Nawlins part deux

I can't believe we still had energy after that first day jam-packed with goodness, but we did. We grabbed the Charles St street car over to midtown, and to a restaurant that came highly recommended: Jacques-Imo's.
I kid you not, we waited 2 1/2 hours for a table, seriously! We'd heard it was worth it so we stuck around, but I'm not going to lie, by the time our name was called, I was going seriously postal. I was so blood sugar crabby, if I had been a gun-wielding gal, there could have been some trouble. Luckily, we had plenty to keep our attention during the heinous wait. There was a drunk old guy "Grandpa Boogie" out front reading people's tarot cards that kept us quite entertained. We bought him a drink as a thank-you, and sadly, I don't think he recognized us after our dinner. Drunk much?
The other thing that kept us entertained was the actual table outside the restaurant in a spray-painted truck. We played on it for a while, kinda fun! Or maybe that was the hunger talking.I have to say, as bitchy as I felt at the end of the 2 1/2 hours, it really WAS worth the wait, that was truly some of the best grub I've EVER had. The food was delicious!!!!! Our appetizer was, no joke, an alligator shrimp sausage cheesecake...sounds disgusting, but it was creamy cajun spicy goodness...slurp! I had a blackened redfish and fried green tomatoes. Wowza.
After that, we had to work off our fatty food so we headed to the Rock N Bowl for live music and...well...bowling! Unfortunately no lanes were open, that place was jamming, but we did get to dance and watch the famous Kermit Ruffins...he was great!

The next morning we grubbed at a greasy spoon diner called the Clover Grill. Truly some of the best biscuits and grits I've ever had, served in perfection by the grumpiest waiter ever, but somehow, it just all worked.
With full bellies (again, turning out to be quite the theme of this trip), we headed off for more fun.


And promptly followed by....wait for it...more food! Mufalattas at the Central Grocery...delicious and again, worth the wait in line.

Mufalattas are amazing, but that sat like a lump in my belly. Time to go walk around the park.

And sit on a sheep just for fun.

Now, back to the serious business of bloody mary touring. Next stop: the fun Carousel Bar. It actually rotates and has the original "guts" of an actual carousel from back in the day. Lots of fun for a few rotations (and 2 bloody mary's) but after that, enough! I'm about to barf, let me off this thing!

And THEN, I was so excited, we got to see a parade! Randomly (who knew there were so many Italians in Louisiana?) there was an Italian-American parade, and it was fantastic. Lots of red, white and green beads, guidos galore, and adorable little Italian girls in white dresses...the parade went on forever and ever.

Apparently, Italians like blonds, who knew? My goodies kept multiplying, and I SWEAR, Mom and Dad, that no boobs were shown! I did have to give a lot of cheek smooches, though, but it was all worth it.
By the end I was bogged down with beads and schwag, it was so much fun!

Nawlins!

Between selling our house, struggling with last-minute snafu's, finding a rental, securing a moving company, building a new house and having a husband practically chained to his work desk, we were CLEARLY looking to add something else to our lives. :) Luckily, we'd planned a vacation to New Orleans last year, so there was nothing that would keep us from our travels. It was super stressful leading up to the trip, with Rob's work schedule and a quickly dwindling timeline for the big move, we had to really hustle, but it all worked out!

Here's the standard airport self-portrait...funny enough, we were sitting in the exact seats that we were on our last photo like this, on the way to Denver last year!
We got to New Orleans around midnight and walked around a bit checking out our town. Of course, our noses led us right to the Cafe de Monde. I will tell you what, there is NOTHING better than beignets and chickory coffee at midnight. Slurp!Warning, though, don't laugh hysterically while eating these beignets. I almost met my maker choking on the powdered sugar taking this photo, ha! What a way to go, you'd have to say something about my carb addiction getting me in the end on my tombstone.

Our hotel was a recommendation from a coworker of mine, and it was great. It's the Hotel Villa Convento and was allegedly a brothel back in the day. Good times! The House of the Rising Sun song is written about it. We loved our hotel and the balcony overlooking Ursulines St - here's the view from the balcony.

Day 2 we went on a super long walk through some neighborhoods surrounding the French Quarter, we went to a killer breakfast joint called Elizabeth's that our hotel lady recommended. The walk was perfect because let's just say we ate our weight in cajun food, delicious! Check this spread out: Rob's breakfast was actually called a "Morning Chubber" hahahahaha - and mine was melted brie cheese and smoked salmon over rye...with all the grits you could shove down. I blame my current muffin top situation on this breakfast alone.
Dig my mug:

More importantly, we began the ever vital Bloody Mary tour of New Orleans. This one was just so-so, but I do love the ocra as an accoutrement. Good times.

More walking afterwards, and I LOVE all the architecture of New Orleans, it was really neat to see all the different houses.

The neighborhoods looked pretty good and fairly nicely rebuilt but we did see some residual Katrina damage (and of course we heard it was much worse the further outside of the tourist areas you got).

We came across the most random junk shop, some fantastic finds, lots of character. Questionable guy running the joint, but that seemed pretty typical in Nawlins.We wandered and checked out other neighborhoods, here's a sampling of some of the sights.


After all that walking, we needed...more booze! Onward to Bourbon Street we went...

Lafitte's was built in the 1800's, that place is literally leaning to one side, so ancient! Lots of fun, though, a must-do.

Rob had a Pim's Cup...

and I had Bloody Mary #2. Hysterical what happened, with the blood sugar meds I take, I'm not really supposed to drink, so I asked the bartender to go light on the vodka. Well her version of "light" and my version of "light" must be really different, because she honestly put about 3 shots in my little cup. ha! I learned my lesson and just had virgins after that.Rob went into a sugar coma with this drink...it was essentially a "drink this" kind of a moment from the waitress.


At the bar where Rob tried his first crazy sweet Bourbon street drink, there was live Zydeco music...it was so fun! Check out the guy with the washboard, clearly he ate his Wheeties that morning.

Honey, I don't think you're supposed to feed the wildlife.
Some other Bourbon street fun...


After all that walking, we needed more food! We stopped off for a shrimp po-boy and fried okra (slurp!) and soaked in some more live music...this time with a guy who basically phoned his performance in (thus, Rob's face):

Then we took the cable car through the Garden District for yet another bloody mary - this time at the Columns, so beautiful! (and one of my favorite bloodys of the trip, for those of you playing along at home, that's #3):
After that, we wandered up Charles St and enjoyed all of the gorgeous homes while the sun set, gorgeous!!!


I just realized this post is hella-long, so I'm going to cut it at this point and start another, just in time for some nighttime activities!