Feliz Mardi Gras

In honor of Fat Tuesday, I wanted to recap my experience this past weekend in New Orleans. My over-eager roommate and I booked our weekend adventure back in September. No, that wasn’t a typo, in September we decided that we were absolutely going to Mardi Gras this year and secured all of the arrangements. After a lot of research, when we finally decided on a hotel, we knew it was nice but we didn’t know just quite how nice it was until we got out of the cab from the airport and started laughing. Let’s just say it wasn’t your typical college Mardi Gras weekend accommodation…(yay for booking early???)

ready to go in our hotel lobby

I’ve heard New Orleans was a unique place, and I’m sure that it was only heightened by the fact that it was Mardi Gras, but believe me when I tell you this is a whole other planet! Even just the stores we passed consisted of some of the strangest combinations I’d ever seen, but somehow they worked! Two of the most common ones were “daiquiri and pizza places” and “praline and hot sauce shops.” Oh, and how could I forget that most restaurants advertised “cocktails to go.” Like I said, another planet with NO LAWS.

The entire French Quarter had such a festive atmosphere and everyone was really friendly…for the most part. The parades were super elaborate, the floats cost thousands of dollars and the people riding them had insane costumes – definitely one of the highlights.

Now, on to the cuisine, because let’s be real would you expect any post of mine not to include food? Saturday morning we had a great brunch at the Royal House replete with pineapple cucumber mojitos and a traditional New Orleans shrimp creole. We also wandered into one of those praline and hot sauce stores where we found out they were sampling upwards of 20 different hot sauces, the hottest ones required you to sign a waiver (seriously, a waiver!). Spoiler alert – I didn’t taste one of those. But I did end up buying a mild one (and a cafe au lait and bananas fosters flavored pralines because who can resist those?). Lastly, we ended our weekend late Saturday night at the iconic Cafe Du Monde for their famous beignets and coffee. They DEFINITELY lived up to their high expectations 🙂

 

It was a short trip that was definitely Mardi Gras focused, so I’d love to go back to New Orleans to do more sightseeing and exploring because I know there’s tons more to see! But for now I satisfied myself with a homemade shrimp creole omelet (look out for that post soon!) 😉

Couldn’t have imagined doing this weekend with any other Krewe!