Brewhaha and PoBoy Festivals

This weekend we attended a festival on both Saturday and Sunday. You're not surprised are you? :P

Saturday was the Broad Street Brewhaha- a festivus dedicated to celebrating New Orleans' beer and coffee brewing traditions. It was actually only the second one. Since I enjoy both beer and coffee I thought this would be fun. Plus two of our friends were meeting us there and one of them had been away for six weeks, so we needed to get together!

Held on top of an abandoned grocery store, Brewhaha was not what I had anticipated. 

There was a live band, 

and herbs to purchase,

and people carrying their dog around their shoulders,

and some sights to see:

those feather things were for sale

But mostly I was hoping to check out some cool beer and coffee co's.
While Abita was there (obviously), the only other beer company was NOLA (our fav!). We got to see our friend Dylan (of NOLA brewery) and try their new Irish Stout premier dark brew. Go out and get that if you haven't tried it yet!
For coffee, there was only the New Orleans Coffee Co. I bought their dark mocha java and they ground it espresso thin for me. Besides those three stands, there were also people selling tchotckies that looked like they came out of their attic.
And, this woman selling pickles and dvd's:

she didn't want to chat

Sunday was the much anticipated New Orleans Preservation Poboy Festival on Oak Street. 

Walking in, there was a band playing on a stage and people happily dancing in the street- what a great sight to see!

Then there was this lady, staring out of her window down onto the chaos:

These people also had a great view on top of the Maple Leaf Bar:

I knew it would be difficult for me to find food there. While some people had mentioned the possibility of finding a portobello mushroom poboy and my friends actually saw fried mashed potato poboys, I had a really hard time getting through the crowd to find anything I could eat. There were thousands of people all crowded in to one street and literally the walking crowd was at a standstill many times. It was actually a little frustrating. The most popular poboys sold seemed to be shrimp of various kinds, pork debris, bbq, sausage, and alligator. Finally we saw a sign for Le Citron Bistro having a spicy french fry poboy for sale.

Le Citron Bistro's French Fry Poboy

I was pretty hungry, so the poboy was good to me. But, nothing I would order normally. Ben found his poboy at the Crescent City Pie & Sausage Co. He had a spicy sausage poboy with creole mustard on top- i think his mouth was on fire. And he enjoyed it.

While we ate we happily listened to the marching band leading a WHO DAT chant and playing When the Saints Go Marching In. Nothing gets a NOLA crowd going (including myself) more than those two songs.

this lady was so joyful and had so much NOLA spirit

Then, we moved on to more food. Ben had the blackened fish tacos and got me a bean taco.

Ben's fish tacos

My bean taco didn't look pretty but was really tasty. Then, instead of listening to my belly I decided to order a frozen hot chocolate from Blue Frog. I had been wanting to visit Blue Frog for a while and the frozen hot chocolate caught my eye. They were also selling Zapps crawtator chips dipped in chocolate! I should've tried those, but my belly couldn't take more food. Having had Serendipity's (NYC) famous frozen hot chocolate more times that I could count, I was pretty skeptical about Blue Frog's version. But, it was really good! By then our bellies were super full and we called the eating quits. 

I must say, these were not my two favorite festivals. But, I did have a good time and I learned something. I greatly enjoy my alone quiet time. I love to read. I love my home yoga practice. I love to just lie there and watch my thoughts. But, I am also definitely an extrovert. Many times, I get my positive energy from  spending time with other people. This weekend was no different. On Saturday morning I was not in a good mood at all, until I got to spend time with friends. We had beer and coffee and even though there wasn't much to check out at Brewhaha, we stood around chatting, and were happy. 

On Saturday we went to the Poboy Festival with Ben's lab group- who happen to be a group of girls I really like but don't get to see enough. While we had to split up in the crowd to find food and didn't get to spend enough time together, I was really happy to see those girls! 

Which brings me to a personal universal truth: what really matters is not what i'm doing but who I'm doing it with. This weekend, I was lucky enough to get to spend time with some great people and there is nothing better than that!