Into The Swamp We Go

 So about a month ago when my friend Pam invited me to attend her bachelorette party in New Orleans, I'm all like "yes please!" Last weekend was when it all went down.
I had never been to New Orleans before, and I have to admit I was a teensy bit scared on the inside. What if it's smelly and gross? What if some gangster tries to to rob us? What if some drunk girl pukes on my Michael Kors heels? As much as I was confident these were all valid concerns, I was still excited to go, especially when I heard we were staying at the W Hotel... snazzy, right? So I went, and I have to say, it was amazeballs! Besides the fact that we were totally high rollers because we were staying in a super fab hotel, we also had some really good food, had a fantastic time dancing and listening to some live music, and got to pet an alligator. Yeah, for reals.


This is our hotel lobby... it's ok if you're jealous

First let's start with the swamp tour. Here's 5 city gals on a swamp boat.



That's Luke, our swamp captain, next to our bachelorette

me, keepin' it real in the swamp

 Our boat looked like this:


However it's occupants were much more fabulous than the ones featured in the above photo

 And then came the wild life.

Luke lured them in with marshmallows, which ended up being pretty scary later on.

Before snatching one out of the water

Getting a little too close

So why do I mention the marshmallows? Well, there's this thing I call the "marshmallow phenomenon". Basically that's when the unsuspecting alligator eats a marshmallow or 2 and hasn't yet had a chance to digest it, only to be scared sh*tless by Captain Luke, who pulls him out of the water to let young women pet his belly. The alligator is so pissed off by this point that he starts foaming at the mouth and making scary sounds. The marshmallows subsequently start foaming out between his sharp little chompers and girls start screaming.

The rest of the vacation involved us standing in long lines for food that was so so. Here's the line outside of Mothers, a Cajun restaurant that bragged the "World's best baked ham".



Here we are waiting in line

It was featured on the Food Network and the Travel Channel. Food Network... Travel Channel?? Normally I'd be jumping up and down to eat here. But Mother's just ddn't do it for me. After standing in line for over 30 min, I thought the food was just ok. I had the shrimp po boy, which was good, but not that good.
Next we have the famous Cafe Du Monde. Basically it's an out door cafe that serves 2 things: beignets covered in powered sugar and coffee.


Did I say outdoor patio? I mean crowded out door patio.



And here's the line for Cafe Du Monde. People freaking love this sh*t.

In short and in summary, fried dough covered in powdered sugar dipped in a cafe au lait is delicious. I just would have preferred to enjoy my treat minus 5 hundred people all jammed into a 3 inch square. And to the Cafe Du Monde people, take a hint from Grande Lux and provide us some sauce next time. Raspberry or chocolate is preferred, thanks.

So you ask, did you girls go out? Indeed we did!! New Orleans is a great place to people watch, and I had just the game for this activity. It started out as a harmless Girls Night Out game card. Just spot the events listed on the card and press down the tab. Get 5 in a row and you have a Bingo!


Found this thing at Pier One 50% off.

 At the night progressed, we found it essential to make our own card.


Just some good clean fun.

As you can see, some of the girls took it upon themselves to update the card as they saw fit throughout the night. We even got a couple fellow bachelor partiers to assist us with the game. Like this guy...


too bad he turned out to be at least one of the people featured on the card... 

 All in all, it turned out to be a pretty Saint-saitional weekend. And I would definitely go back.