New Orleans

You may remember that a couple years back I was taking test after test after test.  Well, when I finished all those tests I earned my CPCU (Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter) Designation.  When you earn your designation, you get to go on a trip to the conferment ceremony.  The trip I was supposed to go on was last September, to Washington DC, but being that I was 8 months pregnant, we deferred until this year.

Not that Washington DC wouldn't have been fun but I do think that New Orleans was more of an exciting place to go to!  I was excited for our trip and nervous at the same time because other than work, I haven't left Sawyer for more than a couple of hours at a time.  Now I was going to leave her for 4 days and 3 nights!?  It went better than I could have expected and we had a great time on our trip!

We fly out early Saturday morning and had to connect through Atlanta so we didn't get into New Orleans until around 1pm.  We quickly headed to our hotel and made our way over to the Hilton for the Conferment Ceremony.  It consisted of people getting awards and recognized for their accomplishments and there was also a guest speaker.  The speaker this year from Chris Gardner, the story line behind the Will Smith movie The Pursuit of Happyness.  He was a very good speaker and kept us engaged for the 1+ hours he talked.  The ceremony ended in true New Orleans fashion with a marching band marching through the ballroom complete with jesters and all!

After the ceremony, we headed over to have dinner with everyone from Federated at a place called Emeril's Delmonico.  The food was fabulous and we had a great time with everyone!

All dressed up for dinner at Emeril's.

Sunday we got up for breakfast and took the street car down to the French Quarters.  We had breakfast at a wonderful place called Stanley's (glad this was suggested to us)!  I had banana foster french toast and a bloody mary.  I can't remember the last time I had a bloody mary with breakfast, it as fantastic :)  After breakfast we figured we better try out the beignets while we were close to a Cafe Du Monde.  We had to wait in line for a while so we made more room after breakfast.  They were pretty good and worth the wait!

Once we were full, we decided to walk around the French Quarters.  We walked up and down the streets, especially Bourbon Street! 

What would a trip to New Orleans be without Bourbon Street?  I must say, it's pretty dirty and smelly though!

We saw a couple of wedding parades while we were there.  Pretty cool to have the road blocked off for your wedding!

Riding the street car from our hotel to the French Quarters.

Sunday afternoon we went back to the hotel and I took a nap!  I think Jeremy watched some football.  Lame?  Kind of.  But to take a nap was so nice.

After our relaxing afternoon, we headed back to the French Quarters to have dinner with one of my friends from work and her hubby.  We ate at a place called Royal Oyster.  This was not the night we tried the full on oysters, we weren't brave enough yet.  The food at this place was also great.   For appetizers we had some oyster tacos and gator bites.  For our meal Jeremy had Blackened Shrimp Jambalaya and I had a New Orleans Trio which had Gumbo, Jambalaya and Crawfish.  For dessert, Jess and I split some bread pudding :)

After dinner, we made our way down to Bourbon Street to meet up with some other Federated folk to watch the Vikings game.  We all hung out at a bar called The Swamp.  Pretty fitting.  Not sure if I'm just getting old or too far removed from the bar/drinking scene, but we only stayed out until 9:30ish before heading home.  A couple of hurricanes was enough for this mommy that never drinks anymore!

Monday we headed out to the swamp to take a Bayou Boat Tour.  It was nice because it was a tour on private land so they knew the area, the animals etc.

Jeremy on our Bayou Boat Tour.

A few of the gators we saw.

A pretty big gator on the shore.

A shack similar to what someone would live in on the swamp.

Our guide feeding "Lefty".

Part of the way through the tour, our guide surprised us and he had this baby alligator on board for everyone to hold!  This gator is about three years old - per the guide, they are about a foot long per year of age.  Pretty soon they won't be able to use this gator for tours as he's getting too big! 

Jeremy holding the gator.

My turn!

I was very surprised that the gator wasn't slimy at all, very scaly instead!

After the boat tour we went back to the hotel to freshen up before heading back to the French Quarters for our last night.  We did a little shopping and walking around before heading out to dinner.  Our friends Nick and Shannon were telling us about how great a place called Acme Oyster was that they had tried and how they were going back again it was so good.  After attempting to go to a place called Johnny's Po-Boys (we found out they only serve lunch when we got there), we decided to try it out.  Right after getting in line, here come Nick and Shannon.  It worked out great and the four of us had a fun time at dinner!

Their waitress the night before had told them if they come back, they needed to try the grilled oysters.  None of us were too sure what we were going to think of them, so we ordered half a dozen to share.  Well, they were delicious!  So delicious, that we ordered a dozen more!  I think I could have kept eating them all night.

Our dozen grilled oysters.

Three of us tried Po-Boys and they were good!  Mine was a half and half - half oysters and half shrimp.  Jeremy's was the same but it had some hot sauce on it too.  I must say, they were yummy!  

After we finished our meals, we were all talking about wanting to try a raw oyster but we just weren't sure.  Well, our waitress talked us into ordering half a dozen raw ones to try!

The raw ones definitely don't look at good as the grilled!  Nor did they taste as good in my opinion.

Look at that slimy oyster!

We watched some of the people at the table next to us take Oyster Shooters which consisted of a raw oyster, vodka and hot sauce.  I'm glad we opted for the raw oysters instead of those - one of the ladies had to choke it down!  Although I didn't love the raw ones, I'm glad we tried them!

After dinner, we went to a bar just off Bourbon Street that Shannon and Nick had heard of called The Dungeon.  You can see how tiny the doorway is - the alleyway into the bar is the same, skinny and eerie!  In reading some articles about the bar afterwards, we missed the best time to be there.  Apparently there is a whole other upstairs area that only opens after midnight.  We definitely weren't out late enough to check that out but nonetheless, it was a neat bar to try out.

Jeremy in front of the bar.

We had a fantastic trip to New Orleans and it was a nice little get-away for us!