Day 2: Complete

Today was amazing. If you out there reading this post ever come to New Orleans you have to go on a Cuisine Tour. I was very brave and tried everything and was not disappointed at all. On our first stop we have Creole Beef Brisket and it was incredible. You know the saying melted in your mouth? Well this was so tender it practically melted on the plate. I would go back and order that for a meal everyday of my life. (My pants are praising the lord right now that I don’t live in New Orleans) While at the French market I bought a masquerade mask as a keep sake to always remind me of this trip and the great memories I’m making with my friends here. My favorite part of the day, though, was after the cuisine tour our tour guide, Naif, showed us this secret museum inside a restaurant. It was above the actual dining area, a woman made it and it is a museum all about her. She was infamous around the world but very famous in her hometown of New Orleans. Her father owned Remolaude, a restaurant that has been successful in the city for years and back in the 1920’s her parents were ready for her to take it over. She rebelled against their wishes and became the ultimate party girl (sounds just like me). She partied in Paris and New York and after finally moving back home she was the Mardi Gras Queen 22 times. She is the only woman to accomplish a goal like this and also the only woman who has been the queen more than once. She decided she would make a museum with all of the dresses she wore in the parades as queen, but the cool thing is, is that she designed and made it by herself while she was still living. Most, if not all, museums are in memorial of someone after they have passed on. This place was amazing and so beautiful. I am a total girl when it comes to pretty dresses. They were handmade with stones and beads; they had long trains, and beautiful capes and wings on some of them. She looked stunning in all of the pictures in the museum. 

 

These were my three favorite dresses that Germaine Wells wore as Queen.

Germaine Wells is clearly my new hero. She became famous for partying hard and went to all these fancy places dressed up as a flapper in the 1920’s. If that is not the life you want to live, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. I think I’m inspired to go to a costume shop here in the city and buy a flapper dress! After drooling over the big, beautiful ball gowns I thought about how fun it would be to live back in that period of time where things were much slower paced and laid back. Germaine was so influential she started her own Easter parade and it still happens today even though she passed away in the 1980’s. If I could be one person, I would be her.

The most impactful part of today for me personally was visiting St. Louis Cathedral. It was so beautiful inside and out and the amount of history that comes along with all of the paintings and statues was really amazing. I am not Catholic, but my best friend growing was a practicing Catholic so I do know the basics of the religion. Something interesting I learned today, though, was that up by the alter there is a chair and it is specifically for the bishop. No one else is allowed to sit there, not even the Pope. When the Pope came to the cathedral for a visit he had to sit in a different chair because he was not the bishop of New Orleans, he is the bishop of Rome. It was incredible to me that people of this city believe in whatever they believe in, it could be spirits, religion, Mardi Gras, the cuisine, so whole heartedly. I wish I could feel so strongly about something that I have the passion like some of the people we have met so far. I lit a candle today in the St. Louis Cathedral for my loved ones that I have lost and am hoping they received my message and will still watching over me. That is about as spiritual as I get. 

This is the inside of the beautiful St. Louis Cathedral 

Next, we visited the Ursuline Convent and I was disappointed in the fact that there were no nuns there. I’m not so interested in the history or religion of the buildings, but more in the people that have lived there in the past. I guess you could call me nosy. I do find it baffling that a lot of the city is original or close to it. New Orleans has had a lot of natural disasters, such as fires and hurricanes, that have destroyed a lot of its original woodwork and artwork in establishments; which is sad, but people owning businesses and or homes do their best to keep it as historic and original as possible, which I find admirable. I can admit that my views of convents and nuns are probably out of style because the only thing I have to compare it to is The Sound Of Music, but I was wanting to see where they lived and how their day-to-day lives were throughout the ages of being here in New Orleans. I know nuns like Julie Andrews don’t nanny Vontrap children or make clothes out of curtains anymore, but I just thought nuns would still be living at a convent. On my walk there I was wondering to myself “What would being a nun be like?” I don’t think I could personally do it, but there are some people who love that lifestyle and since I don’t know much about it in modern times I was hoping to learn something today. After the very religious and insightful morning we visited the French market and did some necessary shopping before our Cuisine Tour, which was amazing! Another great day in NOLA.