Crab, Coffee, and Luna Fete

This girl is tired!  Today was a different kind of fun.

My course ran all day and I won’t lie, it was awesome.  I really enjoy my work and it’s always exciting for me when I learn some new skills to apply to my job.  I can’t lie, today was all about budgets and cost analysis, but it was exciting to me.

Right after we were done though I changed and headed out to explore while I still had some daylight.  Today was hilarious for me because the hot topic around the table was the weather and how surprisingly cold it is today.  I would just smile and nod and listen.  I went out tonight in a sweater, the people on the street were in winter jackets or even walking around wrapped in blankets.  

I meandered around the French Quarter for a while, listening to the street musicians and popping into the odd shop, most of them selling touristy things. New Orleans has this unique flair that I can’t quite articulate.  The buildings are old, some definitely having seen better days, but they also just seem to fit.  It’s got a party vibe, but also a classy side.  I’m not certain how the two manage to coexist so closely.

Dinner was almost an overwhelming experience for me.  I was tempted to go back and eat at my hotel.  If you know me, you know that I love to research and plan.  Spontaneous is hard. Fun but hard.  When travelling I rely heavily on my TripAdvisor app or referral to make sure that I’m investing my time and resources towards the best possible experience.  I also, as a general rule, like to eat where the locals would eat and not at a fancy inflated for tourists froufrou sort of place.  Real food, real people.  

I walked for a long time just absorbing the atmosphere, but when I started getting hungry I started looking for a nice place.  The problem?  Too many, oh so many restaurants and all of them rated well. I kept second guessing myself, and a few times aborted my plans last minute because the patrons were dressed waaay better than I, or  in one case the well rated restaurant was mostly empty  and that was a bit of a flag.

My quest led to a random surprise, back in the business district I came across this crowd of people standing in the park all facing this old building.  I mean a lot of people, looking at nothing, so naturally I joined the crowd because apparently I’m more of a follower than I like to admit.  There was also a countdown clock set at less than two minutes, so what did I have to lose?

Amazing, I had stumbled upon Luna Fete, a free nightly festival for the next few days which had a few booths but also this really awesome hourly show projected on the old building across the street.  Behold:

Really cool!

When I stopped to look at the other end of the park, there was a laser rainbow on display, which according to the sign, is visible for 35 miles.

After that I was more hungry than I was obsessed with finding the perfect place to eat, and saw a flashing marquis in the distance that said: Cafe.  I closed my app and went with the flow.

Oh yum!  What a find.  It was a pretty restaurant with some pretty great food.  I settled on seafood gumbo, crab cheesecake, yes you read that right, and bananas foster for dessert.  I even had some coffee with chicory to which I must confess didn’t taste a whole lot different to me.  

Full and happy, I walked back to my hotel to prep for another day of work tomorrow.