A Streetcar We Desired

All we wanted was a streetcar. We had heard about a big music and art festival being held at Palmer Park that Saturday from 10 to 4 and were told to just "get on a streetcar as far as it will take you." So we tried.

They say New Orleans is the most European city in America. Well, we decided it must be most like Italy in the form of public transportation.

The Whitney Wyndham is a block from St. Charles Avenue, where the streetcars run, we we walked over to the pickup spot and waited for a few minutes before this streetcar came rolling up.

Needless to say, we decided to take our chances with the next one.

We waited a couple minutes before deciding we should just start walking down St. Charles and pick the next available streetcar as it approaches us. So off we went, hand-in-hand down St. Charles Avenue. It was a warm day, but we were optimistic. We walked down to Lee Circle and turned right. It had been maybe 20 minutes by now at our leisurely pace, and we were wondering why we had yet to see a streetcar.

A man on his cigarette break outside a hotel told us we were bound to see one soon at the stop there. After all, streetcars come by about every seven to eight minutes. We took his advice, but decided we were so close to the beautiful Garden District of New Orleans, that we wanted to continue our walk until we got picked up. So off we went again.
We saw beautiful homes in the Garden District. It was a really pretty walk and shaded by lots of towering oak trees, so it wasn't too bad really. But after those 11 blocks, we were no longer around the gorgeous homes nor shaded by stately oaks. After a couple more blocks, we were desperately wondering where the streetcars were, so we ducked into a Walgreens to buy some bottled water and inquire.

Ends up, the streetcars are sporadic on the weekends... as a general rule. No wonder we hadn't seen one for the past hour and a half! But we were already too far gone (over 2 and a half miles) to turn back around, so onward we pressed, determined to get to that art festival.

Shortly there after, we heard a faint noise on the tracks. Could it be? We glanced back and saw our long awaited streetcar barreling down the tracks, so we ran full speed to the next stop in order to get on.

And on we got!

We rode until we arrived at Palmer Park. But by then it was 3:50. The vendors were packing up their wares and the live music had ended. It was a very anti-climatic ending to our streetcar adventure.
But undaunted, we decided to ride the next streetcar (by now they were back on schedule) a little ways back to Audubon Park and just meander through the scenery there. Dinner was in the general area, so we wanted to stay a little longer on that side of town.

Shaun decided to work on his fitness.

On the walk to dinner we saw this gorgeous, old brick building and tried to decide what it was. After some sleuthing, we concluded that it was one of the cutest elementary schools we had seen.

Dinner! Finally! We were hungry after our long trek across New Orleans. Shaun, being the romantic that he is, had surprised me with the restaurant, Le Crepe Nanou. It was a cute French restaurant that apparently had quite a name for itself. We were there early so we were the first ones seated, but by the time we got our entrees, the restaurant was packed and a line waited outside!

Appetizer of seafood gratin -- a cheesy baked dish of crawfish tails, shrimp, and crabmeat.

We ordered two crepes to share -- a ratatouille crepe and a crabmeat/creamed spinach crepe!

Dessert? No, we didn't get sweet crepes. We opted for the Creole Creamery instead. We decided to pass on the olive oil flavor, but the Ultimate Cookie Dough and Lavender Honey were delicious!

And if there was ice cream, my friends, you can be sure it was a good day!


(PS- I apologize for the cheesy literary allusion in the title... the English major in me just couldn't help it...)