Solo USA XIV New Orleans Jazz, Haunted History, Voodoo, Cafe Beignet, Po Boy's & starting a new Contiki

My pimple and I feelin fresh after getting my hair done in SF and ready to start the next chapter of my USA trip. I landed in New Orleans at 6am. New Orleans is a sleepy city, literally! I had to wait so long for any shops to open. I left my luggage at the hotel and spent my morning wandering around the beautiful town trying to get my bearings.

Vintage Chanel and YSL, yes please! Once this store opened I checked out the prices and lets just say one necklace was worth more than a two-storey house in Bondi.

I love that being "Haunted" is a selling point here.

Hot sauce and dehydrated alligator, sounds about right for a Louisiana gift shop.

If these weren't the weight of rocks I would have loved to get one for mum as a souvenir.

This was my first foodie stop in New Orleans, Cafe Beignet. Beignets are these delicious, fluffy french doughnut balls that are covered in powdered sugar and served with coffee. They are synonymous with two competing cafe's in New Orleans Cafe Beignet and Cafe Du Monde. I won't disclose my personal favourite as I truly feel you need to decide for yourself which is better. I must say the decor in Cafe Beignet made me very reminiscent of Paris.

I am not 100% certain on which unique shop this was but I know I visited the top three. I did buy some cowrie shells in Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo for luck on my travels. I really enjoy researching the most quirky, unique and interesting shops, types of food and everything in between for each place I visit. The three stores that you really should experience in New Orleans are:

1. Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo. You can buy everything under the sun for your witchcraft and voodoo needs. You may just not be able to bring everything home with you, especially if you live in Australia. 

2. Boutique Du Vampyre. I mean it's all in the name is it not? It's a little boutique full of everything vampire related under the sun, well not under the sun because vampires can't do daylight..

3. New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum. This one is very small but actually pretty well put together and interesting. There are lots of places to practice a bit of voodoo magic by making wishes and offerings to various shrines throughout and you can learn about different spells and the meaning of certain charms.

Question: is this flag Nazi related. Unsure. Also unsure which store I took this photo in. Apologies it was 2 years ago now..

I completely stumbled into this sunny little courtyard while I was walking the backstreets taking photos. This is actually a really well known and highly rated Restaurant called the Court of Two Sisters and I had made it in perfect time to experience their Jazz Brunch. This is off their website and my mouth is watering remembering how good this meal was.

Jazz Brunch is a sumptuous selection of hot and cold dishes available every day at The Court of Two Sisters in our French Quarter courtyard! Since we use only the freshest ingredients, the buffet's selections change according to season and time of day. Eggs any style, made to order omelets, Eggs Benedict and turtle soup are served all day.  In the morning, a typical selection of hot dishes includes sausage, ham, bacon, hash browns and grits & grillades.  The afternoon’s sampling includes Creole jambalaya, Duck a L’Orange, Shrimp Etouffee, BBQ pork ribs, Chicken & Andouille Gumbo, catfish roulade and an assortment of vegetables and side dishes.

The cold buffet is a creative sampling of boiled shrimp (and crawfish when available) with your choice of traditional cocktail or Creole remoulade sauces, seafood and pasta salads, ceviche, pâtés, cheeses and a variety of fresh fruit. Also included are delicious desserts: pecan pie, homemade French vanilla ice cream, king cake, Bananas Foster and our famous Courtyard Bread Pudding with whiskey sauce. 

I was able to try so many uniquely Louisiana cuisines in the most beautiful setting. The servers that looked after me were the best waiters I have ever been served by. I still remember how well they treated me, I felt like a queen. They made me feel so welcome and at home. I spent so long here just enjoying the serenity, plus these waiters were super cute too so the view was not bhed. 

After I had properly lined the inside of my stomach it was Hurricane O'Clock. One of the highlights of NOLA is being able to drink in the street and take your bev from one place to another. It's kind of like Vegas but with Jazz and just in general way nicer to walk around. 

To be honest, the Hurricane is disgusting! But I think this is mainly because the majority of drinks you get in USA are just straight alcohol with the smallest drop of flavouring. Seriously Americans are wildin with the strength of their drinks. So I still to this day cannot tell you whether a Hurricane is good or not but the description sounds good, not that I tasted any passionfruit.

One part Light rum, Lemon juice, Half part Over proofed rum, Passion fruit syrup, One part Dark rum

That night I went on an amazing ghost tour run by Haunted History Tours. There is an aggressively competitive market out there for Haunted Walking Tours so if you are trying to choose a company, I would definitely recommend this one. The speaker we had was extremely knowledgable, a really engaging storyteller to the point where I wish he would record books on Audible, and he really got everyone involved and excited. We stopped for drinks at a few different places including Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar, which has been operating since the 1770's!

After the walking tour I took myself on my own little wander around Bourbon Street and experienced my first authentic New Orleans Jazz at Fritzel's European Jazz Pub. Everyone is seated facing towards the music. This was such a perfect way to end my first night in New Orleans. They even played Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World.

The next morning we had a briefing from our Contiki Guide. I was joining onto a Contiki at their halfway point across America. They already had a group activity planned for the day, which was seeing Alligators on a boat. I wasn't that interested and needed to be careful with my spending as I still had another few weeks ahead of me. I planned to meet up with everyone later and spent the day falling more and more in love with New Orleans.

For lunch I tried my first Alligator and Po Boy combined at the 'Shops of the Colonnade French Market', located next to Cafe du Monde. If you have read this blog for a while you will know I am not adverse to trying unique foods while travelling. This was honestly the most tame exotic meat I have eaten. It was spiced and cooked to perfection but in terms of meat it really isn't that shocking. It's white meat and tastes similar to chicken breast. It's also lean and has a high protein content! 

These were the only markets I had a chance to check out while I was in NOLA but they were really great even if not all the stores were open. 

There are some truly incredible artists in NOLA. I had to stop at this wall. My dogs are a sausage dog and a golden retriever and it was pretty cute to see them together in art form. Unfortunately the art here isn't cheap.

The costume jewellery stores make me want to come back to NOLA for Mardi Gras so bad. Imagine wearing these gorgeous pieces, looking a million dollars, having beads thrown on you and drinking all the disgusting hurricanes you can stomach.

NOLA is full of all these things you don't expect. I almost don't want to spoil it all for you. But I must say I do regret not picking up one of these hanging hunks. Expect to see a few of these, and Christmas stores...

This was to be my new travel family for the next few weeks. This was our official first night together. We all got matching shirts and went on a huge bar crawl throughout NOLA. One of my absolute favourite memories was coming across a Big Brass Band in the street and the whole Contiki crew dancing together in the street with drinks in our hands and the biggest smiles on our faces. I didn't know everyone's names yet, but I already knew this Contiki was going to be a lot wilder and I was so excited. By the time we all made it to Bourbon Street everyone lost each other in the commotion and collective drunkeness. Another one of my favourite and weirdest memories was when I somehow managed to get lost, sit next to a couple of gypsies on Bourbon Street because they had a cute dog in a tiara, they taught me a lot about Palm Reading and their history and they also read my palms and told me my past and future. It was a pretty amazing experience. I seriously cannot wait to come back to NOLA one day for Mardi Gras, this place has so much charm and quirkiness, it's infectious and intoxicating. 

erica

Solo USA XIII Contiki San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge, Pier 39, Alcatraz & Big Bus Tours USA

After an incredibly relaxing couple of days at Bass Lake our next stop was San Francisco. This is where my first Contiki would be finishing up and I would be catching a flight to New Orleans to begin the second leg of my adventure across the United States. Our first stop was obviously the Golden Gate Bridge. We came to this little spot to take photos. I do wish we went to another area as the view wasn't amazing. Especially considering we could actually see the bridge this day! Every other time we came near the bridge during the rest of my time in SF the bridge was completely covered in fog.

Obsessed with my Cobra Snake shirt I purchased at THE Cobra Snake Shop in Hollywood. What a vibe. I felt it was very fitting for my first day in SF considering this city's hippie history.

This is Brooke and Serena, the girls we got to bunk with in the cabin at Bass Lake. After we took our obligeratory tourist photos we spent the afternoon at Fisherman's Wharf where Maddie and I tried Clam Chowder, Lobster Roll and got Boujee with some Oysters. All of the food was incredible obviously, you don't go to a wharf expecting bad seafood. But the real highlight here were the seals. They are the real stars and they are completely aware of that fact.

I would highly advise you go to my Instagram and scroll through my highlights to the SF highlight to see some quality seal singing. I can honestly say I spent at least 20 minutes here laughing hysterically at these idiot water dogs. 

I managed to keep a couple of SLR photos from the wharf but not many sadly. It was really fun there. Excessively tourist orientated but we love that.

Maddie and the Contiki had a couple more days in SF but my trip ended as soon as we arrived in SF. The trip I was on was actually a combination of three trips. It's pretty cool how they manage to merge three trips into one. I hung out with Maddie at her hotel for a while and then went to check into USA Hostels San Francisco. We were actually in SF during Cinco De Mayo which meant Mexican themed nights at the hostel that were pretty fun. I didn't really meet anyone while I was at this hostel but it wasn't a bad stay. The only annoying part were the stairs from memory.

The next day was my first day back to solo travel. I started my morning off with a quick pop in to Boudin's. This is San Francisco's oldest continually operating business. This extremely famous bakery has been open since 1849 is known for it's sourdough bread. They have even trademarked their sourdough as 'The Original San Francisco Sourdough'. I literally just got a mini sourdough roll as I couldn't afford much else and my ferry was about to leave so I needed to get my butt moving. I was pretty excited to be heading to Alcatraz. Buying tickets was a bit of a nightmare so make sure you plan your trip to the island early. They book out really fast. Especially the tour I wanted to do, which was the haunted night tour. 

The day I was there an actual past prisoner was signing his book! I don't want to glorify crime or anything but that was kind of cool. The whole time I was wandering around this windy historical prison all I could think was how much my dad would love it. I got him a prison cup souvenir which I carried with me all the way back home.

Alcatraz was a pretty sweet place to visit. I really wish I could have done the ghost tour but the regular one is worth the trip, at least once in your life. The audio guide was really cool and made the place come alive so much more. I would have been lost and probably pretty bored without it.

Not going to lie the ex-con was a bit of an angry old man who was quite rude to me when I went up and spoke to him because I wasn't purchasing his book. Sorry mate but I really don't want to carry your book I probably wouldn't read across the country. But here is my selfie with the old crank.

After Alcatraz I headed back into the city to hang out by myself until Maddie and the rest of the Contiki were having their group dinner. I wanted to say my goodbyes whilst everyone was together. I lost so many of my gorgeous SLR shots but for some reason I managed to save these random ones that I took in a hotel lobby I couldn't tell you the name of if I tried. Thanks for that universe. 

Just a bit of souvenir shopping before hopping on a hop-on hop-off open top bus. At this point in the day it was FREEZING! But it was my first time on a tour bus with no roof, so ya know, I had too.

Legit involuntarily crying the whole time it was so cold. I went with Big Bus Tours USA and they were pretty great. They are one of the biggest in SF so you can't miss em.

They took us across the Oakland Bridge to a place called Treasure Island, which had a gorgeous view of the whole of San Francisco. We took some photos in the freezing wind before hurrying back on the bus...to remain in the freezing wind on the roof. Worth it.

After going through deserts for the past couple of weeks it was a big shock to the system how freezing cold San Francisco was. If you are planning on including SF in your California trip make sure to pack warm clothes! the wind is brutal!

Random tings on the walk home that night. I popped into Chinatown to say my goodbyes to everyone on the Contiki, in particular Maddie. I am so lucky she lives in Sydney. We are still hanging out to this day and I love her dearly. That night there was a big Cinco De Mayo party at my hostel. I hung out for a bit but I was honestly exhausted after the huge day of being a tourist. I crashed pretty early that night.

The next day I went to get my tape hair extensions re-taped and to freshen up my blonde a little with some toner. They did a pretty great job but when it came to payment they tried to overcharge me triple what they quoted to me over the phone. Luckily I was able to get them to half it but it was still way more than I was initially told. So I wouldn't recommend getting your hair done at Ulta in SF, they shady AF.

The next day I ended up stumbling into a huge street festival called 'How Weird Street Faire'. Think Mardi Gras on LSD. It was so much fun. I don't have more photos but I have a heap of video if you check out the link at the top of this post. This festival occurs early May around the time of Cinco De Mayo. If you ever find yourself in Sf during this time I would highly reccomend checking it out.

Polaris following me everywhere I go.

Weed is legal in California but not really anywhere else. A few places have updated their laws but not really while I was travelling. My last time experiencing recreational weed was this cookie, which I mainly took to help me get through my redeye flight to New Orleans. 

The cookie worked a treat and I slept like a baby during the flight. It didn't hurt that I had an entire row to myself! So happy I have gotten myself back into the habit of writing this blog. I have so many more exciting travel stories to share with you. Since this trip I have travelled Japan (again) and South Korea as well as a whole 3 months in Europe! Stay tuned!

erica