could think to describe it was a line from one of my favorite movies, “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautions.” And to make things even more fun I was still dressed as Hottie.
Sunday the Mr. and I got out and did some touristy stuff. First we went to the Aquarium of the Americas. It was actually a lot of fun! And air conditioned! Then we got to ride down the Mississippi on a riverboat. It was pretty cool and we got to see some things you only get to see from the water.
Later that day we rode a riverboat up and down the Mississippi River! It was actually really cool and I’m super glad we did it. It was an authentic steamboat with the huge paddle and everything. The paddle was easily 25 feet in diameter. The whistle was super cool and they even had a lady playing a calliope!
Later that night we went catting around. We ended up at the Carousel Bar where we had the worst waiter in the history of drink serving. Next was Daisy Duke’s where we had crawdads, fried green tomatoes, jalapeno poppers and gumbo. Dang that was the perfect finish to a booze filled night. I love New Orleans….strolling around the French Quarter with a frosty cold hurricane in my hand and my honey by my side.
The next day the Mr. and I walked around the French Quarter some more, ate more delicious food and sweat. A lot. It was 90 degrees every day and killer humidity. Monday night we went on our Haunted History tour. It was so much fun! I admit that I’d already had a margarita and a hurricane so I don’t remember the names of all the places that we visited.
The first was a house where a mistress had died of exposure on the roof. Supposedly on very cold stormy nights you can see her naked form, exposed by the chimney.
The Andrew Jackson Hotel was our next stop. There was a family tragedy there and the building was turned into a boys school. All kinds of mischievous things happen there like people’s cameras taking pics from the ceiling while they are sleeping at night.
The next stop on the tour was Lafitte’s Blacksmith Bar. Jean Lafitte was a pretty successful pirate who helped Andrew Jackson defeat the English army at the Battle Of New Orleans. Being a pirate, he had all the ammo and brought together people of all cultures to defeat the British. No one really knows for sure if this was his house, but it has been a bar or tavern for quite a while so many nefarious things have happened there.
Something happened right as I was taking this photo. I’m going to preface this with Very clearly to my right I heard a woman ask me to open the door. There was a woman that was also taking the tour standing to my right so I asked her to repeat what she’d said and she looked at me completely blank and stated she hadn’t said anything. I whipped around to Matt who was on my left told him what I’d heard. He said he didn’t hear anything and that the other lady definitely hadn’t said anything. I have no idea what it was but I definitely heard a ladies voice clearly asking me to open the door. No clue but it was a new experience for me.
We next went to an old house known as the LaLaurie House. The rich woman was suspected of torturing her slaves in unspeakable ways. The rich lady had an odd habit of leaving during the middle of her parties and she would always return wearing a new dress. A slave jumped to her death during a party and they found a torture chamber hidden in the house. She changed her dress because she would go torture slaves in the middle of her own party and would have stained her dress with blood and gore.
We grabbed something to eat and then ended up back at Lafittes for (more) hurricane’s. I didn’t hear any more whispering but by this time a lot people were there and the game had started.
Our last night in NOLA led us to Saint Louis Cathedral at the end of the evening.
We had lunch at Cafe Adelaide before we left on Tuesday. We all wore orange and I have no idea why.
Came home to a great little tidbit about the show and Hottie was mentioned…..go Seattle burlesque!
Hottie McNaughty 