SLST, NOLA: Feb 17

Sunday morning we again headed off to go back to Idea Village. This time we were met by more of their clients and had an extended meeting while we filled out our knowledge of the possibilities of the project. Through a meeting with an MIT PhD student in Urban Design, we had a breakthrough “Aha!” moment for our recommendations in the early afternoon. We had already been building our slide decks for our pre-Final presentation with Idea Village that afternoon so we had a lot of work to do in just a few hours. With our numbers dwindling, due to some health reasons and some unknown reasons, we still managed to pull it together and put on a splendid presentation with some really solid recommendations for our clients. Our recommendations did not cover exactly what they wanted from the first meeting, but due to the time restrictions, we were able to help our clients refine and focus their vision, while also giving them a set of 3 steps that they needed to perform in the next month in order to keep their idea alive. Through these recommendations and lots of background research, we felt that we gave Idea Village a great deal of positive work that would help their clients find success in their proposed business.

That evening we headed out to the Palace Café for dinner with some of the clients. Again, the food was delicious (I swear, the food in NO is amazing. Definitely go out and try these restaurants when you are in town. You won’t be disappointed!). This time, I order the turtle soup which was also very tasty. So good in fact that I managed to get a bunch of people to try it too. After dinner, a group of us headed back to Frenchman St to catch some more live music at D.B.A. and to drink some Abita Amber beer (very tasty…better than Shiner Boch – see my Plant Trek notes from Austin for a reference on this beer). Completely different venue from the previous night, and a completely different band sound, but we had an equally great time. What was neat was that one of the performers from the previous night was in the bar. He is an amazing, blind piano player (unfortunately I don’t know his name other than Henry) and we were all blown away by his performance. After spotting him in the crowd, one of the clients and I chatted him up for a while which was cool. We then moseyed on to The Spotted Cat and caught the last set of a little three-piece band. Closing out the night there, we had another great time in NO.