Eating Vegan in Warsaw, Poland: Pierogi Paradise and More

​After our lovely time in Chengdu, I said a tearful goodbye to the Fraser Suites and we headed towards Xi’an for four days. We knew we had to see the Terra Cotta Warriors, and we were super excited for a change of pace foodwise. Xi’an is in a section of China that is heavily Muslim, so there would be mosques to see instead of Buddhist temples, and the city has a famous food stall market in the Muslim Quarter that was supposed to be amazing. And it was, although the rest of our time there left us a little less than thrilled. Like I’ve been saying for a month now, we cannot get used to the lack of awareness for other people – the pushing, the walking into others and having no one bat an eye. It’s not like Chinese people are trying to be rude or pushy or anything! It just is. Like we watched a woman on her phone walk straight into another person and neither of them flinched. We are definitely the weird ones here being like WHY ARE YOU PUSHING ME and we will never get used to that! 

Aside from that though, I guess we enjoyed our time in Xi’an. To get there, we got on – you know it – another sleeper train. It was PRAISE BUDDHA cleaner and slightly nicer than the last few have been! It was still a K train, so the same style and overall look, but our bags actually fit under the bunks, the sheets weren’t noticeably stained with the residue of Other People, the sink drained into a pipe and not onto the floor, and there was actually soap in there! Also, the strangers we shared with were fine. There was one lady who stayed in the hallway the entire time until sleepytime, and then there was an older couple sitting on the other bottom bunk until the man went to sleep in another room. I was nervous that they were gonna be sharing the bed (as we’ve heard some couples do to skirt buying two tickets) and we’d have 3 adults with us but luckily that wasn’t the case. And luckily, it was the man who left us, because a) it’s always better to room with women (sorry it is true from all these months of train travel), and VERY MUCH BECAUSE b) the man was farting all evening. It was SO BAD! Old man farts! I had to wear my mask it was nauseating. His farts were worse than smoke oh my god it was atrocious. When it was apparent that he was the one leaving us we finally breathed out of our noses and shouted BYE FARTY DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE ASS OR MORE FARTS MIGHT COME OUT. 

​We got to Xi’an and headed to our hostel, the Seetang Youth Hostel. Um, our room didn’t have windows. That’s not good. Well, it did have one piece of wall that opened, but it opened into the hallway, which does not count as a window and also WHO would use that and let strangers look at them in bed? Weirdest. The walls were extremely thin, and we heard all the usual hostel noise – people shouting at all hours, people listening to music at all hours, people stomping about like they are trying to break through the floors. It was loud, is what I’m saying. And people were smoking everywhere! I asked the main staffer if smoking was allowed everywhere and she looked horrified and said no but guess who did nothing about the rampant smoking everywhere, that’s right she and the rest of her staff. Blargh. She also said they had laundry on ‘the fifth floor’ and I spent a long while searching the big building for stairs that led anywhere to a fifth floor but couldn’t find it. We later learned that the fifth floor was actually THE ROOF. I did not do laundry. 

The bed and bathroom were fine at least and relatively clean, so it was overall fine. The turn right before it was a trash alley so that stunk (lolol) to have to walk that every time we came and went. But was good to stay in a place we didn’t want to actually stay in all day I GUESS. So we did more in Xi’an than we did in Chengdu – which also means we were out in the crowds most of the time. By now, we have zero patience left. We’ve been in China for a month, with more to go, and we are soooo done with the pushing and shoving and lack of regard for anyone else’s personal space or even person. A small boy jumped off a ledge and landed ON Z’S LEGS. Like a monkey. Z was like WHAT THE F IS HAPPENING and the boy just ran off like it was nothing. I CANNOT. 

We arrived in Xi’an covered in sleeper train residue and ready to eat some good Muslim food. We took a taxi to the hostel (it was easier than navigating the subway or buses in our state), which caused us a great deal of anguish as all taxi rides here have. Every time, the driver either yells at us in Chinese or overcharges us or does some miscellaneous stupidness that we can’t do anything about and it’s so frustrating. But anyway. We got to the Seetang, showered in the windowless room, and went out in search of food. Our hostel was about 10 or 15 minutes walk from a big mall, which is always promising, and we found exactly what we wanted on the top floor – a food court! Now, Chinese mall food courts are unnecessarily complicated affairs. In Bangkok, I remember we had to purchase little credit card type things in advance and put a certain amount of money on them and then go to the different vendors for food and pay with the card. It was a little complicated, but it was clearly laid out and we figured it out. In China, a lot of food courts do similar things as far as prepaying goes, but they make no sense. No signs, no visible station or person selling the cards or even just taking money. It’s all very confusing, and no one is willing to work with us by using nonverbal communication to try to figure it out. NO ONE POINTS. We try to use clearcut hand signals while trying to say Chinese words and 100% of the time Chinese people will just continue to shout at us in Chinese with no attempt at meeting us halfway, or even 10%. Seriously, how do Italians stand being in China? NO one will use their hands. For instance, like with numbers. If we ask if there are 1 or 2 of something, it’s pretty easy to guess what we are getting at using our hands, and very easy to give the correct answer. But instead, they will just say the Chinese word for 1 or 2. Ahhh. 

Anyway, I was getting very hangry and had just pointed to some vegetables in the food court and they wouldn’t let me pay because I had to have paid beforehand (not a card thing, just paying a random lady in advance). HOW DO YOU PAY BEFORE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT OR CAN EVEN GET. FFS I hate stupid systems. Luckily someone took money out of my hand and walked to another end of the hall to a random woman behind a counter just like all of them, and then came back with my change and a receipt?? How was I supposed to figure any of that out? Oh China why do you HATE ME. 

​Luckily, they had easily identifiable bowls of vegetables and I ate them and it was okay in the end. 

Next door to the food court was a Coco Bubble Tea so I was happy!

​The mall of course rewarded our struggles with some nice signage:

​After eating, we walked around town and saw the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower, the two big sights of the city center that are nicely visible from most of the city center. We visited them both another day (and walked around them 10x every day), and I like that they face each other across a little expanse of crazy busy city, like two pillars in the face of modernity, amid the chaos. 

So, the Bell Tower is smack in the center of everything – on like an impenetrable traffic island surrounded by the main roads and separating everything important from each other. Meaning, to cross the main roads in the very center of things (which we did 100x a day), you have to go underground and use this enormous underpass circle of hell. It was always packed and hot and loud and PACKED DID I SAY PACKED and just kind of annoying to have to go up and down, up and down (I will lead them up and down, I am feared in field and town…can’t help it) all the time and around and around. One bend of this circle of hell is the metro station, one is the exit to our favorite little street that led to the Muslim Quarter/Market, and one is the Bell Tower ticket window and entrance, which at all times of day and night had a super long line of tourists waiting to buy tickets. BIGGEST TIP FOR VISITING: Go to the Drum Tower first, because you can buy combined tickets for both towers there, and thus can skip the crazy underground line for the Bell Tower. The crowds inside both actually seemed the same, yet the line at the DrumT was maybe 3 people long, so I guess the ticket sellers and takers at the DrumT are just more efficient than the BellT. We felt like SUCH BADASSES walking past that endless line of Chinese domestic tourists at the BellT and flashing our combined tickets and just strolling right through. 

​Both towers date from the 14th century but were renovated or reconstructed in different subsequent centuries. The Bell Tower would ring its bell at dawn, and the Drum Tower would beat out dat rhythm on its drums to mark dusk. Cute. I like the Drum Tower more, maybe because it was coverd with drums, LIKE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE, while the Bell Tower had ONE MEASLY BELL. 

​I liked these sites though because they were quick and easy to navigate, leaving ample time for more important things – exploring the Market food and getting sooo many fun drinks. Okay, we will save all that for the end because it’s the best part. 

​Another day, we took the metro (again, completely identical to every Chinese city’s metro) to the Big Goose Pagoda, also known as the Wild Giant Goose Pagoda, also called (by me) the HEHE GOOSES Pagoda. We went on the hottest day, and it was a 30-40 minute walk from the nearest subway station so it was rough (there’s actually a station literally on its grounds, but google maps didn’t know about it you stupid pos I hate you I HATE YOU). The pagoda is apparently Xi’an’s most famous landmark, which seems like b.s. to me but that’s probably because of the crowd. It was bad, guys. See there’s a lot of shit happening at this pagoda. First of all, it’s another of those double ticket ordeals – you buy a ticket to the grounds and then find out it doesn’t include the pagoda. When you walk a little more, there’s another ticket office for the pagoda itself. i hate that b.s. No one is entering these little bits of grounds and not going to the pagoda. It puts me in a horrid mood. Anyway, fine, two tickets needed, got it. But no. In all of China, there’s been preeeeetty decent set ups for tourist sites with stairs specifically for going up and then another set for going down, to help the crowd flow. Even at the Bell and Drum Towers they had this. But the Pagoda was the first place I can remember that not only didn’t, but only had one teeny tiny thin winding stairway AND didn’t control the flow of guests. So we climbed up seven floors with the worst of humanity. There were children pushing through legs with their parents doing nothing to stop them; men pushing you from behind to what, make you go faster?; and overall just horribly behaved people. It was terrifying and terrible, trying to climb these stairs. It was also very hot, 98 degrees outside, and at least 15 degrees hotter in this unventilated narrow building. As you may have guessed, it was not my favorite visit. 

​I liked that the pagoda, from the 7th century, is situated among all these modern office buildings, but you can see that from outside. Inside the only benefit was exercise. There was nothing else going for it. 

​A site we absolutely loved was the Great Mosque, hidden behind the crazy busy Muslim Quarter’s Market. It’s very centrally located and yet provides a drastic change to the chaos outside its walls – it provides calm and peace. It’s a beautiful mosque, mixing Islamic traditions with Chinese architecture to make a very interesting and pleasant space. The Muslims working there and praying there made us feel very welcome, smiling at us and shaking Z’s hand. It was a necessary respite from the craziness of the city and was really beautiful. It felt nice to visit this sacred spot before eating ALL OF THEIR FOOD outside in the market. 

​And, before we get to that part, we of course have to talk about the #1 thing to do in Xi’an – visit the Army of Terra Cotta Warriors. You know these guys, you’ve seen pictures. Honestly, the pictures are better. The TCW is the biggest shitshow in all of China. Everything else that I’ve said is ‘so crowded and so pushy and so demoralizing’ PALES in comparison to this situation (except the Big Goose Pagoda in the height of summer; that was indeed shit). People push and walk into you with no regard for any of your space even between your toes just RAM right into you no matter where you are. 

​Anyway. To get there, we walked 45 minutes to the train station to get a bus for 8 yuan that goes to the site. Even though the bus has ‘terra cotta warriors’ painted on the side, it still made some stops along the way. The book and the lady who directed us onboard said it just took an hour but because of the stops and stuff it was closer to an hour and a half. Okay, fine. But noooo. This POS bus driver dropped us down the road from the entrance, and across the street. And not some suburban little road either, oh no, it was a highway. That we had to walk along and cross. WTF, STUPID F-ING BUS. I’m still livid at them. Other buses were clearly dropping off at the entrance. We crossed with the rest of the passengers for safety in numbers but it was still ridiculous and terrifying. Finally we go inside, and we can’t find any signs for ticket office. We see endless rows of stalls and kiosks selling food and crappy crap and drinks and lanterns and string and stuff and NO TICKET OFFICE. We walked for more than 20 minutes and finally saw a sign for the ticket office. Inside that building was a long line, and tickets cost 150 yuan, around $23 each. After you exit with tickets, you walk ANOTHER 20 minutes through a maze and a park to the actual site. By this point we had cursed more than we ever had in our lives. There are several buildings on the grounds – all poorly signed, of course, and nothing in English. We figured out from a map which buildings were Pits 1, 2, and 3, the main things to see. This of course after we went in a building that was a worthless small museum. Most people do the pits in order, but DON’T. It will make everything even worse. We did 2-3-1 and I recommend that, or do 3-2-1, but whatever you do, save Pit 1 for last. It’s the only one that’s actually cool. Pit 2 is the most boring, with most of it just surrounding an excavation site that is mostly sand with nothing to show for it really. Pit 3 is slightly less boring, with a few things actually visible. Pit 3 seems to be the army headquarters, and many of the greatest warrior finds are army officers, generals and such, who are encased in glass around the perimeter. Pit 1 is where the real Army is. Pit 1 is the best, but it is the pits in terms of crowds and pushing. I’m sorry I’m such a broken record so here are pictures. 

​It was definitely the right choice to do it in this order, to be able to end on a high note. Well, on a Middle C, considering how…underwhelming it all is. The warriors are scattered in different pits and rarely can you catch a glimpse through the throngs of people where they actually look as cool as they do in pictures. Okay, don’t get me wrong, I sound ridiculous, I know. It is a VERY AWESOME architectural site, it’s just that it has been hyped beyond what it actually is. If you haven’t seen pictures taken from just the perfect spot to make it look like it goes on forever with intricate statues, then you will be impressed. Or, hey, if you just DON’T GO IN THE SUMMER, you’ll have a better experience (honestly if you go any place in China NOT in summer, you’ll have a better experience than I did in said place). 

​There aren’t really signs explaining what’s even going on – I didn’t see any in Chinese either, but people could have been blocking them – so I learned from our guidebook. The Warriors are more than 2000 years old, and there are thousands of them, still being excavated. They stand as guardians to the tomb of Qin Shi Huang (his actual tomb is illegal to visit), China’s first unifier. They were only discovered in the 1970s, which must have turned the world upside down. 

I know you are probably shaking your head at me like ‘girl do you just complain about everything, this site is amazing’ and it really is, it’s just that a) if it wasn’t hyped to high heaven it would have been more enjoyable and really b) if we didn’t have to fight tooth and nail to get a look at any of it, I’m sure we would have loved it. CHINA IN SUMMER IS NO JOKE. There’s a reason they tell westerners not to go now. OH OH AND C) if the grounds were designed as a labyrinth meant to claim 90% of visitors as victims to its non-navigable twist and turns and impasses and OMG JUST HAVE SIGNS AND NOT AN HOUR OF BULLSHIT TO GET TO THE TICKETS. 

Getting back to town was even worse. 

There were no signs ANYWHERE for buses. We walked for ages through a maze of parking lots and random buildings and kiosks – still on the grounds – before we found signs for buses. They went to Xi’an North Station, which is quite far from the downtown and isn’t the main station. All we finally saw for the main station – for getting freaking to the city from this huge site – was a hand-written piece of printer paper taped to a pole that said ‘Xi’an Station’. So we followed the arrow drawn on it to the street and found a lady who said ‘Xi’an?’ We said yes and she dragged us onto a PACKED bus, with no seats. We said nah we will wait for the next one. Then that bus pulled ahead and stopped a bit farther along the curb, and she yelled go go go! and forced us to get on the same exact bus! The three of us were in the aisle trying to figure out if maybe there were seats and then before we could get off because there weren’t, it was too late! Ahhh we were freaking out. The crazy lady – who was ALSO onboard now – starting pulling random kids out of seats and putting them elsewhere, like putting 3 kids in 2 seats, to make seats for us. And we couldn’t tell her to stop so it was just soo embarrassing. And then it cost 10 yuan instead of 8! I was so mad about it all but then it got us back faster than the bus there so whatever. Oh what a mess EVERYTHING we try to do here is! 

OK. FOOD TIME. 

This is where I LOVED Xi’an. We went to a few restaurants but mostly ate at the Muslim Quarter market, which was sooo much fun. First, I’ll share the good food we had at Ding Ding Xiang restaurant, a recommendation from our guide book that had good food. A man started smoking and we complained to a waitress, and instead of stopping it, she brought him a bowl to use as an ashtray. Oh ffs, China. We moved upstairs (so many restaurants have so many empty floors) and they protested no don’t go up there! but we were like, we’re either sitting away from the man you’re allowing to smoke in here or we are leaving. So they relented and luckily the food was good. I couldn’t walk away from a place that actually had vegetables! So hard to find in these parts. 

From above, we had sauteed sesame spinach, sword beans and roasted eggplant, and cabbage with tofu. All of it was so good! There was a lot of food too, so we brought leftovers back to the hostel fridge for the next day (which was a travel day, so this was necessary). Unfortunately, the shitty Seetang staff didn’t know how to open the room with the fridge when we left the next morning so we lost our leftovers. SO SAD. God customer service here is abysmal. But the food is good! 

I also found good vegetables at what we think was Muslim Family Restaurant, part of the Muslim Quarter but a sit-down place instead of only stalls on the street. (They had a kebab counter out front as part of that.) They had a salad bar type set up of veggie dishes, and it was a little hard at first to communicate that that’s all I wanted, and then we learned to ask them for ‘side dishes’ and it was clear! I just pointed to which of the 8 or so dishes I wanted on my plate and it cost like 15 yuan. It was all fine and I went several times to find veggies because there were none in the market. 
​

And then we went to the Muslim Quarter market literally every day at least once, for breakfast fruit and fresh juices, for fun tofu and potato things and endless noodles, and for dessert and incredible fresh coconut milk at night. I’m gonna share a lot of pictures now of everything amazing we ate. 

One thing you can count on finding every few seconds is a potato-based stall and a tofu-based stall. I had 3 different amazing kinds of street tofu and they were all excellent, and they all cost 10 yuan each (like $1.50?) for a big cup of it. We also really enjoyed these street potatoes – they were super hot and super spicy but really incredible. 

The market is also a world-class location for eating carbs. We had noodles! We had bread! Then we had more noodles! And more bread! Luckily, Xi’an famous noodle dishes are often just the sesame noodle variety, so they will be vegan. The noodle stalls that will add meat are easy to clearly see since you watch everyone make your food. 

But my favorite part had to be all the incredible fresh fruit and the juices juiced from them. Oh man, the fruit in China has been amazing and the market was overflowing with it. I especially loved the cup of fresh jackfruit! In the mad takeover of the cooked-jackfruit-tastes-like-pulled-pork discovery in the vegan world, I’d forgotten that the fruit itself is so good. And pomegranates! Sooo much pomegranate abounded everywhere we looked it was glorrrrious. 

For the first time, there were actually vegan options for dessert! First up is this glutinous rice patty on a stick that is dipped in tamarind paste and/or other jams (there’s an assortment if you want to dip) and crushed nuts. Pretty good! Although it is kind of bland in the center (it’s a lot of rice!) so I recommend covering it in as much crap as possible. There’s a lot of glutinous rice stuff around, including a big yellow cake-looking thing that is cut into slices – these are literally every 5 seconds around the city center. Fortunately, it’s just more glutinous rice with a slight covering of slightly sweet osmanthus paste (that’s a fruit? I think? that is huge here?), so it is vegan, but unfortunately, it’s just a big slab of unsweetened glutinous rice so is not at all worth it. 

Next is the thing I’m prettttty sure is vegan – the persimmon donuts. We showed one of the ladies making them the words for ‘egg’ and ‘milk’ and asked if they were in them, and she shook her head no, and clearly understood, so I am kiiiind of confident that that was the truth. The ones pictured at the pretty stall below are the best ones, with three different fillings – a tamarindish one, a peanutty one, and a maybe jaggery? Who even knows. The consistency is very much like mashed sweet potato, not a bread-y donut, which made me feel better about the possibility of it being vegan. They were really good, especially hot, and especially if you get a lot of the filling in yours. 

But maybe the very best thing in the whole market is the fresh coconut milk. Erma p, it was SOOO DELICIOUS! More delicious than the So Delicious brand! Oh man I wish I could get one now. 

Honestly the food in Xi’an was the best part of our time in the city! I really had no idea until Jojo at veganinbrighton told me! I’d been worrying about finding anything at all and she was like, um, dude. I never would have thought the food would be so fun and the thing I was most excited for – the Terra Cotta Warriors – would be simply good and not amazing. 

I leave you, as usual, with amazingly ridiculous things we saw around Xi’an, including restaurant names, song lyrics as a store name, and the weirdest thing in any Apple store ever in the history of the world. 

WHO DAT!

My boyfriend I mean my fiance I mean my husband! and I finally made it to New Orleans! As some of you know, we were supposed to go to the Big Easy Apple Patch in January, but that ridiculously crazy ice storm back in January 2014 that destroyed Atlanta and Mississippi also closed all roads leading into NOLA. Here’s a really scary picture we took as we “drove” (slowly glided) through the streets of ice in Brookhaven, Mississippi as we tried to find shelter. Petrifying.

So that trip didn’t happen, but then we decided to get married so we could go to New Orleans for a mini honeymoon/’wee agavemoon’! Yay!!! I got scared that maybe the universe didn’t want us to ever get there, especially after we had a flight delay, but we got there and we loved it SO HAH UNIVERSE.

Our mini honeymoon in New Orleans started off kind of hilariously (mostly awfully) as we laughed at this sign in the cab (at right). Like…did you have to specify that it’s a crime to kill a cab driver? Do the type of people who normally go to New Orleans not realize that cab drivers are people too, and that killing anyone is wrong? I don’t know why but we found this hilarious. Also, we loved the “may be first degree murder”, not “is first degree murder”, because of course, what if the cab driver attacks and you retaliate in self-defense? Or like if he is driving while sleeping with your wife so it’s heat-of-passion manslaughter? Likely story. 

Anyway! We had scoured TripAdvisor for the past few months to make sure that our hotel choice, the Bourbon Orleans right in the heart of the French Quarter, was a good one. It seemed like a good fit: perfect location, had a pool (that we didn’t use), room looked swanky. And, the most important, it had water and unsweetened tea dispensers in the lobby all day and night!

So we got there hours after check-in time, but our room wasn’t ready. The not-so-nice lady didn’t even apologize or give a reason, just said it wasn’t ready. So we waited, but after about 35 minutes, I was steaming. I went up to the desk, talked to a man and said UMMM WHADDAFOCK? (effectively) He apologized and then looked down at his computer while I was standing there and I was thinking like…um…do I leave now? But then he looked up and said he found us a different room that was ready, that we could have for no extra charge “if we wanted” – a TWO-FLOOR suite with an enormous corner balcony overlooking the famous St. Louis cathedral. I mean, hot damn. Yes please.

One night, after we ate two dinners (which you can read about tomorrow in the New Orleans food guide!), we walked through the old towne (with an ‘e’ obviously) and wandered into one of the many hot sauce & praline shoppes (with a ‘pe’ obviously). This store had hundreds of hot sauce bottles set up for testing, along with baskets of chips. I casually tried a couple, not really looking at the bottles or reading signs, mostly because I love tortilla chips (I hate potato chips but corn chips? Gimme I got it). Ya know, just casual, eating some chips…and then I started feeling like my body was imploding. I looked down to see if I was still in one piece or if somehow my abdomen had been disappeared,  and then I looked up and around with eyes wide with fear. Whatttttt waaaaaaassssssssss happeningggggggggg tooooo meeeeeeeeeeee! This man about my age came up to me and asked, “Hey…um…which one did you have?” I pointed to the green bottle in the back and only then did I realize that it had WAIVER FORMS in front of it.

It was the NAGA JOLOKIA, aka the Ghost Pepper, aka the Bhutan poison chili aka the hottest pepper not only in the store but ON EARTH! And I just ate it because I like chips! I mean. Wow. Husband was like WHAT THE HELL OMG HAHAHAHA. And then it started pouring rain and even though I was wearing a white dress I dawdled outside with my mouth open. Before that point in my life, I had never cried without producing tears or moving my face, but somehow, that night, I did. 

We strolled a bit so I could regain consciousness, but strolling around aimlessly is the best thing to do in a new city anyway! You get a feel for it – and you learn how to get to your hotel. Once I recovered, we went to CVS for some supplies and saw this hilarious lineup of goods:

AMERICA.

* * * 

One early ass morning, we took a National Park Service walking tour that mostly shared information about NOLA’s birth and early development. I love taking walking tours to show you a different part of the city that you may not have discovered yet, and of course to learn! (Of course I don’t really remember what I learned, except that they lied a bunch to get people to move there.) I highly suggest taking this free walking tour, but get there early as they do cap the group at around 10 people (so fance). We had trouble finding the right meeting spot – there are six sites of the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park (everything in this region is called Lafitte because he was a pirate and New Orleans loves Johnny Depp). The right spot to meet is 419 Decatur St. 

 After that, we checked out the inside of the St. Louis Cathedral instead of just looking at it from our sick balcony. It was a lovely church but the view from the outside, with its fantastic green space in front, is better. I mean once you’ve seen the Vatican you are kind of ruined for regular churches. 

One night, way past my bedtime, we made our way to the well-known and awesome bar d.b.a. to see the well-known and AWESOME Glen David Andrews band. Oh man was this guy an entertainer extraordinaire! First of all, the bar itself was a superb venue (at least compared to where we were the following night). It seemed clean for a bar, it was roomy, and it had quite a sophisticated bar menu. Second, Glen was such a fun, crazy guy, and he works his ass off to entertain you. We are still laughing because the band performed the most hilarious songs – one about how they would ‘make that mo***f****’ shake (that mofo in question? The headboard), a lotttt about his ex-wife, who is apparently the worrrrrst, and best of all, my favorite thing to come out of NOLA, my favorite new song of the summer – one that went “I will I will I will I will I will MELT YO ASS LIKE BUTTER!” oh my god we were dying, and singing that nonstop for the following…eternity. 

The saxophone player was the most impressive I’ve ever seen, not that I’ve ever really paid attention to the instrument before, no matter how hard Duke Silver tries to sway me. Every bit he played felt like a spotlight solo. Just a fantastic performance that made me forget how late I was up. This was the musical highlight of my week, and the cover was only $5! If you are ever in NOLA, I am pretty sure that Glen and his band play at d.b.a. every Monday. 

The second night (we saw music every day!) we went closer to the West Bank (not that one) for the Maple Leaf Bar, a very Tulane kids bar, for a concert by Grammy-winning brass band Rebirth. They play big, loud, jazzy…brass band music, which is like paying to see a live headache. They are very talented and good but it is not my cup of tea. However, I may have been biased because the crowd was from hell. I hate college kids. Oh my god. I hated college kids when I was one. This was like a room full of every awful stereotype, so much drinking and pushing and shoving and being dumb. Ugh! I wish I had a mirror for them that showed their future selves looking reproachfully at them, in order to make them take stock of their shitty behavior. The best part about this show, however, was that famous NOLA artist Frenchy, with a canvas set up right behind where I was standing, was documenting the scene in a crazy cool painting that he will probably sell for many thousands of dollars while an angel sings “Beauty School Dropout” to him. 

Another night, we took the ferry (yay ferry!) across the Mississippi River to Algiers Point to see the Iguanas play, plus a special guest I’m sorry I can’t remember. They were decent entertainment, but the real draw was the location itself. Algiers Point is a big open spot of land that every Wednesday hosts pretty much the entire local community, with lots of food trucks and drinks tables set up. It really seemed like every local was there, with entire families and babies and so many dogs! There was such a good communal vibe and a friendly relaxed atmosphere, with everyone sitting on chairs or blankets they brought. 

Our last night we went to the very famous Lafitte’s, where only candles are used for light in the entire place (no electrical lights, hence no pictures came out!). This old-fashioned décor creates a dreamy relaxed vibe (or maybe the darkness just made me tired). A pianist played right near our table, and she was pretty great to listen to, if not for her vocal health (you can still smoke in bars here, I think she has inhaled too much secondary smoke) then at least for her song selection. It’s definitely a must, not only for this atmosphere, but because they are the famous makers of the Hurricane, New Orlean’s most famous alcoholic concoction. Lafitte’s isn’t the original creator of the Hurricane but it is supposedly the perfecter. I can’t say because it tasted like alcohol. It’s a potent mix of rum and syrup, grenadine, or fruit juice. Some kind of highly concentrated sugar. We shared one and I stomached maybe 4 sips. My favorite thing at Lafitte’s though was our friend’s PURPLE DRANK. Oh my god Purple Drank is the most hilarious thing ever. It is a frozen…purple drink… that tastes EXACTLY like Dimetapp. Did you take Dimetapp when you were sick as a kid? It’s like grape flavored but in the artificial way that is really more purple than grape? Well, Purple Drank is like a Dimetapp slushee. It’s HILARIOUS. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was exactly like the cough medicine. Oh my goodness it’s so funny. If I didn’t know better, I would say that each drank is a bottle of Dimetapp blended with ice. I mean it could be, I don’t know better. 

     On our last full day in NOLA, we stole a car and drove about an hour out of town to take a boat tour on the bayou. We went with Jean Lafitte’s Swamp Tours. (We originally had booked a time with Honey Island Tours, but we weren’t going to make it so we called to cancel our booking – three hours before the time – yet they still charged our credit card for it. Not cool bitches.) It was fun to see all the alligators – so many! – but the tour guide was not my fave. (He talked a lot about hunting and other not nice things.) But, a bayou tour is still a definite if you have the time. It took about 2 hours. It’s cool to see all the wildlife in the area. And, funnily enough, on our tour we passed a good amount of set pieces from “NCIS: New Orleans”, which we also saw filming outside our hotel one day! We didn’t see any famous people, but we did see one of their like male-top-half mannequin bodies floating in the bayou. Now that was kind of freaky at first, to say the least. 

          After the boat tour, we drove another hour and change to Laura Plantation. Originally, I felt weird to be touring a site of so much torture and suffering, but we chose Laura because reviews said they devote at least half the time to talking honestly about slavery. So, like all terrible historic sites, it was a great learning experience and it felt important to see. Our tour guide was really likeable and knowledgeable, and she struck the proper tone, sharing serious information but having everyone enjoy their visit. We learned about the owning family, and how some of them seemed like good people but then some were truly truly evil. We walked around slave quarters and were told that, despite all the wars and the fighting, the plantation was still operating almost exactly as it was in the 1800s – until 1977. How is that even possible? That is so disturbing and soul-crushing. What the hell. We also learned that despite the result of the Civil War and subsequent legislation, nothing really changed on any plantation. Oh man. I don’t even have words. How is this shit even possible? Ughh people STOP BEING RACIST. It’s shattering to realize that people who still perpetrate racist criminal activity are never really punished themselves. The tragedy and subsequent activity in Ferguson was happening while we were here, and it really brought to light how much work still has to be done. Those cops, probably all of them and all of their superiors, should be in jail for what they did and continue to do. But probably nothing will happen to them. It’s a terribly shitty world and we have to do what we can to make it better, as much as we can. So be nice to people, go vegan, &c. 

ANYWAY, there were some bright spots on the tour, including the fact that the stories of Bre’r Rabbit came from this plantation, from the slaves who created the stories to entertain and teach the children. They also had these SUPER ridiculous books in the gift shop. I still can’t get over them:

Seriously, do you see how creepy this kid’s face is in the Kiss me I’m Cajun tee? THIS IS THE COVER OF A COOKBOOK FFS!  And the devil costume! I can’t even. 

Down the road from Laura is the plantation used to film “12 Years A Slave”! How crazy! It wasn’t open for visitation before the movie, but now it is. We drove by and took a picture. 

New Orleans is a really fun place to visit. Bourbon Street is full of debauchery and drunken naked people even at 10am. But when you get away from those few blocks, the city has so much great culture, art, music, and of course food – which we will cover the rest of this week! – to offer. The last place we visited was the famous Saint Louis Cemetery, which is filled with interesting stories, from voodoo queens to Nicholas Cage. That’s right, the actor Nicholas Cage built himself a tomb a few years ago in this cemetery because he loves New Orleans and wants to be buried there. How creepy is that!!! I leave you with his tomb, which has a plaque covered in actual lipstick kisses.