The Big Easy

There is nothing like lapsing in and out of consciousness over the course of a night combined with the inability to take a shower in the morning that just sorta sets your day up right. Riding the train was pretty interesting for the first… ooh 4 hrs or so. At about hour 25 you are just dying. The magazines have been read, the music has been listened to, and you’ve pretty much contorted yourself into every position imaginable in order to sleep the time away, with or without the benadryl. Our car had malfunctioning AC, our neighbor (who on normal days is I’m sure very nice) was letting her guard down with the fluctuating temp and her neuroses began to slowly crawl through, and we had nearly exhausted the food options in the dining cart…

thus when we arrived in new orleans all any of us were really looking forward to was a nice, long shower. Hot water never felt so good…

Tony was whisked away to a secret hiding place by his relatives for some unknown voodoo initiation ritual (something a bout a “family gathering”) the minute we arrived in new orleans pretty much, so we decided to roll out in search of food and to see what fabled naw’luns had to offer at 9:30 on a Sunday night. We meandered down st. charles, took a random left on canal… and then heard the sounds of a jazz band wafting down the street. We turned the corner and bam! A makeshift jazz band was playing (complete with a horn), people were walking around with cheap plastic beads and we had entered bourbon street. People were eating, drinking, heading to nudie bars (no cover!! usually just a one drink minimum, there was one at least every block it seemed) throwing beads and whoring themselves out for beads. I think the weirdest part of it all was the amount of middle-aged to older people who were wandering around the streets getting down and searching for beads. It was like the street was filled with people trying to sort through their mid-life crises. We meandered about like everyone else, hit a few clubs (they were playing some whack music) and just soaked it aaaall in.


Oh, and we did find some food:

Culinary item of the day: the southern equivalent of white castle, something called Krystal (I kid you not). Spicy chik, Krystal with cheese, and a chili dog. In all honesty, none of it tasted that good… but with a $5 purchase you do get an hour of wifi for free.