I took a little dip down south to New Orleans for the weekend to celebrate my boss’ husband’s birthday! The trip got off to a little bit of a bumpy start {maybe that’s an understatement}. My co-worker and I got diverted to Jackson, Mississippi for weather and ended the night getting into a cab that looked like this..

**Excuse my blurry, “quick, get a picture!” shots ;-) Totally necessary

So yeah, that happened!!! Eventually after a few hours of sleep {3 hours to be exact} we did indeed make it to good old NOLA! My boss had the whole weekend planned to a T and luckily we were able to quickly drop our bags off, hop in another cab {this one minus the 4 ft antenna} and meet the rest of the group for their tour around the city!

I was really looking forward to the tour to learn a little bit more about the city. I’d heard a lot of different things about it, but other than watching The Originals each week, I didn’t exactly know what to expect. We hopped onto the part of the tour in City Park, which was a really big park with lots of different things to do. Outdoor fields, children’s museums, cafes, it really seemed to have a little bit of something for everyone. We got to see one of the black swans too, which they say there are only two in the city.

From the park we headed towards some of the graveyards. If there was one part of the city I had a little idea about, it was this one. Only because of my dorky vampire show I watch.. lol. Something about old graveyards interests me. Though creepy, it is interesting to see the differences in area as well as changes over time in laying our dead to rest. In New Orleans case, the graves are all built above ground. They say that many years ago, whenever the city would flood coffins from the ground would rise and float, so they decided to build above ground.

Something interesting, other than the appearance is that those who have passed don’t have typical messages on their headstones, but rather just their names and dates they came in and out of the world. While it isn’t uncommon for families to be buried together, it felt like much more of a family place of rest in New Orleans.

After the graveyard we continued on our tour onto the parade route, St. Charles Street. We were riding in a van so I wasn’t really able to snap any photos of the homes, but boy were they gorgeous! Historic mansion after mansion after MANSION! Each house you passed by being more beautiful than the last. If I ever make it down to NOLA again, you can bet I will be walking this street again and day-dreaming!

We concluded our tour in downtown and then headed for a delicious bite to eat before having a little down time to explore. Our restaurant was only a little over a mile from our hotel so a couple of us decided to adventure a little throughout the streets.

New Orleans is interesting.. It has an old-world charm but kind of a Vegas party-24-hours kind of vibe. I wasn’t there long enough to really wrap my head around it, but I will say it’s definitely unlike anywhere I’ve visited before.

Saturday evening was spent helping set up for the main event, the birthday party! The weather was playing games with us all the way into setup, but luckily the rain held off through the night and the party decor turned out beautifully.

I’ve worked for my boss and alongside her husband for nearly 5 years, so it was a really cool experience to be in New Orleans, where he’s originally from.

After the birthday party came to a close, my coworkers and I decided we could stay up a little bit later {still going off that 3 hours of sleep} and go and see what the fuss was about on Bourbon Street.

At first glance as we walked up it looked like a huge block party. “This is awesomeeeee!” I recall saying. We walked in, went to one of the first bars we saw and ordered a drink. $10 for a 32 oz hurricane? We definitely weren’t in NYC anymore! I opted for a beer from one of their local breweries, Abita, but wait for it.. here’s the cool part. When you head out they have to-go cups! Yep, one of the cool things about the city is you can walk around anywhere and drink in public. It seems like such a funny thing to be excited about, but something about it feels a little freeing. We continued to walk down the street and things started to get a little interesting. Let’s just say we realized real fast that this was not exactly the classiest part of the city. Nonetheless, we had a lot of fun people-watching and bar-hopping before we decided it was time to call it a night.

The next morning we wrapped up the trip at a gorgeous restaurant for brunch. Another thing that New Orleans is know for is being haunted and legend have it, our brunch spot was just that. We didn’t see any ghosts while we were eating, but they leave a place seating out for the ghost of the restaurant and have a slightly creepy seance room on the upper level. True or not, the food was fantastic and I had my first taste of crawfish, in the form of crawfish cakes!

After brunch we poked around the city a little more before having to head back to the airport.

It was a whirlwind of a trip, but a nice visit in the end and I’m thankful I was able to join!