Tag: drinks

5 things to do in new orleans other than eating and drinking

The city of New Orleans conjures for most people images of drunken debauchery. Drinking monstrously large hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s. Waltzing down Bourbon Street with open beers in hand. Women flashing their boobs in exchange for Mardi Gras beads. Of course, there’s also the gluttony—oysters, fried fish, shrimp, jambalaya, gumbo, étouffée, beignets, po-boys. The list of New Orleans decadences is seemingly endless.

Don’t get me wrong—I support all of those things. But for my third trip to New Orleans last weekend, I decided it was time to branch out a little bit and explore the city’s other offerings. The beautiful thing about New Orleans? You don’t actually have to choose: most of this can be done in conjunction with the eating and drinking. You can be culturally enriched and debauched at the same time.

1. Cemeteries

New Orleans is famous for its aboveground cemeteries, necessitated by the high water-table in the flood- and hurricane-prone city. As one tour guide put it, “you don’t want to see Grandma floating down the street.” Gross.

Over time, the practical necessity of aboveground burial evolved into a cultural and architectural tradition, reflecting the changing cultural influences on the city as it passed from French to Spanish to French to American hands. Wandering through the old tombs, you can find engravings in all three tongues, with dates ranging back to the 18^th century. Some tombs are kept lively with (often fake) flower arrangements. Many stand proud and stately their white marble tarnished with black mold. Others grow decrepit with age.

St Louis Cemetery No 3

If you’re up for a moody afternoon (we went on a cloudy day), you have a few options. St Louis Cemetery No 1 is the oldest (established 1789) and easiest to reach from the French Quarter. It also hosts the tomb of Marie Laveau. But, the guard helpfully informed us, it’s also the only one to charge an entrance fee. Instead we followed his recommendation and took a Lyft up to St Louis Cemetery No 3, established in 1854. For a $10, 10 min Lyft ride, we got free entry to a much larger (if less tightly packed) cemetery. (No 2 is apparently closed due to “vandalism and other concerns,” according to the Catholic church).

2. Architecture

If you’re sober enough to appreciate it, New Orleans is full of architectural delights. Sure there are some dramatic constructions like St Louis Cathedral, but for me the beauty of New Orleans lies in the smallest of architectural detail. Every house in the French Quarter seems to boast some special flare—detailed metalwork on the balcony, cheerful plantation shutters, daintily carved corbels.

grandiose balconies on Royal Street

tucked away on Dauphine Street

a more modest house down Royal Street with baby blue plantation shutters

decorative corbels on Royal Street

This was the first trip that I ventured outside the French Quarter. After taking a Lyft to St Louis Cemetery No 3, we walked back to the Quarter along Esplanade Ave and through Tremé, admiring the old Victorian mansions and Caribbean bungalows that lived side-by-side.

trees lining Esplanade Ave

For a future visit: the Garden District.

3. Shops and Galleries

Every time I go to the French Quarter I feel a little lost. In part, because of alcohol. In part, because I always seem to stay in a different part of the quarter and start off the trip with my bearings at a 90 degree angle. But I always seem to find my bearings, not by Bourbon Street, but by Royal Street, one block over. Royal Street is a little classier; here Bourbon’s bars are replaced with shops and galleries, some far beyond my price range, but delightful to browse.

Each time I revisit shops and galleries from previous trips, and stumble upon new ones. In my first trip in 2012, I bought a black metal Mardi Gras mask with red detailing. I found that shop again on this trip, but not on the last one. On my second trip in 2022, I didn’t buy anything of note, but fell in love with multiple galleries and artists whose work cost thousands. This time I fell in love with a jewelry store called Fleur d’Orleans, whose proprietor makes jewelry inspired by New Orleans architecture. (I bought a pair of earrings inspired by her neighbor’s window.) I also bought a mask carved out of hibiscus wood. This shop seems absent from Google, but that’s all part of the mysterious fun of shopping in New Orleans.

4. Swamp Tours

For something totally different, this time I ventured outside of the French Quarter entirely. Outside of New Orleans. North of Lake Pontchartrain. Into the swamp. We booked the trip through Cajun Encounters, who helpfully picked us up in a coach (for an additional fee) not far from our hotel, and took us to the Honey Island Swamp. I can’t recommend the company highly enough. Everything ran extremely efficiently, and our coach driver and captain (Bam-Bam and Everett, respectively) were excellent tour guides. (Expect some prison-related humor from the captains.)

One thing I did not consider was that the things I associated with a Louisiana swamp—namely alligators—were cold-blooded reptiles, and therefore not likely to be active on a chilly, cloudy day in late January. Indeed, the alligators and snakes were nowhere to be seen. That made the trip a bit more low-key, but the boat tour among the partially submerged cypress trees hung with Spanish moss made for a scenic if eldritch morning.

honey island swamp

While there were no reptiles in sight, we did see a lot of racoons, including this blond one.

a blonde racoon hiding in the cypress trees

5. Live Music

You don’t actually have to go anywhere special to find live music in New Orleans. Musicians play on the street corners, like this saxophonist outside of Cafe du Monde.

a street saxophonist outside Cafe du Monde

Of course there are plenty of live bands on Bourbon Street, mostly catering to the popular tastes. I’m personally a fan of Famous Door, where cover bands play crowd-pleasing numbers from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. (But beware the jello shots.)

the mural on the side of the Spotted Cat, one of Frenchman Streets many live music venues

This time I ventured a little outside of the French Quarter to the famous Frenchman Street. Here you can find some more authentic New Orleans live music—jazz, blues, funk. We plopped ourselves down at the bar of Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro for hours one evening, chatting with the impossibly young bartender and waitstaff, while listening to the jazz from the concert hall piped in through the speakers. Then we ended up at La Maison, where we listened to a jazz quartet while the bartender in the back made us custom cocktails, then the Blue Nile for some blues, before going back for one last drink at Snug Harbor. Did I mention you don’t really have to pick between the culturally enriching activities and the boozing? Ah New Orleans, laissez le bons temps roulez!

2024-02-04
alaska: a tale of whales and glaciers

I awoke on our first morning at sea and snuck out onto the chilly balcony. The sun rising behind spotty clouds gilded the sea in ribbons, while further in the distance, a mountainous landscape drifted by.

sunrise on our first morning at sea

Up on the tenth deck, I got distracted on my quest for coffee and joined other bundled passengers at the stern. Speaking in hushed morning tones, we watched the smooth water ripple in our wake and wash up against the islands that dot the narrow straits of the passage north from Vancouver.

smooth waters early the first morning

“Look!” I whispered loudly, pointing to a spot where I’d seen a puff of water and a sleek back arch. “I think that was a whale!” The other early birds clustered around me to see the tail of a humpback whale (I would later learn) flick up as it dove deeper down into the icy sea.

The glimpse came so quickly, I was disappointed. I hadn’t even had my camera with me. I needn’t have feared. Over the course of the next seven days, I would capture literally thousands of pictures of whales (or in many cases, water where whales had been just seconds before).

An Alaska cruise is a bucket list item for many people, and so it was for my mother. For years, she had been declaring Alaska her plan for her 70^th birthday. At times, it almost seemed impossible that it would happen, due to obligations at home. It took intensive planning, but through sheer force of will she made it happen. She landed in Vancouver on the day after her birthday, and we set sail the next day on the Celebrity Millennium.

Booking an Alaskan cruise can be bewildering. More than a half dozen cruise lines offer sailings throughout the summer, ranging from 7 to 14 days, each a subtle variation on the same itinerary. We selected a northbound only 7-day sailing because my mother could only spare 7 days from home, and we figured we would see more of the coastline if we sailed in only one direction.

I am an experienced traveler, but somewhat of a novice cruiser, so I had only the vaguest concept of the vibes of the different lines. This post from The Points Guy was helpful in narrowing down which lines had the right vibe for us, and from there we chose the Celebrity Millennium based mostly on a good sailing date and a good deal. We sailed out of Vancouver on 21 July, and made port calls in Ketchikan, Icy Strait Point, Juneau, and Skagway, before disembarking in Seward on 28 July.

More to follow on our adventures in Alaska in subsequent posts, for today, I will review our experience on the Celebrity Millennium.

Celebrity Millennium

The Millennium is the oldest ship in the Celebrity fleet, the first of the Millennium class ships launched in 2000. We liked Celebrity when we were booking in part because its ships were somewhat smaller than other lines, with a capacity of just over 2100. The environment was accordingly fairly cozy for a mid-priced cruise.

the celebrity millennium

lodgings

We stayed in a veranda room on the 7^th deck—crucially, on the starboard side of the ship, which was important to us when booking since we’d only be transiting northbound. I appreciated having the veranda, because it allowed me to pop out and take pictures when we were passing by something particularly scenic first thing in the morning. But truthfully, we spent little time in the room and could have saved ourselves some money by booking a room on a lower deck with a porthole, which we were told by other passengers were large. Our room was comfortable and well-equipped enough by cruise ship standards.

amenities

In true bougie style, the amenities I took most advantage of were the spa, the hot tubs, and the pool. The spa area also hosted a gym, of which I did not avail myself at all. I greatly admire the dedication of those who work out while on vacation, but I am not one of them.

As one would expect, the spa was expensive, so I only went for one treatment—a seaweed wrap massage, in which one is wrapped up like a burrito in a green, muddy, soothing goo. It’s messy, but a delight for sore muscles and a perfect way to warm up after a cold day whale watching in Alaska.

Speaking of great ways to warm up, we made a fair number of trips to the solarium, which is an enclosed area with four hot tubs and a pool of sorts. I say “of sorts” because this was not the type of pool you swim laps in. It was more like a massive hot tub, only a couple degrees cooler than the hot tubs. On either side were submerged lounging couches that bubbled, each large enough for 3-4 people. We spent a good many hours laying in the bubbles, staring up at the day or night sky.

There were also hot tubs and a pool in the open air, but we did not visit them. Alaska is chilly, even in July, y’all.

food and drinks

The food was the biggest disappointment on the ship. We dined in the Metropolitan dining room each night, and did not explore the specialty restaurants. Perhaps we would have been more satisfied if we had spent the extra money on dining, but I think we kept hoping that Metropolitan would improve, and that we’d just had bad luck the previous nights.

Every night we were offered three courses: appetizer, entrée, and dessert. Every day half the menu changed, half stayed the same throughout the cruise. All of the entrées I had sounded fancy enough—prime rib, duck a l’orange, barramundi—but they were all really just so-so. Meat was often overcooked, and the vegetable sides were boring, potatoes and carrots and such. Even one of my favorites, french onion soup, was oversalted. I do recommend the escargot, which compared favorably to the real thing in France.

formal night on the celebrity millennium

Booking the dining room was also an issue. I had requested an early fixed dining time when I booked (traveling with a 70-year-old), and Celebrity had never bothered to inform me that the fixed dining times were all booked up. This led to a lot of confusion, and tense exchanges with the hostesses, who simply could not guarantee us a table. Eventually we agreed on a fixed reservation at 5:45 after a couple of frustrating days.

The bars were much better. We explored most of them, but the two I will make special note of are the Martini Bar, Cellar Masters, and the Sky Lounge. My mother discovered a love of martinis on this trip, after we shared a martini flight on the second day. We returned to this spot repeatedly over the trip.

martini flight

One deck up, Cellar Masters was a nice wine bar that offered a quiet spot for a day drink, quiet lounge music in the evenings, and a round-the-world wine tasting with our sommelier from the Metropolitan on our final afternoon.

The Sky Lounge I recommend for its views alone. Situated at the fore of the 11^th deck, it was the perfect spot to come relax and enjoy the view as the ship set sail in the evenings—as long as you didn’t too much mind the trivia games taking place on the stage (which I kind of did).

entertainment

We didn’t go to too many of the shows. There was a pair of acrobatic Ukrainians who were very good (Slava Ukraina!), and a Broadway hits show that gave my mother vertigo, so we didn’t make it through the whole thing. I will say that for daytime fare, I adored the ship’s naturalist, Celia Garland, who offered lectures on whales, otters, seals, and bears during the days. She also narrated our encounter with the Hubbard Glacier from the bridge. She was incredibly informative and engaging, and I’m officially obsessed with her Instagram account.

Speaking and whales and glaciers, they were truly the twin highlights of the trip, and I’m going to have whole posts on each of them in weeks to come. Next up though, the towns of southern Alaska. More to follow!

2023-11-04
wandering vancouver

“It’s the perfect drink for a hot day like this,” said the server at the Fairmont Waterfront of the Harborside Spritz, helping me decide which cocktail to order. We both laughed when I observed, “I love that this is considered a hot day in Vancouver.” The entire day had been sunny while barely topping 70 degrees.

a harborside spritz at the Fairmont Waterfront

It was mid-July, and I was less than 24 hours from embarking on a 7-day northbound Alaska cruise departing out of Vancouver—a bucket list item for my mother, who had just turned 70 the day before. I arrived on Wednesday night on a direct evening flight from Dulles to Vancouver and had the better part of a day to kill before my mother arrived Thursday afternoon.

With a 3-hour time change, I awoke early, and did what I always do in a new city: I walked. A lot. I took some pictures. I walked some more.

My starting place was the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel, which was located just across the street from Canada Place, a convention center that doubles as the cruise ship terminal. I picked up my go-to Starbucks order (latte with almond milk) and started working my way west along the waterfront.

The north shore of the peninsula on which downtown Vancouver is situated is lined with running trails and dotted with seaplanes and marinas. I squinted into the glare of the morning sun off the crystalline waters of Vancouver Harbor and watched the seaplanes take off and land for a while, trying to capture the perfect shot. I did not succeed. Buggers move fast.

a seaplane on vancouver harbor in the early morning light

a marina on vancouver harbor

stanley park

Stanley Park occupies a 400-hectare Brazil-shaped spit of land, awkwardly sticking out the end of the peninsula. Given more time, I would have explored much more of this urban forest. Even as it was, I spent several hours of my morning photographing pondside cattails, bees on flowers, and a blue heron feeding.

a cattail in Stanley Park

a blue heron feeds in Stanley Park

flora and fauna of Stanley Park

Rather than delving deeper into Stanley Park, I looped around to the south side of the peninsula and walked along the seawall and beaches that line English Bay. All the time my eyes were cast towards the bridges that crossed over the mainland, and more importantly, Granville Island, which was one of my must-visit destinations in Vancouver. How do I get to those bridges, I wondered.

granville island

I pulled out my phone had one of those rare moments of travel kismet—ferries! Of course in a maritime city like this there would be ferries. And just my luck, there was a ferry stop located just a few hundred feet away.

Perhaps I had not thought of ferries because, unlike Seattle’s massive ferryboats, Vancouver’s are adorably tiny. The False Creek Ferries, of which I became a patron that day, look like the little toy boats you give toddlers to play with in the bathtub. I do not say this to disparage—they were cute, convenient, and efficient.

No more than 20 min after I discovered the existence of the ferries, I found myself on Granville Island. This is precisely the type of place I’m drawn to everywhere I go. Like Pike’s Place in Seattle, Eastern Market in DC, Reading Terminal Market in Philly, or Spitalfields Market in London, it’s a place where raw fish, art, artisanal chocolates, jewelry, cured meats, and fresh cut flowers are all sold side-by-side with no apparent contradiction. I can and have wandered these sorts of places for hours, wanting to buy everything but ultimately buying little to nothing, overwhelmed by choice.

In this case, I had lunch at a little German place and bought my mom some birthday chocolates then ventured back to the False Creek ferry terminal. I took the scenic route, all the way to the other side of the narrow inlet that bisects Vancouver, and disembarked at the Plaza of Nations.

From here I meandered back through Chinatown (which did not have terribly authentic vibes, though I’m sure it must have been a real Chinatown at one time), and the Gaslight District, where I would have liked to spend more time perusing the shops, restaurants, and bars. But by this point I had been walking for at least 7 hours, and my mother was supposed to be arriving sometime soon (after several flight delays).

I sat in the outside patio of the bar, I ordered my Harborside Spritz, and I rested my aching legs.

That night I treated my mom to a seafood feast at Riley’s Fish and Steak. All I had really wanted for my mother’s birthday was a fancy seafood restaurant (but not so fancy that the portions were pretentiously small), with a view of the water that we have to walk too far to. We ordered The Deluxe seafood tower, plus an add-on of scallops, a side of brussels sprouts, and a bottle of white. For my seafood-, wine-, and water-loving but unpretentious mother, Riley’s checked all of the blocks except the view of the water.

the deluxe seafood platter

Believe it or not, this was actually my first time in Canada. I’m starting to get why all the Americans in a Handmaid’s Tale who managed to get out fled to Canada (geography aside). I found Vancouver to be a very picturesque, livable city, with lots of nature and greenery inside the city, lots of biking and running paths, seemingly fun neighborhoods like the Gaslight District. And did I mention that locals consider 70 degrees to be a “hot” day? Vancouver, you are on my list of cities to flee to if the US turns into Gilead. O Canada!

the sun sets over vancouver harbor

Up next: about that Alaskan Cruise!

2023-10-22