New Orleans Fun!

One of my favorite activities in the whole world is traveling. Once I had my wake up call that my health was declining and I couldn’t deny it anymore, I realized that I really need to make sure that I am doing the things that I want to do while I can. A big goal of mine is to travel as much as possible. I really wanted to go on this huge road trip as a hoorah for graduating college, where we would drive around the entire U.S. for a month and camp and see all of the beautiful sites to see in the country. However, I have to accept the fact that camping for that long is just not doable for me anymore. I would have to worry about keeping my medications refrigerated, where to get enough power for all of my machines, and making sure that I made the time and energy to take care of myself properly. So now we are just doing a bunch of small traveling instead. I still fully intend on seeing all of the places that I want to see because I will NOT let Cystic Fibrosis take that away from me.

This winter break we were able to find a relatively cheap vacation to New Orleans. Both Andy and I have been wanting to go there because of the amazing food and culture. So we booked the trip, waited a few months (which was surprisingly easy; probably because of all the holiday stress), and then packed our bags and were on our way! The packing was mostly pretty easy because we were only going to be gone for 4 days. We were able to pack just one suitcase and then my vest. We prefer to travel as light as possible. So basically here is how packing goes with Cystic Fibrosis. You spend about 5 minutes packing your normal people stuff, such as clothes and toiletries, then you spend about an hour getting all of your CF stuff in order. I will be writing a post on what it’s like to travel with CF, so I will cover all specifics later because I just wanna tell you about all of the fun that I had!!!

The first day of our trip was by far the longest day. Andy still had to work until 10pm the day before our flight, which was at 8am the next morning 3 hours away. Soooo… once he got off of work we did all of our packing. I had spent half the day not feeling well, and the other half of the day cleaning the whole house to get it ready for us to be gone for vacation. We finally got on the road at about 1am. We were going to stop for a little bit of sleep at Andy’s parent’s house on the way down, but we were both feeling ok and thought that we’d rather have the extra time at the airport than only sleeping for 2 hours and risk not being able to get up. I’m glad it all worked out the way it did because the funniest thing happened on the way down. We stopped to get gas at a Kwik Trip. Andy went inside to buy some coffee and snacks while I sat in the car and waited. While I was in the car waiting for him, two little Amish boys and their father walk out and climb in the 15-passenger van parked next to us. Then a couple minutes later the grandparents come out and climb in the van. Then a few minutes after that comes the rest of the family with Andy as the caboose. He had to stand in line the whole time they were loading up the van, which they had enough people to fill every single seat in that van, because they were blocking his way to get into the car. I so wish I could’ve gotten a picture of that sight!!! About an hour after that silly occurrence, we made it to the airport with hours to spare. Even though the line for security was pretty long, we made it through smoothly. If any of you don’t know about the laws and regulations for medications and medical equipment, here is a link to the TSA website: TSA: Disabilities and Medical Conditions. It was good to be informed. The thing that I was most glad that I knew going into this trip was that they can’t charge you for extra baggage if all that’s in there is medical supplies or machinery. This was great because now I can bring my Vest now that it’s not a 40 lb. monster! My Vest even came with a super handy duffel bag on wheels when I got it! I was able to double check and make sure about the policies about them charging for medical equipment on the specific airline’s website, not the TSA’s website (in case anyone was wondering or needs to find out for themselves). During our way to our gate we stopped and had breakfast at one of the airport restaurants. It was the first time that can recall actually sitting down and eating in an airport, so that was pretty exciting! Then we waited at the gate for the rest of our wait. We boarded the plane, with no trouble with my Vest I might add, and promptly tried to go to sleep. However, it was only a 2 hour flight and I can’t sleep on planes so I was still severely sleep deprived…

We arrived in New Orleans and immediately got a taxi to go to our hotel. We stayed at the Royal St. Charles just outside of the French Quarter. It was in a really nice location, since all we had to do to go to the French Quarter was walk across the street yet avoided the craziness of the French Quarter at the same time. The best thing happened when we checked in. They said we could give them an email and we could check into our room right away, so we most definitely did that! We unpacked some of our clothes and luggage and then passed out until dinner time. We were still pretty tired from the sleep deprivation, so all we planned to do that night was eat dinner and go right back to the hotel to relax. So that’s what we did. However, before we could actually lay down for a nap we had to go down to the front desk to figure out what to do about my Pulmozyme. There was no refrigerator in our hotel room, which I had never really encountered before. The lady was super nice about it, and she had someone bring a little fridge to our room immediately.  We had it up in our room a minute later. After napping we walked around the French Quarter a tiny bit, just to see what it was like. Then we went to the Acme Oyster House to actually eat. We got to sit right at the oyster bar and watch them shuck oysters the whole time we were there. The people were so nice and talked to us, and the others at the bar, the whole time we were there and the food was AMAZING. We got deep-fried crawfish to start with, which tasted a lot like clams. Then I had char-grilled oysters for dinner and Andy had a seafood po-boy. Those oysters were so amazingly good; it may have been my favorite meal of the trip! After dinner we went back to the hotel and watched Modern Family for the rest of the night. It was so relaxing.

We finally got to sleep!!! The first thing we did the next morning was head over to Café du Monde for some beignets and café au lait. It was sooo good. The beignets were full of yummy powdered sugar and so light and fluffy and crispy. I highly suggest them, but make sure you get them at Café du Monde. It really IS the best place to get them! We spent the rest of the day just walking all up down the streets of the French Quarter just looking at the sights to see. We would stop in a shop here and there to look at all the trinkets. We had so much fun just goofing around and seeing the sights there were to see. We even stopped at a bar and grabbed a beer to sip on while we were walking around because you can do that in the French Quarter. I got an Abita Amber, which is a local beer and very delicious. Our next stop after hours of roaming the streets was lunch. We stopped at a place called Bayou Burger and had some really amazing food! Andy tried a gator burger, which was very tasty. I truthfully can’t remember what I ordered because all I remember is eating these amazingly delicious corn rounds. They were literally just circles of corn cut from a cob, pan-fried in some cajun spices, and topped with a little bit of queso fresco cheese. Mmmmmm… After we were sufficiently stuffed we went back to the hotel to rest a little and for me to do my midday treatment. All that walking really wears a girl with crappy lungs out! While we were resting up, Andy researched a fancy restaurant for us to go eat at. He really wanted us to go to a really nice restaurant at least one of the nights. If only it was because he was romantic, not because he just likes eating fancy food… sigh. Tehe. Well regardless, the food at this restaurant (the name is escaping me) was really delicious. We got even more oysters for an appetizer, our waiter suggested an amazing pinot noir for me, and then we had fish for dinner. After we had treated ourselves to that lovely dinner we decided to hit Bourbon Street, since that’s “the thing” to do when you are in New Orleans. We started out with hand grenades, which are basically like the long island ice teas of New Orleans. Man were those disgusting! They tasted like liquid sour skittles. We definitely had a hard time finishing those.. Alas, we did it, saved the cups, and went on to have some not disgusting drinks. We spent most of the rest of the night in a piano bar that had “dueling” pianos. We had so much fun we lost track of time and just went back to the hotel once we got tired. After we were hanging out at the hotel it occurred to us that we had no idea what time we got back because there is basically no bar close. So we looked at our phones to see when we stopped taking steps… 1:30am folks, we made it to 1:30am! Not even bar close in Wisconsin!!!

So the next morning was kind of rough and we definitely slept in. Haha. It was good, though, and we were proud of ourselves for doing Bourbon Street at least once. The forecast for today said that it was supposed to be rainy, so we saved our indoor activities for this day.  After a lazy time getting up and ready to start the day, we headed off to Café Beignet (yet another place we were told to eat at). Let me tell you… The beignets at Café du Monde were far superior. However, I did have a fantastic omelet and Andy had a Muffaletta (a sandwich with some kind of olive spread on it). After that we walked over to the streetcar station to take it to the Aquarium. While it wasn’t a far walk by any means,  we were warned not to miss the experience of riding on a streetcar. More on that later, though. We arrived at the Aquarium and were blown away by its beauty. It was right on the Mississippi River and had beautiful architecture. It was so fun to walk around and see all the awesome fish. We even got to the penguin exhibit right at feeding time, so that was really cute. They told us about all the different penguins and their personalities. My favorite penguin was the one that would only eat if he got to chase his food. I thought that was pretty funny.  We spent a good chunk of the day at the Aquarium because it was so big and so dang cool. I didn’t even need to sit down and rest at all! Once we left the Aquarium, we decided that we wanted to walk around the French Quarter some more. A lot of our walking today was spent in the French Market. We got to look at a bunch of cool knick-knacks. I got a scarf as a souvenir and we also got some Voodoo chips (which are AMAZING and everyone should try them). We found some gumbo along the way, since that was something we still had to try. Andy’s was definitely better than mine, but that was the first food I had there that was sub-par so I can’t really complain. After walking around for a bit more it was time to stop for dinner. We shared an amazing seafood boil. It was an amazingly tasty last dinner in New Orleans!

We woke up on our last day, packed our bags, checked out of our hotel, and spent our last few hours in New Orleans. The hotel staff at the Royal St. Charles was extremely nice. They were very kind and accommodating the minute we got there all the way until we departed for the airport. Our last meal in New Orleans was at a Café near our hotel, in the opposite direction of the French Quarter. It was cool to see that part of the town because we had only explored the French Quarter. I had one last meal of oysters and Andy had his turtle soup and crawfish etoufee. All of it was delicious and we were certainly sad to leave all of the amazing food that we had filled our bellies with the whole week. After that delicious meal we were able to take the streetcar to the Audubon Park. We unfortunately did not make it to the zoo, which is on the other side of the park. However, the day was literally the most perfect day in the entire world. It was 72 degrees, clear skies, and a slight breeze. We laid in the grass for a little while. Andy rested his eyes and tried to play with some of the aquatic birds that were in the pond we were sitting by, and I played a few games of solitaire. We just wanted to take in all the beautiful scenery and the fantastic-ness that was our vacation. After relaxing in the beautiful weather, we decided to take a little walk around the park. We didn’t make it all that far because we didn’t have all that much time left and my lungs were beyond exhausted from all the walking that we did the rest of the week. I could not believe it.. We looked at our phones to see how much walking we actually did: SEVEN MILES A DAY. I was blown away (haha.. Puns) by how much walking we did and that I was able to do all of that without struggling too much. As we were riding the streetcar back to our hotel to get our luggage and catch our taxi, we were astounded by all of the beautiful houses that were lining the street. We later learned from our cab driver that all the beautiful houses are hiding some extremely sketchy neighborhoods….. Yikes. The streetcars were really cool. They worked just like a bus, where you could get on and off on the route as you pleased. It was interesting to see that the streetcars even had their own traffic lights and all that! Well, eventually we got to the airport and made it through security in about 5 or 10 minutes, which was about 10 times faster than when we were leaving to come to New Orleans. It was really funny because at the Chicago airport it was my nebulizer that made their x-ray machine put a red flag up, but at the New Orleans airport it was my Vest. It’s kind of weird that they didn’t both cause flags both times. It was fine with me, though, because on the way back we had all of our souvenirs packed with my nebulizer and that would’ve been extremely annoying to unpack all that just to pack it back up again. I had my Vest in its nifty little duffle bag, so that was super easy. Then we were back in Chicago and drove home.

All in all it was an extremely successful vacation. It’s one more destination we can check off our list. Although it was a lot of walking and I was DEFINITELY worn out when we got back, we had so much fun seeing amazing sights and most importantly… eating a bunch of delicious food.

P.S. You can check out all the pictures from our vacation on my Facebook page: The Living, Breathing Wendy. Make sure you go ahead and like it while you are there!