N'Awlins...

It's our last day in New Orleans - and it's been somewhat of a blur. They're not lying when they see it's a party town. My sore head and emptier wallet attests to that. Bourbon Street is one long pub basically, where the 'Hand Grenade' and the 'Hurricane' compete for yard-long cocktail supremacy (personally I prefer the Hurricane). Our first night in town was supposed to be a quiet one, just a couple of beers in Pat O'Briens after dinner. That all changed when Al joined us.

Al is a podgy, middle-aged 'wacky' guy, who was wearing beads, holding a cocktail and shouting "Woo hoo!" a lot. He asked if there was room at our table for two crazy guys and two hot girls, and being polite Brits, we said there was. We were joined by one 'crazy' guy, one fairly drunk guy, one hot girl and a rather large lady. Over the next half an hour, we found out Al had met this larger lady on the internet, she had sent him nude photos, and this was their first date. They had hooked up with this other couple during the night, and we were fortunate enough for the woman to show us her new fake breasts, which were a present from her boyfriend. Al was encouraging us to join them all for some kind of party back at his, which I believe may have had sexual connotations (the phrase "wild animal sex" led me to believe this).

The other couple and their fake breasts made a quick exit and we needed an escape route; little did we know it would come in the form of projectile vomit. After a minute of talking amongst ourselves, we looked over to see Al patting his date with ice, as she was sweating profusely. I simply put this down to her size; but the sight of her throwing up all over her own ample bosom, as well as our table changed my mind. Suffice to say, Al took her home at this point - well, back to his home. There was still some wild animal sex to be had.

In other news, Liz took me on a very interesting walking tour of the French Quarter and we rode the only existing steam-powered paddlewheeler on the Missisippi, Steamboat Natchez. We've tasted gumbo (tasty), jamalaya (also tasty), po boys (soggy and meaty), beignets (lovely french doughnuts in powdered sugar) and real southern fried chicken (it's not quite the same as KFC). We've been in our first Walmart, where you can pick up your groceries as well as fishing rods and rifles. There are beads literally everywhere as well as live music, whether it's brass bands in the street, mini-orchestras on the riverfront, or cool blues bands playing in the bars. And we even saw a street wedding, complete with trumpeters marching them through the cobbled streets...

Outside the French Quarter, it's a different story; our local convenience store resembled a scene from The Wire (the oriental storeowner shouting at her customers, a group of drunks attempting to get 'credit' to buy alcohol, while a man pushes scrap metal around in a shopping trolley outside). The pavements are broken all over the place and many of the amazing grandiose Southern houses have been neglected, presumably after flood damage. It's a beautiful city, but it needs some help to reclaim former glories.

It's off to Memphis, Tennessee tomorrow on our first Amtrak - it will take the entire day so we will have to wait a while for another blog entry - unless you want to hear what we listened to on our iPod...