Louisiana Vacation Day 2

After a pretty good sleep, we got ready, prepared for our first delicious NOLA meal! First up was Mothers Restaurant!

Being a weekend, there was a line out the door, which is apparently pretty normal for this place. We didn't wait longer than 15 minutes to enter the building, and then there was maybe another 10 minute wait inside. From reading online, we learned that you must be completely ready to order by the time you get to the front - no dilly-dallying! Tom ordered the Famous Ferdi Po Boy and Gumbo and I got the Egg & Meat Po Boy with Debris, and an order of turnip greens.

The greens were great, especially the big chunks of ham in it! The gumbo was good as well. Personally, I wasn't thrilled with my sandwich - it was completely bland and the bread turned to instant mush from the "debris". From the small taste of ham I had, I would strongly recommend you get their World's Best Baked Ham! If you're wondering, "debris" is, "the roast beef that falls into the au jus gravy in the pan while roasting in the oven".

After brunch, we had tickets for the St. Louis No. 1 Cemetery and French Quarter Carriage Tour. We walked through the French Quarter and it was awesome to look at all the beautiful colors and ironwork on the buildings.

We found our carriage company (there are a bunch of them lined up and it's a bit confusing) and waited for the tour to start. There were only 6 passengers, so it was a perfect tour size, in my opinion. We learned that all the carriage companies in New Orleans use mules instead of horses. Our mule was named Jelly Roll and he was a bit slow! There were a few times we were going down a one way street and cars behind us were completely laying on their horns. Another woman on our tour was flipping those people off, and yelling at them. Honestly, they were beeping at an animal - it was pretty disgusting that they couldn't have a bit of patience for him. The carriage tour was great, as it gave a good overview of the French Quarter and we were able to gain some insight into other places we would want to see up close. We did make a stop at Saint Louis Cemetery No.1 and we all walked through it with our guide as she told us some history about it.

After the carriage tour we had to find somewhere to use a bathroom. This is one of the problems I discovered about New Orleans (and honestly, most tourist cities) - there are virtually no public restrooms! Since we had a decent amount of time until our next tour, we went to PJ's coffee and had a drink and snack. The next item on the list was the Pirates of the Quarter tour and it was probably my favorite/most enjoyed event in New Orleans proper! Our tour Pirate had a hilariously dry sense of humor and that matched well with our small but all adult group. The group we were paired with were a big part of our tour being even more awesome - they were funny (their senses of humor matched ours very well) and super friendly. I highly recommend the Pirates of the Quarter tour, it was a great walking tour, with a stop for drinks, and the Pirate was very knowledgeable.

After the pirate tour, we had dinner at Coterie Nola - the food here was really good and I highly recommend it! We had the Boudin Balls (seasoned pork and rice, panko breaded and fried, served with sauce remoulade), seafood gumbo (amazing!), and a shrimp and beef Po Boy. Their mixed drinks were unique and delicious.

We had a nice walk back from the restaurant to the hotel. Half of the walk it was busy enough to not feel afraid, and the other half was just really quiet. I didn't feel unsafe at all, even though some things I read online suggested that it wasn't a good idea.