I’ll admit: this post is very, very, VERY, very late. Very. But I promise I have my reasons.
Okay, one reason:
Pure and utter exhaustion.
Who knows what went through my mind when I was planning my month of March, but I sure didn’t have my health or wellbeing in mind, that’s for sure.
Two Travel Sprints in a row for two consecutive weekends. By the end of the second weekend, I was ready to climb into the permanent cocoon that would be my bed and sleep forever. Oh, maybe down some pre-hibernation Emergen-C packets. Which is pretty much what I did this past weekend. And which is why I’ve put off writing this post. My apologies, loyal fans. (There are like two of you.)
Travel Sprint #1: New Orleans, Louisiana (aka “Nola” aka “N’awlins, y’all”)
I arrived in New Orleans at the buttcrack of dawn (jk more like 1AM, I just wanted to use the word “buttcrack”) on the Thursday night/Friday morning.
Sadly, I had to work (remotely) the entire day Friday, so I took my morning calls, then decided to literally SPRINT during my lunch hour to make my “pilgrimage”. For those of you who I spoke to prior to this trip, I had mentioned a single most important reason for coming to New Orleans. It wasn’t for the music festival–that was purely a nice-to-have. It wasn’t even for the Cajun food–that was most definitely secondary.
… IT WAS FOR THE BEIGNETS. THOSE SCRUMPTIOUS, SCRUMPTIOUS SUGAR-COATED BEIGNETS.
I had watched the Disney movie “The Princess and the Frog”, wherein the main character Tiana makes and serves beignets at her little shop. After laying my eyes on this fried, sugary goodness, I decided I had to make a trip to New Orleans. Or “pilgrimage”, as I decided to call it.
So yes, during my lunch hour on Friday, I BOLTED to the most famous Beignet/Coffee Shop in the city: Cafe du Monde.
Little did I realize, every single tourist in all of New Orleans also had that same idea. I lose. This was the line we all had to bear:
45 minutes later…………
To be 100% honest……… I would say I was a bit disillusioned around how it actually tasted. As you can see, there was a MOUND of powdered sugar on my beignets – I mean, yeah, that’s cool. A tad excessive, but a little extra sugar never killed no one. What I was actually disappointed with was the texture of the beignet itself. It was quite dense, and for those familiar with the Taiwanese/Chinese breakfast dish, it tasted really similar to “you tiao” (Chinese donut). Perhaps it was the taste of the oil (yes, you could taste the oil–another turn-off), perhaps it was the dough itself. I dunno… but I didn’t DIE OF HAPPINESS that day, as expected/planned. Sad times.
I did, however, give beignets a second chance. My compadre Vanessa and I stumbled upon Cafe Beignet (also a very famous spot in the French Quarter) and refused to let our first disappointing impression be our lasting one. AND HOLY MOTHER OF BEJEEZUS THESE BEIGNETS WERE DELIGHTFUL.
Shoutout to the guy posing on the right. CUTE FORK! 😉
After that Cafe Beignet experience, I literally couldn’t stay away, and before I left New Orleans, decided to make another trip. By myself. What some would consider the first symptom of addiction.
At this rate, there was no way my New Orleans diet was doing my digestive system any good… So I found this shirt below particularly suitable for the situation. Little victories, y’know?
I would describe the city of New Orleans as… quirky. In the most adorable ways.
I mean, look at this funky art sculpture on some random street!
And so many awesome street performers/groups!
…. Obligatory Bourbon St. shot. My-oh-my does this street smell. I mean, New Orleans in general has its own “character” when it comes to smells, but THIS STREET IN PARTICULAR… Let’s just say it’s best to keep walking and never look back. In broad daylight, we saw a full-grown man passed out on the side of Bourbon with his wife/girlfriend wiping his forehead with a wet towel. Stay classy, Bourbon St… Stay classy. I was telling people: we can pretty much guarantee that every inch of this entire street has been puked/urinated/defecated on at some point. Pleasant thought, no?
In one of the bars on Bourbon St., there was a “Sex Reactor” machine (of course there would be). The patron would get a rating from one to ten around how “sexually charged” he/she was.
Womp womp.
Also on Bourbon St. is the Preservation Hall, an establishment from the 1960’s seeking to preserve traditional New Orleans jazz. I really wanted to go to a show here this weekend, but never made it out. I did, however, get this little photo (and bought two CDs.)
To mention some other notable places in the French Quarter of the city: Vanessa and I, in our EPIC QUEST to find the best Po’boys in New Orleans…..
….. decided to resort to Yelp. (An “epic quest” indeed.)
We found this place on Yelp called Killer Po’boys and decided to make the trip there. Little did we know, this place is virtually un-find-able! We looked and we looked, and after some digging/research (all hail iPhones), realized this place was actually at the back of a pretty rough-looking bar called Erin Rose Bar. Not going to lie, we were totally intimidated walking in. But once you looked around the bar, you saw so many hilarious/wacky decor items. Plus, their Gulf Shrimp Po’boys were DELICIOUS!
This was the bar when you walked in:
Some pretty agro signage going on in the restrooms…
More interesting restroom signage:
“Killer Po’boys” in da back of da bar!
Gulf Shrimp Po’Boy!
Spotted: A Jager + Fireball dispenser in the back of the shop. (Guys, take note: my birthday is in October.)
On the topic of bars/alcohol, we saw this sign walking around the French Quarter. Yep, I’M SOLD. Yum, ice cold beer.
I also creeper-photographed this beer cup that a group of burly guys were holding: “HUGE ASS BEERS”. Open container policy YAY!
Now onto some N’awlins food. First off, let me offer a disclaimer. So you know how I went to Hawaii not long ago and ate like 5,000 calories a day every single day? Yeah, well, coming back from Hawaii, a few of us decided to go on a “Diet Bet”, wherein we would need to eat healthy every single day for 30 days with only 5 “cheat/unhealthy” portions per week (or risk losing $20). Vanessa and I were participants in said bet and actually saved up most of our “cheats” for New Orleans, thinking they would last through the weekend. Spoiler alert: they did not. Not even close (remember, I ate like 6 servings of beignets by myself). As expected, we lost the “Diet Bet”. But not even slightly begrudgingly, since I know we were both so much happier eating to our tummies’ content thereafter. #fatlifeforever
This was the beer that lost the Diet Bet for me. I’M NOT EVEN MAD.
CHEERS TO DIET BET FAILURE!
Per recommendations from multiple sources, Vanessa and I went to an amazing Cajun restaurant called Jacques-imos. Commence food-photo-montage:
Shrimp & Alligator Sausage Cheesecake (it was savory): This was the culprit that lost Vanessa the Diet Bet. I think I can speak for her: WORTH IT. I mean, c’mon. Do we at least win some “Badassery” points for eating alligator?!
Side salad + fried oyster:
Eggplant Pirogue with Shrimp & Fish – this was definitely the highlight of my meal (the sauce was TO DIE FOR):
Sides of cornbread (complimentary), roasted beets, and creamed corn:
Sides of country greens and shoestring fries (SO FLAVORFUL):
Crawfish etouffee – to be completely honest, this was the loser of the entire meal… but still good to try, since this is known to be a Cajun staple!
WEEE FOOD HIGHHH
One other Cajun highlight from the trip: This dish from the Oceana Restaurant was called “Taste of New Orleans”. It looks like a big mush of “unidentifiable glob”… but it was a DELICIOUS mush of “unidentifiable glob”. Especially the sausage.
One other culinary adventure: Not sure what possessed us, but we ended up at a Vegan restaurant at one point. PLOT TWIST. Yeah, it was weird, but I ended up being strangely okay with it (and so did the carnivorous man we went with. Victory.)
My carrot/coconut milk/nutmeg smoothie:
Tofu scramble, maple seitan, and potato hash:
Call me a failed citizen of the world, but it had completely slipped my mind that I was in New Orleans for Saint Patty’s Day Weekend! So yeah, we ended up at the parade… which was CUH-RAZAY. Leave it to New Orleans to host some ridiculous St. Patty’s Shenanigans.
The “EVERYTHING IS AWESOME…” float
The “YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND IN ME” float
The “WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR” float (btw, I hope you know this, but I’m naming all these floats myself…)
Some interesting costumes… IT’S THE SWAMP MONSTER.
Self-explanatory. The wreckage.
Like I mentioned briefly before, I came to New Orleans (mostly for the beignets…) but also for a Art/Music Festival called Buku. Much like the city itself, this festival was pretty wacky.
This was a large-scale art display of well-known local artists who, over the course of the festival, painted their pieces on large slabs of wood, which would then get auctioned off. This below photo was early on Day 1 of the festival (so you see many pieces unfinished):
Late Day 2: the Finished Products (pretty awesome)
This was a pretty cool installment. Basically a HUGE storage bin, decorated by “fanciful graffiti”:
Some psychedelic body painting going on:
& Art pieces/Clothing items
… AAAAND of course, I was there for music, too….so LIGHTS! (lights lights lights…)
As you can imagine (and have now seen from photos), this weekend was filled with food and a whole lotta boogy-ing down. That said, come Monday morning, I decided (stupidly) to work from the hotel, since my flight was in the evening. This unfortunately resulted in a lot of unneeded stress. Which resulted in stress-eating. Life could’ve been worse, though. I could’ve NOT eaten this delectable pork shoulder sandwich pictured below.
Needless to say, by the time I left the city, I was basically this dog in the below N’awlins sidewalk art:
R.I.P. This dog, the diet bet, and my sanity.
Travel Sprint #2: Los Angeles, California (but not really… more the neighboring cities)
You already know this. I have a Disneyland Annual Pass. The initial plan was to use it every single month… but HA totally not feasible, I’ve found, if the ultimate goal is to stay healthy/maintain sanity.
That said, clearly there was a total lapse in judgement when I was agreeing to this trip, because the weekend after New Orleans, we made a roadtrip down to SoCal for Disneyland and some temple activities. And proceed to have MINIMAL SLEEP the entire weekend.
I’m not going to include any sort of narrative with my recount of this SoCal trip. You know the drill… and you’ve been given fair warnings many times before… Ugly photos incoming.
On the tram ride from the parking lot to the park: I don’t think the guy behind us is all that excited for the most magical place on earth………………..
Our bodies are ready.
Snapchat-filter-on-my-iPhone-5s-FAIL
The moment we stepped foot in California Adventure:
Obligatory Pier group photo. The guy who we asked to take the photo beckoned his friend to “block out the sun”. UH HI, YOUR DAMN ARM IS NOW THE FOCAL POINT OF THIS PICTURE, THANKS BUT NO THANKS.
One of the things I wanted to do for sure at Disneyland this time around was go to the Frozen Sing-a-long show. It was truly a dream come true. I wish y’all could’ve seen my/Vicky’s inspirational (and slightly inebriated) singing performance (FYI – it was all captured on Snapchat. Ask and I shall share.) Here’s a photo of Elsa singing “Let it Go” while Vicky and I REALLY “let it go”………. (think “screaming” instead of “singing”)
We also went to go meet OLAF!!!
Usually when we’d want to do this, the wait would be over an hour, but this time it was only about 20 minutes! WELL WORTH THE WAIT. Especially since we met the most hilarious Disney worker of all time.
So shoutout to this particular worker at Disneyland (we didn’t catch her name, sadly): We were next in line to meet/take a photo with Olaf. This worker comes up to us, all chipper, and goes: “WANT TO MEET MY SPECIAL FRIENDS?!?!?!”
We all look at each other funny… “Uh… sure?”
She puts both hands into her pockets… and pulls them out quickly, showing one tiny fluffball in each hand (thinking pillow-stuffing fluffball).
“MEET WILLIAM!!!! [right hand] AND GLOG!!! [left hand]”
We literally died laughing. “Glog…!? Seriously…? Where does one come up with the name Glog?” It was hysterical how into her fluffballs she was.
So yeah… here’s a photo of William and Glog (slash me trying to eat Glog.)
We then took our coveted picture with little Olaf. Olaf loves warm hugs!!! It’s his favorite thing in the world.
But honestly that wasn’t even the best part. The best part was that afterwards when Vicky checked her phone to see the Olaf pictures, she found this selfie taken in secret by the worker:
Slightly creepy, but mostly hilarious. She definitely made our day.
Haidee (I think in a drunken stupor) got the bright idea to buy a FOURTEEN DOLLAR BAYMAX BALLOON. Yes, fourteen dollars. For a balloon. Of a marshmallow. She asked the worker if she could take a photo holding all the Baymax’s. He said yes, but on one condition: She must tag him on Instagram when she posts it. (She did not post it. I mean, look at his face/expression. *shudder*)
Baymax ended up being the token creeper in the rest of our night’s photos…
Oh, we ended the night with a ridiculously strong fish bowl of flaming mai tai:
The next morning’s first order of business: BOILING POINT (Taiwanese hot pot)!!! Yum, pork blood cake.
Then a trip to Huntington Beach (solely for the Snapchat filters. Jk. Look at Vicky’s teeth):
Who knows why, but I told Vicky to take a levitation photo. It did not work out.
Sometimes we can be cute:
Sometimes we can ALL be cute:
Sometimes Vicky can be half high-fashion/half creeper extraordinaire:
Sometimes I can be a 100% creepo.
Here, too, while we have our delicious Acai bowls from Banzai Bowls:
Here’s a miscellaneous photo of Vicky posing with Spongebob Squarepant’s house:
And me side-eyeing my best frand Mittens. She loves me.
(She does not love me.)
The next morning was a true struggle, since SOME PEOPLE (I’m talking everyone else except for me) were up until GOD KNOWS WHAT TIME playing Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance on the Xbox. SUCH CHILDREN.
We decided to head back to D-land. Here’s us on the tram to the park (see the contrasting faces from Day 1?)
We made a beeline for the Cars ride. So HERPY DERPY!
WILL WE WIN THE CARS RACE IN THIS POO-POO-COLORED CAR?!
YESSSSSS WE WIN WE WIN!!!
We decided to take a victory “spin” in Alice’s teacups. (har har punny)
Andddddd… of course, before we left, we had to snap some photos in front of the Castle:
2… 0… 1… 5??? (please direct your attention to Vicky’s “come hither” face)
After Disneyland, we headed to the L.A. temple for some meditation (not kidding), and then drove alllll the way back home. With Baymax creepin’ in da trunk.
Oh yeah, before we left Disneyland, Vicky and I bought caramel apples for the road. PSA: Caramel apples melt. They also look super appetizing/hairy melted…
And FINALLY, to end this post of my two consecutive Travel Sprints……
Here are some beauties casually enjoying their hairy apples:
ADIOS, AMIGOS!
With love,
Mendi
the wanderlust is real. 