Two days left...no pressure!

With only two days left here in NOLA, we're trying to sort through the list of all we wanted to do but haven't yet and, of those, what our priorities are if we can't get to them all.  Having said that, I promised Andrew that he could sleep in today - we've been up and out of the house early every other day, so far.  He took full advantage and slept until 9 am - scandal!  I was awake at 6:30, which is pretty good for me.  We showered and hit the door by 11 am to meet some friends at the Louisiana Seafood Festival.  

The LSF takes place every fall here in New Orleans.  They have live music and, you guessed it, lots of seafood.  About 50 local restaurants prepare a few dishes each and sell them out of tents.  The choices were almost overwhelming, but we managed to pick out a few.   Andrew ate his lobster mac & cheese before I could photograph it. 

Lobster ravioli

Shrimp po' boy

Oyster tacos

After eating all we could hold, and then some, we walked to the trolley stop and back to Canal Street.  The friends we met up with wanted to go down to the Garden District and look around. As we had already done this, we opted to go down to the river front to see what caught our eye.  Almost immediately after getting off the trolley, we noticed the aquarium.  Since we didn't make it to the zoo, we decided that the aquarium would be a nice substitute.  We spent a couple of hours there looking at the exhibits.  Andrew was very happy that they had an aviary room where you could feed the parakeets.  As usual, I took photos and tried to steer clear of the creepy birds.  

Us on the streetcar

This Moray was a good 7 feet long, and as big around as a leg.  Look carefully down
in the left corner, there's a lobster down there that weighed about 40 pounds!

I can't even count how many pictures we have EXACTLY like this.
He loves to feed the animals.

After the aquarium, we walked back to the Quarter via the river walk, which follows along the Mississippi.  It was hot today - temps in the upper 80s (about 30 Celsius) and very humid, necessitating a stop for ice cream along the way.   We made it home to the air conditioned apartment and happily relaxed until it was time to get ready for a late dinner.  

The Mighty Mississippi - a little less mighty this time of year, but still impressive.

Jackson Square & St. Louis Cathedral

Just before 8 pm, which is typically about bedtime for us, we went out for our last dinner in New Orleans.  I still had a muffaletta on The List, and I was not going to leave without one.  A little internet research and I found Napoleon House - not only one of the oldest buildings in New Orleans, but they offered a muffaletta AND a charcuterie plate on the appetizer menu.  I'm in!   

For those who may not be familiar, a muffaletta is a sandwich popularized by Central Deli here in New Orleans.  It consists of deli meats (salami, pastrami, etc.), cheese (usually provolone) and an olive tapenade (a chopped olive salad).  It's all piled on to a large round loaf of bread, and it is delicious.  We shared a 1/2 of one, and we would have been perfectly fine sharing a 1/4 for what we ended up not being able to finish.

Muffaletta!

In addition, they offered a cheese board and a charcuterie plate on the appetizer menu.  Charcuterie is the practice of making prepared meats such as cured sausages, pates, terrines, and confit.  Besides my odd love of cemeteries, I must also confess an addiction to charcuterie products.  I have never met a cured or potted meat that I didn't like!  Add in some cornichon & spicy mustard, and you achieve perfection.  Seriously, this will go down as being one of my top ten meals!

Cheese plate and charcuterie - amazing!

After an amazing dinner, we walked around for a little bit until it was time to head to the pre-wedding party Cliff & Chris had planned.  They had rented Preservation Hall for a performance!  Preservation Hall is a building from 1750 that was taken over in 1961 as a venue to preserve New Orleans jazz.  Some of the biggest names in jazz have played this tiny, run down little venue.  While I'm not a jazz aficionado, I can certainly appreciate the history of this building.  We were allowed in just after 10 pm and filed in to the smallest concert venue I've ever seen.  There were a couple of rows of rustic benches, and chairs at the front for the band.  That was it.  Even with only 60 guests invited, there was not enough room for everyone to sit.  

At 10:15 pm, the band came in and the adventure began.  They played for approximately an hour and quickly had everyone clapping and tapping.  Some guests were dancing, some were singing along;  all were grinning from ear to ear.   The band was having such a great time playing that it was infectious.  At one point, one of the saxophone players got up and led the entire group around the building in a modified conga line.  What an experience!  

Preservation Hall = not much to look at from the outside.

And, not from the inside either.  

Small venue - seating for about 40 people, only.  

Waiting for the band

After the band finished, we all trooped over to a little cigar bar around the corner.  Cliff & Chris had made arrangements with them to stay open past their 11 pm closing time so that we could avoid the crush of Saturday night on Bourbon Street.  It is so fun to see all the Lethbridge people (Mario, Barry, Luis, Jason, Sandy, Di, Marj) here in NOLA!  

Now it's VERY late for us - almost 2 am!  Tomorrow is our last full day in New Orleans, and the wedding...stay tuned!