Hotel Monteleone
Let me begin by stating that I was fully aware I had to wake up at 4AM on Wednesday, April 30th to get ready to leave at 5AM for my 6:30AM flight to New Orleans leaving from Newark Airport. So why did I decide to start packing and cleaning the apartment at 10:30PM on Tuesday evening? I'm really not sure. I somehow overestimated my packing ability.... never again. I finally hit the sack at about 2AM and woke up at 4AM to start the whole airport madness. Keep in mind that I haven't had more than 4 hours sleep each night since the Thursday before and I proceeded to party with my fellow TBs in NYC over the weekend. So I wasn't my usual cheery self to say the least. Finally boarded the plane, only to find out that my seat recliner was busted.
Lunch and frozen mango margaritas at Tomatillo's.
.. so napping wasn't even an option... AND I forgot my IPOD!!! I turned on my cell phone as soon as I arrived to New Orleans, which was around 8:30AM NOLA time. My friend Geri (Long Island) was leaving from JFK an hour after my flight and we agreed I would wait for her to fly in and we would cab it to our hotel together. Well... it so happened, her flight was delayed almost 3 hours and she was still at JFK. It worked well actually, because I was able to check in early at Hotel Monteleone and sleep for few hours before Geri's arrival.
My NOLA trip began in the early afternoon around 3ish. A fellow Travbuddy, Bruce (cajuntraveler27), suggested that we go to Port-of-Call for eats during my visit.
This was the look and purchase I finally settled on...
So we head in that direction. Trusting Geri's directional skills completely, we somehow made a wrong turn and I made the executive decision to eat at the first restaurant we saw, which was Tomatillo's. Our first meal in New Orleans was Mexican Food... and not very good at that. Although I have to say, they did have 2 for 1 drink specials and their frozen mango margaritas were quite delicious. The waiter was extremely nice and suggested we head over to the French Market, which is basically a flee market a couple of blocks from the restaurant. So off we go to do a little shopping! We managed to piss off a bunch of booth owners by trying on mask after mask after mask, but we did eventually make our purchases and shopped some more during our walk back to the hotel.
Evening approached and my good friend Jen (San Diego) was flying into town along with Lara (San Diego).
Dinner at The Upperline Restaurant (Left: Jen, Kim, Grace - Right: Lara, me, Geri)
We took a cab to meet them for dinner at The Upperline Restaurant, which is about 15 minutes outside of the French Quarter. There I also met two of Jen's other friends for the first time, Grace (San Francisco) and Kim (New Orleans). The Creole-style cuisine was delicious and I even remember what I had as an entree. I had a grilled shrimp dish with crispy grits (which tasted similar to shrimp toast). I wish I would have remembered to take pictures for blogging, but I am new to this whole TB thing. After dinner and wine, we headed back to our hotel since we had a very full day of tours ahead.
