DC Mardi Gras

Last night, my roomie E invited me to the DC Louisiana Alive Mardi Gras Celebration at the Washington Hilton and it was a BLAST! I have never EVER seen so much delicious food in my life...there were oysters, gumbo, shrimp and cocktails EVERYWHERE you went. All of the chefs from famous Louisiana restaurants FLY themselves and the ingredients in that day and cook up a storm. I literally was amazed at the amount of food (and dishes-my gosh!) there was. I swear I experienced the best crab cakes in the history of crab cakes. They were completely deep friend on the outside (hello, this is the South in DC....) and full of fresh crab meat inside. I have no shame in admitting I had at least 3, probably 4 of them. There was tons of music-a FANTASTIC brass band, 2 blues bands and a bluegrass band that took turns playing around a 360 stage-which meant LOTS of dancing! It was definitely my kind of party!

We got a few snacks (and a cocktail-duh!), then hit up all the booths for beads and then made about 15 more rounds through the buffet lines......yum yum yum.

Sorry for the poor quality pics, the lighting wasn't the best and I only had my iphone on hand.
(Plus, I was too busy collecting beads!)

Lots of beads + feather boa = winning at Mardi Gras

Cirque du Soleil-ish dancer people from the sky....3 of them rotated ALL NIGHT LONG.

Took this picture while I waited 15 minutes in line for THE BEST BREAD PUDDING I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. It was worth all 15 minutes. (I would have waited 20...)

I forgot how polite people from the south (or basically from anywhere BUT DC) are. It was a very nice change of pace. And let's take one moment to applaud all the handsome, strapping men from Louisiana-holy wow....lucky gals you are! We ended the night dancing out of the room in the Second Line, which is a traditional Louisiana march they do at the end of parties and funerals. (how cool is that?!?!

After attending this party, I determined that I secretly am a southern gal born to Yankee parents raised somewhere between the two....we lived too far north for the south but the north thinks we are too far south......

I love the great state of Virginia with all my heart but whyyyyy don't we have something cool like Mardi Gras, too? I am jealous. Very, very jealous.

Thank you SO much for the invite Roomie :) I had SUCH a blast!

Have a great weekend y'all!
(see, secretly southern!)