Exploring the French Quarters

Our next day in New Orleans we hit up all the tourist sites that my in-laws suggested to us (thanks!).

First stop was to Cafe du Monde for these very famous, and delicious beignets (french doughnuts)

After we ate our donuts we walked around to some little shops and I did something very, very stupid.  I saw through a window of one of the shops a sign that said "free sample, hot sauce".  Well I love hot sauce so I went right in, grabbed a piece of popcorn, dipped it in the hot sauce and threw it in my mouth, ignoring the signs that said "caution very hot.  Sorry too hot for children".  As soon as that hot sauce hit my tongue I knew it was a very bad decision that I had just made.  My mouth was on FIRE!  My face was turning pink, I was sweating, my eyes were watering, and my ears felt like they had smoke coming out of them.  Some lady who worked in the shop saw me, laughed and said, "I see you tried the hot sauce".  She gave me a sample of something else to try to cool my mouth down; didn't work.  Ryan walked out and saw a sign for some ice-cold lemonade at another little shop so he got me a glass.  The lemonade worked, but after a few seconds of taking a sip the burning would come back.  It took at least 30 minutes for my mouth/whole body to re-coupperate from that experience.
Lesson learned: never try hot sauce in Louisiana--they know how to make it real HOT.

As I was trying to cool my mouth back down we walked around the flea market.

Then we went to the Old U.S. Mint Building.  Upstairs was a little jazz museum that was really cool.

Then we headed to the St. Louis Cathedral which is the oldest, active cathedral in the U.S. 

Next, we went to the Louisiana State Museum.

The first part of the museum was all about Hurricane Katrina.  There were lots of videos, pictures, and artifacts left behind from the hurricane which helped us to understand how destructive it really was.  

The second part of the museum was all about Mardi Gras.  There were tons of crazy Mardi Gras costumes on display that were really cool to see.

We also went to a southern restaurant called the Gumbo Pot and for the first time I tried gumbo, jambalaya, and étouffée.
We had a great time exploring New Orleans.