Serindipity: Laissez les bon temps roulez part une

Monday, August 24, 2015

Laissez les bon temps roulez part une

Greetings from Nola! well not really, now I'm back in the Jerz, but my mind is still in Nola!

Monday is an extra struggle today because vacation mode is over and real life is creeping back in.

Today's agenda includes healthy food shopping (because I ate completely in-Erin like this weekend), , tutoring, weights and Zumba gym session, and then the girls are coming over for Bachelor in Paradise.

It's going to be a busy day, but I'm super excited to get back into my routine.

So after a delayed start, Friday morning I headed over to the airport. All flights were easy, on time, and full of serindipity.

I'm a HUGE fan of airport cardio-it lets me wander around all the kitschy stores and people watch while getting in a great workout-so I ended up meeting my Fitbit steps goal by 11 am. Not too shabby!

After wandering around for hours I was ready to board my flight from St. Louis to NOLA. On board there were 5 different bachelor parties. Crazy!

The serindipity part of the trip started right away. I got the last remaining aisle seat (I'm usually a window seat kinda girl but that would have meant sitting next to a bachelor party group and I'm just gonna say no to that 🍹🍸🍺🍻.

So I secured my seat and then promptly fell asleep. Does anyone else fall asleep immediately when the plane starts moving? I'm talking pulling away from the gate, before wheels are even up, falling asleep. Anyway I was out cold. I usually fly Southwest because I hate paying for bag fees and because I'm a Southwest pretzel junkie. A lot of airlines have done away with their snack but not Southwest!

Love those little babies!

The flight was great, super easy and fun. The layover in St. Louis was good, too. Lotsa walking. I even did some barre!

After some barre time, I wandered the airport looking at all of the shops.

Go Cards!

There's a chapel in this airport

My snow globe collection

Next, it was off to Nawlins!

No better sign

I met up with Zach after claiming my luggage and we were off to beignets!

Can you say foodgasm?

Portable coffee cup inside a coffee mug?

Inside Morning Call

They were gross…I couldn't finish them ;)

Cutest Mid City beignet spot

We wandered City Park for a while

City Park

View of the lake

You can see downtown from the running trails

After City Park we headed back to Zach's to change for dinner and get ready for our night out in the French Quarter.

Dinner was at Muriel's Jackson Square. Muriel's is actually a haunted NOLA restaurant and you can read about the ghost here.

Like Philly, NOLA has a similar restaurant week event--except it's an entire month!! Philly k think I have a suggestion for you. It's called the Coolinary Menu and it's a 3 course prix fix menu featuring specialty items. It was $40 for thee courses and after eating snackies all day, I was ready to mangé!

Salut!

Because we're both early birds we arrived 15 minutes early and then had a drink at the bar. I had a summer blues. It was amazing!

Bread all around! **Since I'm on vacation I let all of my food rules slide**

It came complete with amazing herb butter.

Seafood gumbo with extra hot sauce

Pecan crusted drum with veggies

Flourless chocolate sauce with raspberry and blackberry sauce! Holy dessert! This was worth every calorie

After dinner we wandered the Quarter and took the obligatory pic in front of PRINCESS TIANA'S CASTLE!

Yes I know it's St. Louis' Cathedral (the oldest cathedral in America) but it's a long story. You can read about it here.

After our hours of wandering, literally 2 hours of wandering, we met in front of the cathedral to get ready for our Vampire Tour.

We usually go on ghost tours whenever we travel because the history is actually really interesting. Zach and I have been on cemetery tours and ghost tours this far and we decided that we needed to add some blood suckers to our tour repertoire. The tour was really interesting and I learned some new information. Plus our tour guide looked like Gaston! He even wore the. Open button red long sleeve sheet with black pants! Totally separated at birth. Vampires are a little harder for me to come to terms with than ghosts, though.

After the tour we went to my favorite spot in the Quarter--Pat O'Brien's! We went to the dueling piano bar section and ended up getting prime seating right in front!