The Crescent City

(Extras at the end!)

In this blog I am going to tell you about my exciting and thrilling adventure to the Crescent City a.k.a. New Orleans, Louisiana. This account is jam-packed with music, daring, and tons of history. I hope you like it.

We were going to stay in New Orleans for a week to visit some family friends. They have an Airbnb right next to their house so that’s where we were going to stay.

Saturday

On Saturday we finished packing up our stuff but our flight was in the afternoon so we had extra long to get nervous about it. I haven’t been on a plane in a really long time, like before the pandemic, but finally it was time to go so we got in the car and drove to Wally Park where we (surprise, surprise) parked! We were supposed to wait for a shuttle to pick us up and drive us to the airport so we did. We waited and waited and waited and waited. Finally, we decided to walk to the front of Wally Park and it turned out other people had been waitin for a shuttle for a long time, too. Eventually, we found one and we were on our way to the airport. Soon we were boarding the plane and we’re off. It was super fun to look out the window when we were flying over the bayou or swamp. You can see how the land looks, all patchy and green! When we got to the airport in New Orleans there was some live music playing! Our friend picked us up but there was a rental car that also needed to be picked up. One of my friends, Brandon, told us that the rental car place is right next to the old airport. That was super scary and they hadn’t torn it down yet. I also forgot to mention that it was hot there and there were lots of palm trees but some of the palms looked more like bushes! Eventually we got that rental car and we were off driving through New Orleans. We saw the Super Dome, where lots of people had to go during Hurricane Katrina. There were lots of abandoned buildings but also lots of murals. Our friends live in a neighborhood called Treme which is like super mega close to the French Quarter but by the time we got back to the house we were all pretty tired. Brandon made a really good pasta with silken tofu instead of cream. If you want to use tofu instead of cream make sure that it’s silken or else it won’t act creamy.

Sunday

That morning Brandon and Stephen took us to their favorite breakfast place, Bearcat! They eat there often. It was super pretty! We ate outside and the food was delicious. I got a churro donut and some bacon. It was like a churro but in the shape of a donut and bigger! yum! We didn’t have anything to do that day so we walked to the Quarter but before we got there we walked our friends puppies Armstrong Park. There was lots of green and the statues were cool in Armstrong Park. There's a place called Congo Square where people go to drum every Sunday. We also went to Jackson Square and there was art everywhere. People were selling it around the street. There were also tons of people selling tarot card readings. There was even a guy who, if you would make a donation, would write a poem for you. The Quarter itself was super cool; you could just tell them everything had been there forever and Bourbon Street during the day was busy and there were tons of bars . It also smells kind of bad. After we were done in the Quarter, me and my sister Stella went back to the Airbnb and my mom and dad went to go see the drumming in Conoco Square. Soon it was time for dinner to Mais Arepas.

For those of you who don’t know, I am one fourth Colombian so I have had some good Colombian food and the food at Mais Arepas is some good Colombian food. I had a lovely Arepa that was stuffed with cheese! We went back to the house after that and had some dessert which was chocolate cake with some ice cream.

Monday

On Monday we took a voodoo tour. The tour was at Armstrong Park and our tour guide’s name was Robie. Our friends Brandon and Stephen weren’t there because they had other things they needed to do that day so it was just us. When the tour began Robi said that every tour guide is required to have 30 minutes of New Orleans history but he didn’t want to do that so we were gonna have 30 seconds of New Orleans. I don’t really remember what he talked about but I don’t understand why you needed that because the whole two hours basically was history. After that Robi made sure that we all understood that whatever you have been told by Disney about voodoo is completely and totally false. None of that is true. He said that there aren't any sacrifices or blood. Well, there is some killing, but it’s just the regular kind of killing an animal for food. Then he went on to talk more about Congo Square. So here’s the thing about Congo Square; a lot of the enslaved peoples in New Orleans were Haitian which means they did voodoo. The plantation owners were encouraged to to make their slaves Christian, so all the slaves had Sundays off to go to church, but here’s the other thing, Church doesn’t last all day and the Native Americans decided, “hey we’re going to help all these enslaved people.” There was a religious spot that the Native Americans knew about and that was Congo Square and so they invited all these enslaved people to that spot. They were like, “Hey do you wanna go and dance with us over in Congo Square?” (It wasn’t called Congo Square back then.) The enslaved people answered, “Oh yeah! Let’s do that!” So Congo Square became the spot where enslaved people had their church service. Another clever thing that the people did when they were drumming and dancing would be to swap clothes with the Native Americans and so once they were done drumming and having their church services at Congo Square the slaves would walk right out into the swamp because they looked like the Native Americans.

Now after Robi told us the story about the enslaved people and the Native Americans he told us about the religion of voodoo and he told us about some of the deities and showed us a really really old tree. This is was one of the oldest tree in New Orleans. Native Americans and enslaved people had planted this tree and that’s why it is the sacred tree for the people who go to Congo Square. It is known as the Ancestor Tree. Robi is not just Robi, he is also a high priest. He has been a priest in New Orleans and Haitian voodoo which makes him the most eligible person to be leading a tour about his own culture. He led us in this ritual where you take a coin, it could be coin out of your purse, or you could pick a coin up out of the ground if a coin has fallen, and you say a little prayer to one of the deities and you put it in the tree and that’s voodoo. Of course I don’t think you can put it in just anything but it was pretty cool to do it in Congo Square and then once again that just shows that voodoo doesn’t have any blood or children summoning the devil. We literally did it just by putting coins in a very old tree. After that Robi showed us a little bit more voodoo but I’m not going to mention that because it might take too long. After that Robi showed us where Marie Laveau really lived. So after the amazing incredible and super informational voodoo tour led by the amazing Robi, it was time for lunch. We were all super hungry so we went to City Park to have beignets from Cafe du Monde and they were delicious, but of course eating beignets does not take the rest of the day so we had to figure out what to do. It turns out there was a sculpture garden that was free in City Park. Brandon and Stephen didn’t know anything about it so we went in there and it turned out it was amazing. There are some super sculptures but I really liked the garden the best. After that it was time for dinner. We were excited to have nachos at Brandon and Stephen’s house along with a good dose of dessert.

Tuesday

On Tuesday we have to wake early because we had to drive a long way to get to the air boat place. When we finally got there we had to put on bug spray and wait a little bit so we ran into the gift shop where it was really cold and I got some resin alligators for my friends. After that it was time to get onto the airboat. I was a bit scared walking down to the airboat and getting on but after that I had a really fun time. First, we ran around the big lake and he showed us a Native American burial mound and a cemetery from the late 1700’s and then we went into the swamp. The website said that it promised we would see some sort of wildlife and as we went puttering around (Put, put, put, put, put) and saw lots of alligators, not all together, but like five just sitting on logs and some in the water. It was so cool. Then we got into this big lake. And we went super fast. It was so fun! Then there was an alligator swimming in the water. It was hungry so our guide fed it marshmallows. Yep, I’m not kidding, our guide threw marshmallows into the water. I guess that’s why they call them marsh mellows. And the alligator ate them. Then when the alligator was really close to the boat the tour guide reached down and took the alligator by its tail and pulled it onto the boat!!!!! Then he handed its tail to me, that’s right I was holding an alligator…on a boat… by its tail…and it was hissing and trying to get out of the boat and it was really strong and I was kind of scared, but it was really cool!!!!!! Very quickly I let it go back into the water. After that we went really fast again and saw some cool plants that it looked like you could step on. They filter the water through the roots. We saw some birds and then the tour was over. We went back to New Orleans and had some po’boys from the corner store that Robi had told us about. Robi had also told us about the oldest tree in New Orleans, the Tree of Life, and so we decided that we wanted to see that. We drove over to Audubon Park to see the Tree of Life and it was super cool. New Orleans trees are super special in the way that they were all natural and their branches go down to the ground instead of going up and then when they reach the ground they climb back up. Since the Tree of Life is super old it had a lot of it that was super good for climbing. Afterwards, we went to Mandina’s for dinner and it was really good and afterwards, as always, dessert.

Wednesday

We had reservations at the Whitney Plantation. It is the only plantation devoted entirely to slavery. After catching a quick breakfast at Starbucks we went on the road to the Whitney Plantation. When we arrived there was some time to wander about the shelves of the gift shop. When the tour began we each got a lanyard with a picture of an enslaved child. There are several statues of enslaved children scattered around the plantation and on the lanyard there are pictures of one of these statues. They are children that were enslaved on this land. We saw some cabins where the enslaved people lived. It was a sugarcane plantation so our guide showed us some leaves. They’re serrated so if you run your finger up one way it’s smooth but if you run your finger down it is not hard to feel the jagged edges. There are these big pots that the sugarcane would be boiled into from one pot to the next pot to the next pot, labeled by hand and often by children. That sugar is also super super hot. It was dangerous work for the children. There was a small prison that we got to walk into. There were walls with names after names on them of people who were enslaved along with some quotes but I didn’t have a chance to read all of it but there was one person who had the same birthday as mine. There are some statues and sculptures around there too and they were pretty cool. We got to go into the Big House and it was one of the earlier mansions so to us it wouldn’t look very fine but it was for the day but it is important when thinking about the Whitney Plantation to understand that it isn’t about how rich the owners were but how poor the enslaved people were and how terrible slaver was and still is. After the Whitney Plantation we went to Mopho which was a pho place. Pho is a Korean dish. I haven’t tried it before and I didn’t quite want to try it that night so I had some popcorn chicken. Desert and TV afterwards.

Thursday

On Thursday we went to some cemeteries. Mom, before our trip, looked up a list of the best cemeteries to visit in New Orleans because they are famous for having some amazing cemeteries. We went to two cemeteries. At the first one most of it looked like tiny houses or maybe some small churches but the second one looked like some small mansions, like really small mansions, think of a shed but with all the good decor and stained glass windows of a mansion. One guy even made an 80 feet tower for his wife. There was a pyramid, some more towers that were not as tall, some that were just ornate and massive graves. For lunch we went to Dat Dog, a hotdog place and it was really good afterwards we got snowballs which are kinda like shaved ice but if the ice was really, really, really, really, thin and I got mine flavored earl gray with a vanilla ice cream in the middle it was really good. I think we just chilled back at the houses until Dad got some Thai takeout afterwords and always dessert.

Friday

We saw some art from this guy known as BMike. He is famous for murals and stuff like that and he has this big warehouse for all his murals. They were all really pretty and they said, at least I think they said, some good things about Black Lives Matter.

It also had a room where all his students' art was and it was super cool. There was a mural all about basketball and stuff and the mural that I really liked was about 3 different squares stacked on each other and each face of the square had a different bottom, top and middle. The top had different faces and the bottom and middle were bodies with different uniforms and clothes. You could mix and match the body and face and it was showing you that anybody of any race could be anything which I thought was also pretty cool.

I forgot what we did for the rest of the day but at the end, for dinner we went to a chinese place and the food was amazing. We kept ordering stuff so we got all these tiny dishes for all of us and then you tried them all and ate more of the ones that you liked the best of all. It was really good there and I had a lot of fun eating it (nom nom nom.) When we were done we had to walk back to the house because it was really close. Unlike the walk to the restaurant it was now night time and the quickest way back home was through the park, which was closed, which meant we had to walk through Bourbon St. Now Bourbon Street is famous for being rowdy and noisy, at night especially. You can imagine the site I saw. There were all kinds of people everywhere. Lights and music and sounds were just bursting at the seams as we walked down the street. There are some ladies throwing necklaces from a balcony. The type of necklaces that you usually get during Mardi Gras or from king cakes and one of the ladies caught my attention and they threw the beads for me. I caught the string of beads! I also picked one up from the ground that no one had caught. The rest of the walk home was pretty uneventful but at one point Bourbon Street on one side of you was a lady singing rock ‘n’ roll and then on the side of the street there was jazz. It was incredible.

Saturday

On Saturday we packed up our stuff but before leaving we walked around a lot and I got a crystal and my sister got a bunch of crystals which you know was pretty cool. Then we had lunch at a place called Lil Dizzy’s which was really good. My mom, dad and sister shared some gumbo. After that we drove back to the rental car place and the scary old airport and took a tram to the regular airport. After waiting forever in security we were in the place to board the plane. It wasn’t time for our plane to board so we walked a little bit. There was a store and my mom got a shirt and the shirt is pretty cool. After waiting and looking, finally it was time to board and flew back to Colorado. It was dark by the time we got to Denver but I listened to a podcast on the airplane. The podcast was about eagles and how we’re learning that sometimes they live in trios, 2 males to 1 female and it was really interesting.

That was my trip to the Crescent City. I hope you really liked it! Please enjoy some extracurriculars!

Louisiana menu

Little Dizzy’s:

Gumbo and fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and bread pudding

Bearcat Cafe

Churro donuts and Bacon, various items were ordered off the Specials menu, including a soft-shelled crab Benedict.

The Quarter Deli:

Poboys and hamburgers

Mopho :

Pho and popcorn chicken

Mandina’s:

Fried shrimp, Fried catfish, turtle soup, crab claws, catfish almondine

Dian Xin:

Soup filled pork dumplings, Pan fried pork dumplings, Crab rangoons, pan fried tiny bao, basil popcorn chicken, chicken JianBing

Pro Tip:

One time we were going out for breakfast . we had some time to walk around after we had eaten there are lots of stores around but there is one called Lost and Found.

We went inside and it turned out to be super cool funny pens and cool dresses I got a bag that looked like the Secret Garden the book and a wallet that look like Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory book. I really recommend checking that store out