I loved New Orleans so much the first time around, so for Halloween, one of my favorite holidays, I thought it would be a good idea to celebrate there.
It had been hard to find accommodation, since Voodoo fest is the same weekend (three day concert), so we booked a room for two people, with the intention of cramming three people in. It was called the French Market Inn, which I would highly recommend. At the desk, the woman saw us and said, "the room is only supposed to be for two people. But fuck it, it's Halloween. Just don't tell anyone else."
When asked, the locals would say, "Halloween is really crazy here," but they would say it in a way that sounded bad. Halloween is a crazy holiday, so I would think that crazy is good. Could it really be bad crazy?
It had been hard to find accommodation, since Voodoo fest is the same weekend (three day concert), so we booked a room for two people, with the intention of cramming three people in. It was called the French Market Inn, which I would highly recommend. At the desk, the woman saw us and said, "the room is only supposed to be for two people. But fuck it, it's Halloween. Just don't tell anyone else."
When asked, the locals would say, "Halloween is really crazy here," but they would say it in a way that sounded bad. Halloween is a crazy holiday, so I would think that crazy is good. Could it really be bad crazy?
We were told to avoid Bourbon street altogether, and just go to Frenchman's. My friend didn't have a costume, so we used some creativity and found a tutu for her and she went as the black swan. There were a lot of really creative costumes, but I did understand now what they meant by bad crazy. Some people were so drunk that they were throwing up on the street, but that was closer to Bourbon. As we got to Frenchman's, the people were more functional. It was crowded, but there were a lot of good music venues open. One of our friends works at the Balcony Music Club, and another one of our acquaintances plays there, so we went there. At some point a blues band played.
Most of our time, as usual, was spent eating. However, we were dismayed to find that there was no boiled crawfish since it wasn't crawfish season. So, a very important note for anyone going to New Orleans--go from JANUARY TO JUNE, because the crawfish are worth it.
We planned a trip to Lafayette Cemetery, to see the above ground tombs, and took the street car to get there. The street car is almost entirely wooden in the interior. When we arrived at the cemetery, we decided to stop for lunch at a very nice restaurant. By the time we had finished eating, we found that the cemetery had closed. So another lesson--the Lafayette Cemetery closes at 2:30 pm!
This trip may be more about interesting characters, since we mostly ate and listened to music during our time there.
One woman made art out of chicken feet--I suppose she preserved them and dried them, and painted the nails. They looked like little human hands, so I wasn't a fan. She hung them up with string, making mobiles out of them.
On the day after Halloween, I talked to woman with little leaves taped all over her body while waiting in line for the bathroom. "I'm the only one dressed up," she complained. "My friends told me that everyone would dress up today because it's Saturday, but they were wrong."
"No," I said, trying to make her feel better, and thought of two other people in the room who had costumes on. "I saw some people dressed up in the room too. A panda and Thor."
"Yeah...those are my friends who told me to dress up," she answered.
At one point in my life, I had tried to be pescetarian, and was talking to someone about it. I said, "I actually felt really good when I cut out red meat. I felt better and healthier."
"Yes," she said. "I did too. But I still really missed meat. Meat is like that ex boyfriend that used to beat you. You know it's bad, but sometimes you just want to go back."
We asked a waiter for recommendations on where to go in New Orleans on a Monday. Somewhere that might be a bit more crazy. I guess he assumed that "crazy" meant "weird," so he recommended that we go to Dragon's Den, which our friend later told us is nicknamed "drug den." Anyhow, it was not a bad place, since it's one of the few places that don't allow smoking inside, but we ran into an old man, an electrician, who told us that his "special power" was telling different types of Asians apart. "Let me turn on the light and look at your faces," he said. "I can tell you where your people are from." He got 1 out of 3 correct.
One person told us about his home. "I used to live in the 7th Ward," he said. "That's the ghetto. For those of you who don't know New Orleans, if a place isn't important enough to get a name--like, it just gets a number, like the 7th Ward, then it's the slum of slums." We never went to the 7th Ward, so couldn't really verify, but when he said that the bartender said, "Yeah, I used to live there too! The homeless people would protect me while I walked my dog."
We visited our friend at the bar, and his coworker started our tab. When it came time to pay, he went to look through the tab, and looked up and asked his coworker, "Did you put them under 'JAPAN'??" I was surprised she didn't just write, "X's friends," or "girls from New York," or just ask one of us for our name, but I suppose people are less politically correct in some areas.
One of our friends had a guy that she met the previous trip, and kept in touch with, and we had been hoping that he would be able to get off work to go hang out with her. Unfortunately, Halloween weekend was so busy that his boss wouldn't let him leave. So my other friend and I went to talk to the boss, on her behalf. "How about we take his shift, so then he can leave early?"
"No."
"But you'd get two people for the price of one."
"That's very nice," he said, "but no."
The guy (not the boss) is an aspiring wrestler, but currently works as a bouncer and doorman. As people walk by he says, "no cover no charge." So my friend and I set out to prove to his boss that we would be good at this too.
"NO COVER NO CHARGE!" We yelled to people walking by. I think we had a success rate of about 15%. So I decided that we should change our slogan to, "No cover! Free music! Cheap drinks!" Which didn't work that much better.
This time around, I got to talk more to different artists. One of them used musical notes to create paintings. Thus, in all of his paintings, he makes silhouettes of people used musical notes from a song. Some paintings are more chaotic, and the notes are just noise, but others have a musical score in the painting.
Another one would catch fish, and paint the fish, and use the fish (or other sea animal) as a stamp and transfer the paint onto a piece of paper. The result actually looked really cool. For some, he used a resin that left the pieces shiny like tiles.
I also went on a mission to try gumbo at every place that I went to. The best is still at the French Market. French Market also has the best bloody mary that I've had in my life.
I think it would be fun to go back for Mardi Gras.
Most of our time, as usual, was spent eating. However, we were dismayed to find that there was no boiled crawfish since it wasn't crawfish season. So, a very important note for anyone going to New Orleans--go from JANUARY TO JUNE, because the crawfish are worth it.
We planned a trip to Lafayette Cemetery, to see the above ground tombs, and took the street car to get there. The street car is almost entirely wooden in the interior. When we arrived at the cemetery, we decided to stop for lunch at a very nice restaurant. By the time we had finished eating, we found that the cemetery had closed. So another lesson--the Lafayette Cemetery closes at 2:30 pm!
This trip may be more about interesting characters, since we mostly ate and listened to music during our time there.
One woman made art out of chicken feet--I suppose she preserved them and dried them, and painted the nails. They looked like little human hands, so I wasn't a fan. She hung them up with string, making mobiles out of them.
On the day after Halloween, I talked to woman with little leaves taped all over her body while waiting in line for the bathroom. "I'm the only one dressed up," she complained. "My friends told me that everyone would dress up today because it's Saturday, but they were wrong."
"No," I said, trying to make her feel better, and thought of two other people in the room who had costumes on. "I saw some people dressed up in the room too. A panda and Thor."
"Yeah...those are my friends who told me to dress up," she answered.
At one point in my life, I had tried to be pescetarian, and was talking to someone about it. I said, "I actually felt really good when I cut out red meat. I felt better and healthier."
"Yes," she said. "I did too. But I still really missed meat. Meat is like that ex boyfriend that used to beat you. You know it's bad, but sometimes you just want to go back."
We asked a waiter for recommendations on where to go in New Orleans on a Monday. Somewhere that might be a bit more crazy. I guess he assumed that "crazy" meant "weird," so he recommended that we go to Dragon's Den, which our friend later told us is nicknamed "drug den." Anyhow, it was not a bad place, since it's one of the few places that don't allow smoking inside, but we ran into an old man, an electrician, who told us that his "special power" was telling different types of Asians apart. "Let me turn on the light and look at your faces," he said. "I can tell you where your people are from." He got 1 out of 3 correct.
One person told us about his home. "I used to live in the 7th Ward," he said. "That's the ghetto. For those of you who don't know New Orleans, if a place isn't important enough to get a name--like, it just gets a number, like the 7th Ward, then it's the slum of slums." We never went to the 7th Ward, so couldn't really verify, but when he said that the bartender said, "Yeah, I used to live there too! The homeless people would protect me while I walked my dog."
We visited our friend at the bar, and his coworker started our tab. When it came time to pay, he went to look through the tab, and looked up and asked his coworker, "Did you put them under 'JAPAN'??" I was surprised she didn't just write, "X's friends," or "girls from New York," or just ask one of us for our name, but I suppose people are less politically correct in some areas.
One of our friends had a guy that she met the previous trip, and kept in touch with, and we had been hoping that he would be able to get off work to go hang out with her. Unfortunately, Halloween weekend was so busy that his boss wouldn't let him leave. So my other friend and I went to talk to the boss, on her behalf. "How about we take his shift, so then he can leave early?"
"No."
"But you'd get two people for the price of one."
"That's very nice," he said, "but no."
The guy (not the boss) is an aspiring wrestler, but currently works as a bouncer and doorman. As people walk by he says, "no cover no charge." So my friend and I set out to prove to his boss that we would be good at this too.
"NO COVER NO CHARGE!" We yelled to people walking by. I think we had a success rate of about 15%. So I decided that we should change our slogan to, "No cover! Free music! Cheap drinks!" Which didn't work that much better.
This time around, I got to talk more to different artists. One of them used musical notes to create paintings. Thus, in all of his paintings, he makes silhouettes of people used musical notes from a song. Some paintings are more chaotic, and the notes are just noise, but others have a musical score in the painting.
Another one would catch fish, and paint the fish, and use the fish (or other sea animal) as a stamp and transfer the paint onto a piece of paper. The result actually looked really cool. For some, he used a resin that left the pieces shiny like tiles.
I also went on a mission to try gumbo at every place that I went to. The best is still at the French Market. French Market also has the best bloody mary that I've had in my life.
I think it would be fun to go back for Mardi Gras.
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