We turned up to New Orleans lucky to be alive, but despite our traumatic journey I had high hopes.
My mind went back to when I was 9 years old, I remembered the music, the food, the random awesome people we met, the first American football game I ever watched, the voodoo, the Mardi Gras floats…I was amazingly excited.
…
It was a bit of a $#%! Hole to be honest. Well at first anyway, I looked around and saw all of the back life of New Orleans. The buildings were worn down, some plants were dying, and there was metallic fencing, barbed wire, everywhere. I wondered whether this was the cause of Katrina all those years ago, or if it was always like it here and I just never saw this side when I was a kid. Either way we stumbled along with our bags, me dragging behind a little bit, feeling sorry for myself, alongside my shattered dreams of a never ending party.
Things picked up a bit though when we saw a sign of life, a restaurant. We were all a bit hungry so it was decided that this’d do for breakfast. Jambalaya. That cheered me up a bit. Great tasting, I don’t know if I ever had it as a kid, but I was having a taste from New Orleans, and it tasted great.
From there I felt happy about where I was, the dust didn’t bother me, the heat didn’t bother me, the crazy gangsters in their cars with 50 cent didn’t bother me...much. Although, I was bothered by the height restriction thing, created for restricting the car parks use to regular cars…being place in the middle of a great empty space, being forced to watch as trucks and big rigs simply travelled around it. First time in a while I pitied an inanimate object.
It took us a while to arrive at their hostel, the one that I wasn’t staying the night at, and after that we decided to go to Wal-Mart, for the first time in weeks (I was getting the shakes) and then headed down in the cities…general…direction.
That’s when things really got good, we went past the Mardi gras float world, and I managed to persuade the others to go in there. Pictures were taken, fun wa had…and then we got to the tickets office and decided not to go, but it was still fun whle it lasted.
(Side note: -
Jack: so this Mardi Gras things a parade, huh? How longs it been going on for?
Tickets Lady: a good 3 and a half hundred years now
Jack: …oh…)
Ahh the Mississippi river, that was good fun. The people from the good ship “Natchez” shouted us at, the Natchez being a stern-wheeler as you may learn from our educational video. I started to get edgy when I saw flashes coming from the ship and didn’t like the idea of being photograph against my will.
So I decided to go inside the river walk mall thing, where we saw cool shops, and a very cool fudge-making factory. I had now forgotten all ill feelings against new Orleans, for a good time was being had by all.
The following day was just as bright and exciting, I had to break off from the group the previous night so I could sleep on a couch, but the next morning I checked into their hostel and just happened to be in their room, where I found them sleeping… at 2 o’clock in the afternoon…
Went for another walk through the city and re-watched ‘Inglorious Basterds” which was still a fantastic film by the way, and headed down to a bar where they were playing a bit of jazz, was sweet. At this point I should say that they were offering free refills for large drinks at the theatre, so I got a large one and made sure I got my moneys worth by getting 4 refills, so it goes without saying that I was in and out of the restroom for the majority of that time.
(Side note: I had a conversation with a woman about how Shawn of the dead is one of the only British made zombie films, and it still is the best)
Later that night, we went down to more bars, including one which had an awesome open mike night thing on, where you could go up with an instrument and join in with the jamming. Made me wish I had brought my harmonica, darn it all.
Learnt a fun fact about bartenders in Louisiana, they get paid about $20 every 3 days, and depend entirely on tips. This made it amusing when she shouted at, and refused to serve, Grant as he did not tip the nice lady. When called upon this we pointed out to her that that was basically like paying a dog to play fetch. This wasn’t good. So poor old grant had to wait until the next bartender turned up, at which point he decided to get another drink, and hoping the previous bargirl was watching, paid a very generous tip.
The night continued, the music played, we rocked out on the bongos to the music, but we decided it was time to see more of the nightlife. As we ventured out we remembered a warning of the previous days’ taxi driver, that we had chosen a bad time of year to visit, at the time we had no idea at that point that he meant that our three day visit to new Orleans coincided with a three day gay festival thing. This made things awkward, simply due to the fact that it was difficult to get any girls attention when the girls probably wouldn’t be into men, and any girls that were into men wouldn’t pay attention to four men walking together through a street full of homosexuals.
(Side note: you don’t know awkward until you’ve had a drunken, deaf, mute, gay guy coming onto you)
Due to this we though maybe it was time to leave, but a random dude “Blue” came up to us and asked us to visit his restaurant, we thought about it but then he came up with a better idea, he decided to send us to a club. I explained I was under aged and wouldn’t get in, but he took a bit of the old mafia-like “I know people, I can get you in” attitude, which made us all too nervous to reject him. As he sent u though the front door of the club we realised that Blue had sent us to a strip joint.
That was…interesting…
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