Posts Tagged “new orleans”

We were in New Orleans for less than 24 hours, and the entire time it was freezing cold (which was very, very surreal), but we still totally enjoyed ourselves. As I mentioned before, we stayed right on Bourbon Street — not for everyone, obviously, but we had fun. When we arrived (around 10:30pm), we bundled up in our warmest winter coats and hats and everything and strolled around the French Quarter. It was either totally dead (for the Quarter) or really hopping (compared to everywhere else in the universe), depending on your point of view. We turned in just before our noses froze off and were lulled to sleep by the party noises from the street below.

In the morning, we did the same thing, basically, but we also got food (from Acme Oyster Bar) and visited the New Orleans School of Cooking so I could buy some filé powder. Guess who we saw there?

Yep: John Schneider, best known for his portrayal of Bo on the Dukes of Hazzard (which I didn’t know, actually, but Brian filled me in). He looks more like this now:

He and his family (we assume) had just finished taking a cooking class and were in the shop buying things while we were there. Yee-ha!

And also:

We actually managed to work in two beignet visits in our 15 (or so) hours in NOLA… once when we first arrived (thanks for being open 24 hours a day, Café du Monde) and then again right before we left.

We had to cut our visit a bit short, but we still enjoyed our little taste of New Orleans. And then…

We arrived in Mississippi last night and are now fully entrenched in “family time.” Laissez les bons temps rouler, non?

Happy holidays, everybody!

Hey! I guess I didn’t update the entire time we were in Austin. Sorry! But it was awesome!

First of all, we got more cupcakes:

These are from Hey Cupcake, which is an adorable converted snowball stand. Very nice, Hey Cupcake.

And then we went to the Trail of Lights!

It’s a big event with a very large crowd, especially on the night we went (which was a lovely evening with temps in the 70s — the day before it had been really cold). It’s a walk-through Christmas light display in a large public park.

A couple of my favorites were these local pride pieces — cartoon versions of Austin skyline buildings:

…and future–space bubble Austin (this one was in a display with Space Santa):

I also enjoyed this rainbow/pride reindeer:

We also ventured up to Round Rock to go to Round Rock Donuts:

The donuts get their yellow/orange color because the bakery uses only farm-fresh eggs (apparently most commercial donuts are made with powdered eggs). I have to say, they are very delicious, and the woman who helped us was so nice (like everyone in Austin. Although I guess this was in Round Rock. Anyway.). When she heard we were from out of town and had never been there before, she went back and got us some complimentary freshly made, warm, delicious donuts, even though we had already paid for our order. Thanks, Round Rock Donuts!

Most of our time in Austin was spent walking around and exploring neighborhoods. Very fun and interesting for us, but not so good as fodder for blog entries! So you just have to trust me, I guess. Now we’re in New Orleans in the surprisingly lovely Ramada Inn on Bourbon Street, enjoying some debaucherous street noise.

Speaking of hotels, by the way, we stayed at the Extended Stay America on Guadalupe in Austin and it was great — clean, cheap, plenty of parking, and excellent location. Plus everyone there was really, really nice. (Did I mention everyone in Austin is nice? And well dressed?) We totally recommend it if you need an affordable place to stay downtown!

One more thing… we have been having some serious technical issues… so I will try to keep you guys updated, but unfortunately I can’t have complete confidence in my ability to do that!!