NOLA: Places and Spaces

Hello and welcome to my third and final installment on my amazing trip to New Orleans. This post will cover some must see spots as well as where to stay while your out there and how to get around. Check out my other posts on Nola for the full experience. You can read all about the food here, and the music here!

New Orleans is full of amazing places to see and explore. It is a unique city with a lot to offer.

Where to go:

Louis Armstrong Park: Beautiful park, cool sculptures with great plaques to get your learnin on.

Besthoff Sculpture Garden: Lovely bike ride down Esplanade St gets you too the coolest sculpture garden I've ever been too, bonus its free!

Algiers: Quick ferry ride across the Mississippi gets you to the mellow streets of Algiers.

Garden District*: Gorgeous neighborhood filled with historic and famous homes. Sandra Bullock,  John Goodman , Peyton and Eli Manning to name a few of the stars in this neighborhood. See the house that inspired Disney's Haunted Mansion, many of Anne Rice's books and countless other films.

Home where football stars The Mannings grew up

Tulane: One of the prettiest campuses I've ever been on.

Audubon Park: Huge, amazing park right across the street from Tulane. Has a bike trail, walking trail and a golf course.

Lafayette Cemetery #1 & St Louis Cemetery #1*: New Orleans cemeteries are unique and beautiful. At the St Louis cemetery you can see the famous grave of Marie Laveau and the future resting place of Nicholas Cage.

Magazine Street: Great shopping and food.

*Must take walking tours if you can. Found a great free company: Free Tours by Foot. If you like them, tip them. They also do free bike and bus tours for a fee.

We took a fantastic Garden District/ Lafayette Cemetery Tour as well as a St. Louis Cemetery tour with them.

Beautiful street in Algiers

Where to stay:

The Diversity of New Orleans is apparent everywhere including the places to stay. They have lots of upscale downtown hotels, quaint bed and breakfasts, hostels, Air BnB's. Whatever your looking for you can probably find. For my stay I choose to stay in an Air BnB during the week and a hostel during the weekend.

Air BnB: If you are not familiar with this service, get familiar! It is great while traveling. Basically folks rent out a room or their entire house/apartment to other folks. It is in nearly every city in the US as well as abroad. It can be done online or through an app. New Orleans had a wide variety of places to choose from and we ended up with a great place and a great host. All the money is exchanged via the app or website and depending on where you stay it can often be much cheaper than a hotel and more fun. Hosts are usually helpful and knowledgeable about the city and the best thing about ours was that there were multiple bikes available for use to use.

India House Hostel: We stayed here for the weekend so that we could be more social and just to check out a different area of the city and have a different experience. It was great. The house is super cool and interesting, really good vibe, staff were people you would want to hang out with and had great suggestions of places to visit. The location seems a bit random but there are places to eat, drink short walks away and the streetcar is right there which easily takes you back into the hustle and bustle. The best things about the hostel was the people, the breakfasts (cheap and delish!) and the porch. Great place to sit, talk, drink and socialize with people from all over the world.

*note! Depending on when your going book early!! Air Bnbs get booked up as well as India House. New Orleans is constantly having fairs and festivals and it can be very hard to get a place last minute.




How to get around:

New Orleans is very easy to get around. Most likely if your staying in the downtown or French Quarter area most of where you'll want to go will be close by. While I was there I took pretty much every form of transportation available. But my favorite modes by far were to bike or use the streetcars.

Bike: The easiest, cheapest and best way to see the city is to bike it. New Orleans is flat flat flat, which equals easy easy easy to ride a bike. I am by no means someone who bikes often or long distances but both my friend and I found it very easy and very nice to bike the city. We were lucky to get an Air BnB with bikes available to us however there are lots of opportunities to rent bikes elsewhere around the city.

Streetcar: Not the fastest way to get around but its fun and if the car is not too full can be relaxing. The St Charles streetcar is beautiful and iconic and something you should just do for the experience. Its also very cheap. Each ride is $1.25 while an all day pass is only $3! The pass for the streetcar is also good for the bus system which is doubly nice. The streetcar also runs often and late, til about 2am.

Bus: We took a bus from the airport to downtown for only $2 (the A2)! It took longer but it was a nice ride through the outskirts into the city and a good way to just hang out with locals and have a less touristy experience. The bus also runs through out the city and can be taken during some areas where the streetcar is not running due to construction.

Taxi: Easy to get and nice to use when your going a little further out at night. There are a lot of local drivers that are super friendly and knowledgeable about the area. Our first driver was the best; telling us where to eat and what places to avoid. Best cab company was Nawlins Cab. They have a great tag line and an app that was super handy to have.

Algiers Ferry: $2 dollars each way, fun to cross the Mississippi and check out the cool mellow area of Algiers on the other side.

Last but not least good old fashion walking! New Orleans is also very walkable and there are lots of walking tours you should check out. Either self guided or through a company.

Make sure to follow all of our adventures on Twitter and Instagram, and make sure to follow the blog! 

-K

NOLA: MUSIC

As you may have read last week I recently took a trip to New Orleans. I was only there for 6 days but I packed in a lot. Last week I wrote all about the amazing food  NOLA is famous for and this week I'll be featuring the other star of New Orleans; the music!

Rebirth Brass Band killing it at The Maple Leaf

New Orleans is a city that has something to offer every night. Any day of the week can easily turn into a party and it does. NOLA is literally filled with amazing bands. Just walk around and hop into bars and you will find great local music. Another great thing about the music scene in NOLA is that there are huge bands, I'm talking Grammy winning folks that still play smaller local bars for small local prices.

I wasn't able to make it to all the music on my own list but you should definitely hit up a few of these spots on your visit.

Tuesday: Rebirth Brass Band at The Maple Leaf

Wednesday: Treme Brass Band at The Candlelight Lounge

Thursday: Kermit Ruffins at Kermit's Treme Mother- In-Law Lounge
The Soul Rebels at Le Bon Temps Roule

These band usually play these nights but they do play other events and go on tour often so be sure to look them up in advance!

Maison on Frenchmen

Another great way to check out music is to stroll down Frenchmen Street. It offers a few blocks jam packed with great bars and venues. Some with cover some without. You can find some of the big bands playing there that I mentioned above plus local stars and the great unknowns as well. Just pick a spot you like, grab a drink and take a listen. If it's not your style, take your drink to go (open containers are awesome and legal here) and wander into the next spot. Frenchmen also has street musicians, great food, and a really cool art market.

The quality of music out there is insane you really can't go wrong. I was able to see both the Rebirth Brass Band and the Treme Brass Band, both shows were incredibly fun and different from my typical nights out in the bay. I highly recommend them both, The Maple Leaf is an iconic bar with a lot of history and the folks that work at the Candlelight Lounge are amazing. Shout out to Gladys, the most incredible host and the most honest person I've ever met.

Stay tuned next week for my third and final post on NOLA!

Check out our Twitter and Instagram to see other photos from the trip and don't forget to follow!

Great mural on Frenchmen

-K

NOLA: FOOOOD

I spent last week in New Orleans with my friend Neda and it was amazing! The short story is I fell in love with the city; the people, the music, the food. Oh my goodness the food, I basically ate the entire time and could not have been happier.

Off top I'll say NOLA is not catered toward vegetarians at all. Pescatarians however will have a field day, I ate a different kind of seafood everyday. There is a ton of great restaurants with great food every where. It's hard to go wrong food wise, but the options can be overwhelming so here's a list of some really yummy finds, enjoy!

Golden delicious beignets

Cafe du Monde: In French Quarter, open 24/7, must eat the beignets and then eat more beignets!

Powdered sugar for daysss

Cajun Seafood: Multiple locations, local spot that is cheap and delicious. Great place to grab a Po Boy and a beer outside of the touristy areas.

Blue Oak BBQ: Two locations, one on Canal St and the one we went to inside Chickie Wah Wah, a great bar/ music lounge in Midcity. The food was so delicious and well priced. I had the amazing zesty Gulf Shrimp Tacos and Neda had the Beef Brisket Platter. The sides are killer too, must try the brussel sprouts.

Blue Oak serving up some tasty treats! Photo via Blue Oak BBQ

K-Paul's: In French Quarter: We heard they had the best bread pudding in town so of course we had to check it out. It was delicious! Fancier spot so if you want to eat inside throw on your Sunday best. Or you can just get the bread pudding to go like we did!

Royal House: In the French Quarter: The windows open like doors so its beautiful and breezy, they also have great balcony seating upstairs. Must try: Shrimp Creole and the Cucumber Mango Mojito.

Delicious Shrimp Creole at Royal House

Tout de Suite Cafe: On Algiers Point, just a quick ferry ride from downtown. This place was super cute and sweet. Great place for Sunday brunch, you must have the grits! They are amazing (esp if your hungover).

Yo Mama's Bar & Grill: In French Quarter, delicious burgers and ri-dick-ulous bathrooms, literally. They are covered with naked folks! Bar set up + the bathrooms = not a family spot but definitely fun.

Fair Grinds Coffehouse: Great coffeehouse in MidCity, voted #1 coffee in New Orleans by Gambit. It's out of the hustle and bustle and serves up a great chai latte. You can quietly work inside or chat outside on their deck. There's also a great little park across the street that Neda and I sipped and strolled through.

Fair Grinds and fair trade

Writing this up has made me so hungry, hope your inspired to try some of these places! I definitely enjoyed eating at all of them. Stay tuned next week as I'll be sharing more from my NOLA trip including great music and other spots to hit up!

-K

Monthly Mood: April

Welcome to our new series Monthly Mood! Each month we are going to talk about what we are looking forward to, what is inspiring us, and what is to come on the blog!

Monthly Mood: April by akablog featuring Pier 1 Imports

We have a lot of exciting things coming up in April, however it is a quieter month for us to lay low and hang out with friends and family, because it always seems like May is crazy! This month Kira is headed to New Orleans, so look forward to a fun post about that and make sure to follow along with her trip on our Instagram. Ashley is excited for the return of Mad Men and Baseball! We are looking forward to some floral prints making their way into our closets - and hopefully California will get some rain which means we can wear some cute rain worthy accessories! Earth Day is April 22nd, and we are going to be posting about some of our favorite up-cycled items. We are also going to be attending a fun Up-Cycle event at a local Art Center. Easter will bring some fun brunch recipes to the blog - and maybe some DIY crafts! One of our best friends has a birthday in April, and I think we are going to be having some outdoor fun to celebrate. As the weather gets nicer, we hope to go on some more hikes and mini-adventures around the Bay Area! 

-A&K

New Years Resolutions!

I always try to remind myself to make resolutions throughout the year but there is always something about the new year and a fresh start that inspires fresh goals.

Source: Google

So here are some of my own

1. Career research and networking: With the start of the new year I hope to start looking into a new career or possibly going back to school. I want to network and go on informational interviews and job shadow and meet as many new people as possible. Keeping both my options and my mind open to new opportunities.

2. Save to spend: I recently heard from my brother who heard via Freakonomics how it isn't practical to stress out about saving in your 20s. So instead of trying to scrimp and save and miss out on concerts or trips,  I'm going to save to go to concerts and on trips! I want to  cut down on frivolous spending and focus instead on what I really want and use my money to go after those things.

3. Travel: Anywhere and everywhere, however I do have a few trips at the top of the queue.

Seattle: Ashley and I have been wanting to go for some time so we will hopefully make it happen soon!

New Orleans: Also have been wanting to go here for a long time and have been pre planning it with a friend, just need to save up and hopefully I'll be there this spring!

Nashville: My cousin is getting married in Nashville this year and I'm so excited to visit and plan a trip to the south.

4. Be adventurous: I just want to constantly remind myself to put myself out there and meet new people, go to new places and not be lazy or boring.

5. Be happy: Whatever I'm doing and wherever I'm at I can be happy and appreciative for all that I have. Don't waste your time doing things that make you unhappy, make time for what does!

-K