Today was spent as a tourist. We started the day off by trying on some masks on Bourbon St.
After walking the streets a bit and getting our bearings, or at least finding a couple of maps to help, we headed off to Mardi Gras World. This is where they create and put together all of the floats for Mardi Gras and other parades in New Orleans and throughout the world. We watched as artists sculpted, painted, and assembled all of the different floats for this coming year.
Afterward, we took the streetcar (where we saw a couple with the best shoes ever!) on our way to the French Quarter.
Within the French Quarter, we went to get coffee and beignets at Cafe Du Monde, mmm, very good, and also wandered around the French Market. We then took a guided tour of the city. It was great to be able to see more of the city than just the "tourist" side of town. Even with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina almost erased from the tourist part of town, the water lines and damage is quite apparent in other areas of New Orleans. One part of the tour was through one of New Orleans' 41 cemeteries. In New Orleans, people are buried above ground, due to the high water tables.
My mom and I then stopped off at Harrah's, a casino, to blow $4.98 (yes we left with 2 pennies, haha) and enjoyed a bit of A/C. Moral of the story here, you never win, but A/C is wonderful. From there we headed over to Lafeyette Square where live music was playing for "locals" night. We then wandered to Mulate's for dinner, mmm, they had really good cajun crab claws. After trying to go to the House of Blues--there were no shows that night, so we then wandered back down Bourbon St back to our hotel room, exhausted from a long day of being tourists.
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