Weekend in New Orleans

This past weekend, I jetted down to New Orleans with some of my best lady friends to fete our friend Katy, who is getting married this coming August.  We had a wonderful weekend of eating, drinking, and making general merry, and I flatter myself and my friends by saying we were the classiest group of bachelorettes in the city.  We stayed in the French Quarter at a very old hotel called the Place D'Armes.  Out of the 4 rooms our group occupied, 2 (including mine) did not have windows!  But the gorgeous courtyard at the hotel just about made up for that.  Note: if I ever design a hotel, or redesign an old one, every room will have windows.

            Of course, much of our free time was spent sipping cold drinks (you know what I mean) on Bourbon Street.  We even managed to get into a club which let us out onto their balcony so that we could throw beads at pleading passers-by.  We had some fantastic meals, including a dinner at Red Fish Grill, where Katy's fiance surprised us all by pre-ordering 6 chocolate bread puddings for us all to share.  I highly recommend trying one someday.  We also had a lovely brunch at Sylvain.  They made us fresh bloody mary's (tomatoes squeezed on the premises) and I thoroughly enjoyed my breakfast of pork shoulder with cheese grits and roasted tomato hollandaise.

            On Sunday afternoon, we all went our separate ways.  Most girls headed back to Chicago, but my friend Ruthie and I stayed one more night to take advantage of a cheap Monday morning airfare.  Ruthie managed to squeeze in an interview for an article she is writing for her magazine, and while she did that I spent an hour walking around the neighborhood which I have since found out is called Uptown.

            My camera and I ogled all of the gorgeous houses along St. Charles Street, which is the main Mardi Gras parade route.  Because of that, the electrical wires and trees along that street are covered with Mardi Gras beads.  Some might say it's tacky, but for the few hours I was around, I thought it looked magical.  Like it could be Christmas every day.

            Some buildings I thought were beautiful and interesting were the Milton Latter Library (if my library looked like this I would be there all the time)

and St. Elizabeth's Asylum.  Not that I've got many to compare it to, but this is definitely the nicest asylum I've ever seen.