The Big Easy

Reading a friend's blog just reminded me that I planned to update my own blog about my Christmas vacation a few days ago and never got around to it. I'm honestly not in the mood to write long stories right now so I'll condense my recap for you.

After spending a week in New Jersey, freezing and stalking Daniel Radcliffe, we headed off for the second part of our vacation in New Orleans, which is Mr. V's hometown. I have spent the last few years living in Texas and Florida, where I cried endlessly about how December is not supposed to be hot. I thought I would be happy when I experienced a cold winter again, but I have to say that after enduring freezing temperatures in New Jersey for a week, the 80 degree, blue skies, sunny, Louisiana weather was a wonderful change. I blame Washington for making me hate the cold, and causing me to forget what blue skies look like.

My mom has been living in Georgia for the past 4 years, so she and my stepdad took a road trip to New Orleans to join the family for Christmas dinner, and some fun on Bourbon Street.

Day 1:
We drove outside of the city to the real Cajun Country area to see the Christmas Eve bonfires. Mr. V had been talking about these bonfires for a while so I was really curious to see them. Me, being a nerd, loved the story behind the bonfires and I love the fact that I got to experience a completely different culture than my own. Mr. V doesn't completely "get" it when I say that Louisiana is a world of its own. I guess since he grew up there, its normal to him. To me, the Cajun lifestyle is different than any Northern or Southern lifestyle and that's fascinating to me. Not to mention that I smile and get excited every time I hear a real Cajun accent. Louisiana seems to be a combination of the typical American South and Cajun traditions, which you really can't find anywhere else.

The bonfires are lit along the Mississippi River levees on Christmas Eve to guide "Papa Noel's" sleigh down the river. Locals spend weeks prior to this building these ginormous structures that are all lit simultaneously at 7pm on Christmas Eve. It was a really cool thing to see. I was surprised at how many people came out to see the bonfires being lit. I was also surprised to see the number of bonfires. They stretched out for miles and miles along the river, and its really a sight you have to see in person to really appreciate. If you're ever in the New Orleans area on Christmas Eve, this is definitely something that you need to check out.

(One of the structures before being lit on fire)

(View of the structure right after being lit - before it exploded into flames)

(I know its small, but if you look closely you can see the huge crowd of people on the levee watching the fire.)

(A view of one of the bonfires)

(another view of one of the bonfires)

(I wish there was a better way to see this, but if you look closely, you can see the fires stretching down the levee as it curves a little. There's really no way a picture can show what this actually looked like, so just imagine seeing miles and miles of huge bonfires in the distance. It was pretty spectacular :-).)

(one of the structures after burning for a while)

Day 2: Christmas Day was spent at Mr. V's childhood home. It was a bit strange because his family left New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and moved to Austin, Texas. They still go back to their old house often, but after their house flooded, and a lot of their belongings were lost and/or moved to Texas, the house is pretty much empty. Yet, Mother-in-Law was insistent on hosting Christmas dinner. So we ate a precooked, store bought turkey, on card tables, with plastic utensils and paper plates. All in all, it was a little strange to me, but at least the food tasted good!

That night, Mr. V and I skipped out of there and headed off to a hotel for the next few days. Neither one of us can tolerate his parents for a week straight so we made our escape after eating dessert. We checked into the hotel, met up with my mom and John (my stepdad) and ate a late night dinner at a really good restaurant in the French Quarter. We then headed off to Bourbon Street where my mom and John proceeded to out drink us and stay up later than us. I guess something is officially wrong, when Mr. V and I are the ones that headed back to our hotel and passed out asleep at 10:00pm, while my mom and John continued to party on Bourbon Street until who knows when!

Day 3: We woke up and headed down the street to Cafe Du Monde, which is famous for its beignets. I have to admit that after tasting these tasty French donuts once, I was the one craving them, and I was the one who made us all meet there for breakfast.

Then we headed off to Mardi Gras World to go on a fun tour about how Mardi Gras is produced and carried out each year. We had a lot of fun there, but there are too many pictures to post them all here. I'll have them uploaded to my google picture album by the end of this week.

We then took a street car tour of St. Charles street where I drooled over all the beautiful Plantation style houses all decorated for Christmas. I used to tell Mr. V that I didn't want to settle in New Orleans when he retired, but after seeing those houses, I'm having second thoughts (as long as we could live in one of those houses).

Dinner was eaten, and we headed out on a New Orleans Ghost Tour, which was very interesting. I'm a nerd who also loves reading true ghost stories so I was fascinated. The best part of the tour was learning that Nicholas Cage owns the most haunted house in New Orleans. Apparently, he bought it, sight unseen, knew that it was supposed to be haunted and thought that was cool. He only spent one night in the house, and is now trying to sell it. Our tour guide told us that the night he moved in, he saw tour groups looking at his house. He asked the story of the house and when he learned that he bought a house with actual documented torture and murder cases, he packed his bags and never came back. I found that to be an amusing antidote to the tour itself.

Then my mom and John headed off to Bourbon Street once again, while Mr. V and I went back to our hotel room, like two old people once again.

Day 4: Mr. V gave my mom and John a tour of some of the Katrina damage near his house. My mom was interested in seeing it to put a real, live picture in her mind, instead of just what she has seen on TV. On our way there we stopped at one of the old above ground cemetaries in the city and got truly creeped out (at least I did). Broken tombs, and voo-doo markings near the graves were things I had never seen in a graveyard before. Creepy as it was, of course I had to take pictures.

(general decay of the cemetary)

(one of the tombs that was broken open. [and yes, you could actually see bones in a few of the broken tombs])

(Voo-Doo markings scratched into the sidewalk in front of a tomb)

We said goodbye to my mom and John as they headed back to Georgia, then Mr. V and I took a steamboat tour of the Mississippi River, ate some dinner, went on a Vampire Tour, which was almost as fascinating as the Ghost Tour the night before, then we crashed early again, packed our bags, and headed back to Washington the next morning.

All in all, it was a fun trip that ended way too soon. I've been trying to stop thinking about the cold, dreary, cloudy, foggy weather that we have returned to :-(.

A long day of travel...but we're back in the Northwest

Well, we safely made it back to Washington late last night, but not without a few road blocks. Its amazing to me how everything can go right until the very last minute. Maybe a bad ending to the trip was an omen telling me that I shouldn't go back to Washington (which I would love to believe).

We left New Jersey on December 22nd and headed down to New Orleans to spend the week with Mr. V's family. That in itself was an adventure, and details of that trip will be shared in a later posting. I'd love to write about my trip in the order that it happened, but yesterday is still fresh in my mind so I thought I'd start there and work my way backwards.

After 3 days at the in-laws house, Mr. V and I packed our things and headed to a cute historic hotel in the French Quarter. Day 1 at the hotel was wonderful. Day 2 and 3 were the beginning of a really crappy ending to a vacation. On Day 2 I woke up to take a shower at 9:15, only to find out that we had no hot water. Now I understand that its a hotel that is over 100 years old, but I have stayed in historic hotels before and in historic houses. Just because the building is over 100 years old, does not mean that the water heater is the same age. So we called the front desk and we were told "Oh you have no hot water? Its because everyone in the hotel is taking a shower at the same time right now." OK. Fine. It seemed like an excuse but I let it slide. So I took a deep breath and jumped into a freezing shower. It was 80 degrees outside so while the cold shower sucked, it wasn't the most traumatic thing that could have happened to me. When we returned to the hotel that night we wanted to get a good night's sleep so we would be well rested for our travel back to Washington the next day. Imagine our surprise when we couldn't sleep. A loud bar outside the hotel decided that it had to play window rattling music until 4 in the morning. Once again, I understand this is the French Quarter. I understand that the French Quarter can get pretty loud and wild. I also understand that Bourbon Street is typically where all the action takes place and we were several blocks away from Bourbon Street. Not to mention the fact that earlier that night we had walked down Bourbon Street and while it was loud and full of activity, it wasn't even close to the noise we heard coming out of the bar across the street from the hotel. Mr. V grew up in New Orleans so I trust his judgment in places to stay, and he had reassured me that the farther away from Bourbon Street you were, the quieter it would be. Some hotels in the Quarter even specify on their websites that they are in a loud area. Of course, our hotel did NOT specify that one small fact. I stuffed cotton in my ears and attempted to drown out the noise from outside but I was unsuccessful. Apparently, cotton will help tone down the noise you hear, but it won't filter out loud, thumping bass that rattles windows. Part of me feels like I was being too whiny about the noise, but the other part of me wonders how the people in the bar have any hearing left. The music was so loud that Mr. V and I could barely hear each other talk. Our windows really were rattling. We were across the street and the music was coming from inside the bar.

After a cold shower and no sleep until 4 in the morning, I was beginning to have issues with the hotel. We paid a lot of money to stay in the hotel, and that is what I was annoyed about. BUT I chalked it up to bad luck and decided to forget about it. Until the next morning. This time I tried to take a shower at 10:30am (remember that the shower the day before was at 9:15), and of course we still had no hot water. Now I was beyond annoyed. We called the front desk to ask why we had no hot water again and the excuse this time was "Oh there's a Saints game at the Superdome today. Everyone in the hotel must be taking showers right now to get ready for the game." Right. I find it hard to believe that every time I try to take a shower, everyone else in the hotel also decides to take one. I also find it hard to believe that the hotel was filled with people - all going to the Saints game.

A tired Brooklet makes for a cranky Brooklet. Two cold showers in a row makes for an even crankier Brooklet. So after freezing again in an attempt to get clean, we packed up our stuff and marched downstairs to check out. Mr. V put on his angry personality and demanded some type of refund for our problems. The issue that we both had wasn't the cold water, or the noise. We had an issue with the fact that we paid top dollar for this hotel, and we had the experience of a run down roadside inn. If we had paid $50 a night I probably would have shrugged it off and let it go. But for the price we paid, I feel like the guests should have a right to know if their room will be facing the noisy street, or if it will be overlooking the quiet courtyard. We also think that for the price we paid we should be able to take a hot shower. Essentially, hotels are for sleeping and showering before you go out for the day. We weren't able to do either. Of course, the lady at the front desk had no power to do anything regarding our bill, so this afternoon Mr. V will be calling the manager to complain.

After leaving the hotel we met the inlaws for lunch and they drove us to the airport. Step 1 went well. We got to the airport, found out that military doesn't have to pay to check their bags with Continental (we flew 3 different airlines on this trip so each one had different rules), we got through security in record time, and made it to Houston for our layover with no hassles. Once we were in Houston, I remembered why I hated Texas so much.

I blame this next incident on the people of Texas. (OK I know thats not reasonable, but I was mad and still am mad, so it seems appropriate to blame my anger on a place that I hate.) I went into the bathroom to put some powder on my face. I had to dig through my purse to find my compact, which caused me to take things out and place them on the counter while I dug around. Once I had fixed my makeup, I packed up my purse and went to wait for our next flight. About 30 minutes later I realized that when I packed up my purse I didn't put my phone back into it. In fact, I couldn't remember when I last saw my phone. I only remembered that it was one of the things that I took out of my purse when I was digging around. All I can figure is that somehow in the time it took for me to put powder on my face, someone must have come near me and taken my phone. We frantically used Mr. V's phone to call my phone in the hopes that whoever took it would be a kind and honest person, answer the phone and tell us where they were. Nope. The first time we dialed my phone, someone answered it. When Mr. V started talking there was silence on the other end, and then the person hung up. We proceeded to call back at least 10 times in a row, hoping that we'd annoy the person enough to make her answer the phone and give it back to us. Of course no one answered. The fact that someone answered on the first try, and then hung up was all the clarification I needed to know that my phone had been stolen and I would never see it again.

Our plane started boarding at that moment but we were lucky enough to have time to call Verizon and have my phone service suspended. If any fraudulent calls were made, the person only had about 30 minutes to do it in. I'm so thankful that we were able to turn the phone off before our second plane left on a 5 hour flight. Once arriving in Washington, we made several other phone calls. We learned that lots of people had turned cell phones in to the Houston lost and found yesterday, but none of them fit the description of my phone. I thankfully had insurance on the phone that covered theft, so we filed a police report to get that ball rolling. This morning was spent finishing up the insurance claim and I should have a new phone in about 24 hours. Of course I have a $50 deductible which annoys me, but I am trying to stay calm about that because it is much better than paying $300 for a new phone.

The thing that bothers me the most is that I had a lot of pictures on the phone. I had a good camera on it, and now all of those pictures are lost. It sounds ridiculous, but I want to plead with the person who took it to just send me the pictures, keep the phone, and I won't bother her again. I guess I get really sentimental about things, so I hate the fact that I lost pictures that I'll never get back.

I guess I have also been spoiled. A few years ago I lost my camera in Disney World. I thought it was gone forever, but someone turned it in and I had it back the very next day! This past March one of my cats ran away. He was gone for 3 months and I was convinced that I would never see him again. Then a nice man called me. He had found him and he was returned to me. Those two incidents gave me renewed faith in people, but the incident last night just killed that faith. I guess I just don't understand people. I don't understand how someone could take something from me, while I was still there (at least I assume it happened when I was there, otherwise the phone would have gone back into my purse with the other items). I know there is no point in going over it again and again, but I feel pretty stupid for being more focused on my oily face, then on my personal items that were placed down right next to me.

I guess this post is just a long vent. I know I'll never see my phone again and we probably won't get any money back from our hotel stay. It just amazes me that we had a wonderful vacation, until the very last day. I really do think its a bad omen about Washington ;-).