Globe Corner Blogs

On a recent trip to New Orleans for spring break, I found the city of my birth to be as interesting and unique as I had always imagined it. (I left when I was six-months-old).  Part “old-world” European, and part something all its own, traveling to New Orleans is like leaving the country without having to change currency or take your passport.  I spent the first day – inappropriately dressed for the humid spring weather in a sweatshirt and scarf – taking in the massive freighters steaming down the Mississippi and capping off the evening with some crawfish étouffée in the French Quarter: the perfect introduction to the Crescent City.

The following day, I had a brunch of red beans and rice before wandering the entire length of Magazine Street.  Filled with hipsters, antique dealers, and boutique shops, Magazine Street is a great place to window shop or empty your wallet into a slew of waiting cash registers housed in handsomely decorated stores.  One shop spoke to my inner science-nerd: The Southern Fossil and Mineral Exchange – a store filled with rocks, minerals, mounted beetles and butterflies, and of course, really sweet fossils from around the world.  I bought a slab of slate, encrusted with 5 million-year-old herring to weight down my luggage for the trip home.  Thusly sated with the shopping experience, and entirely soaked from the supersaturated swamp clouds that poured their contents onto every inch of my being, I went indoors and called it a night.

No visit to New Orleans is complete without a visit to the Audubon Zoo.   Not only is it named after an awesome naturalist and bird-lover who called The Big Easy home in the early 1800s, it’s also the theme of a fabulous song by the Meters.  The day I went all of the animals were out and about, waiting for the rain and engaging me in staring contests (the gorilla was the scariest – I felt like I was in the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn!).  Among the highlights were the zoo’s white alligators (not albino), a cool archaeological dig for kids, the newly arrived baby orangutan who hid in a barrel attached to ropes nearly 30 feet above the ground, and a swamp exhibit featuring a rusty bathtub, gross pond scum, a floating house boat, and swamp bears (who knew?).

Dinner that night was at Jacques-Imo’s, a unique establishment serving innovative and higher-end Cajun-Creole food, housed in a diner-style, walk-through-the-kitchen-to-get-to-your-table casual atmosphere.  There I ate alligator and sausage, cheesecake, and Cajun BBQ shrimp, and my brother enjoyed the bacon wrapped quail; in summary, it was fabulous.

My last full day was spent visiting the small and eclectic Voodoo Museum (I’ve been fascinated with Voodoo/Houdon culture since reading Wade Davis’ The Serpent and the Rainbow); the dusty and informative Pharmacy Museum, resplendent with medicinal torture devices and tinctures from the days of yore; and taking a haunted cemetery tour in a crowded group through one of the more famous of New Orleans above-ground cemeteries.   I even saw some grave workers building the mausoleum of not-yet-deceased Nicolas Cage, a tall pointy pyramid, that the locals are less than thrilled about because he apparently bypassed the 50+ year wait for a slot in that sacred ground.

New Orleans is truly an eclectic mix of food, art, and things to buy and see. I’m proud to say I was born in the Big Easy.

Read more: Food & Wine, Louisiana, Museums, New Orleans, Travel


Meghan went around the world in 2006, and is dying to do it again. Meghan loves all things ocean and enjoys scuba diving in exotic locales.

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