observations from a girls trip to New Orleans:

1. You can gain 10 pounds easy in 5 days in New Orleans: Gumbo-Cajun and Creole, muffuletta, shrimp, crab cakes, boudin, bread pudding, beignets, collard greens, etouffee, crawfish, drum fish, catfish, pralines, oysters, bananas foster, po boys, and bbq shrimp. Yep, we ate them all. Maybe that’s why it’s called the BIG easy.

2. You can ride the street cars (never call them trolleys or trains) for .80 cents a day if you are old. We rode for .80 cents a day.

3. You can see an alligator, a ghost, and Underdog all on the same day in New Orleans. Ok, we only saw 2 alligators and didn’t really see any ghosts…or did we.

4. You can learn to cook…who am I kidding, I folded up the recipe pages within 2 minutes of sitting down to watch someone else cook.

5. You can enjoy drinking half of a hurricane at Pat O’Brien’s, but not a full one, and definitely not 2. Just trust me on this one.

6. You can rent a house with a pool, but you can’t guarantee it will be warm enough to get in. Brrrrrrr.

7. You can watch a guy with a dog wearing sunglasses have his dog remove said sunglasses and then give the guy money to watch such a silly thing. You also can’t make this stuff up!

8. You can wonder about your friends while they recite an old school chant at a street car stop, loudly. You don’t join in, because let’s face it, you had to use a pencil that had it written on it some 50 years ago to say it. You certainly don’t know it now!

9. You can hope that after a full day of exploring you can go back to your Airbnb and decide it’s OK to go to bed before 8pm. (See number 2.)

10. You can listen to jazz on the street, or in a bar, or on the sidewalk. That was cool. Cool jazz, 1940’s, 50’s slang…oh never mind.

You can enjoy every minute you get to spend with friends.