In a new segment debuting for this blog in 2009, Q's Adventures will chronicle any and all trips I take or random cool adventures I go on. They will appear at random sometime after a trip I've taken, and will generally talk about either the whole trip in general, or just some specific piece of note. The first installment of Q's Adventures will be about my recent trip to New Orleans. Enjoy!
As always, the trip planning went something like this:
Q: What should we do for New Years?
Chaz: Oh, I dunno, I'm not sure I wanna do Vegas again.
Q: Yeah, let's keep it cheaper this year.
Chaz: Good plan.
*two minutes pass*
Q: Hey, you ever been to New Orleans?
Chaz: Nope.
Q: Hang on a sec.
*five minutes pass*
Q: OK, I have plane tickets for us to go to New Orleans, leaving on Dec. 31st and getting back Jan. 4th.
And that was that. Thanks to a huge assist from BQ in the free flight (using miles) department, Chaz and I rang in the new year on the banks of the Mississippi River in the Crescent City.
We flew all day Wednesday the 31st, getting into New Orleans around 6:15, and finally getting to our hotel around 7:30*. Walking into our hotel, all we see is a sea of red shirts. OK, fine, both Sugar Bowl teams were red teams. But all this red wasn't Crimson Tide red, it was bright ass Utah Ute red. Yes, apparently we were staying at the official Utah football team and fan hotel. And, man, it was nuts. I've never seen so much red in my life, and it was like this for 4 days! We checked in we went up to our room. We unpacked, took showers, and got some Arby's next door for dinner. This is the last shitty meal we would eat**. Around 9:30 or so, we bundled up and headed into the French Quarter.
*The ride to the hotel was interesting. The driver didn't seem to know where he was going too well, and I think we almost died twice on the freeway from quick lane changes and getting off the freeway on an exit we had already passed. Once down on Canal St., its friggin packed. Traffic is hideous. And our airport shuttle has three other hotels besides ours to stop at. The most interesting part about this was the woman in the front row, just bitching non-stop about how long this was taking, how she HAD to go out and meet her friends, about how horrible our driver was. She just would not let up. Then she'd make really loud phoen calls to her friends: "oh, i have NO idea when we'll get there. Our driver has to be the worst driver in New Orleans." I made sure to tip the driver nicely when we got out...it wasn't his fault traffic was so horrific. I also made sure to tell the driver when he was getting my bags out of the back "good luck with that one..." I'm such an asshole sometimes. She deserved it, though.
**We had one more cheap meal, and it was at the Sugar Bowl...but we had eaten a big delicious lunch, so this was more like a snack. More on the Sugar Bowl later.
Three blocks up from our hotel (in this case, I'm using up on Canal St. to mean away from the river.) was Bourbon St. We get there, and there's a band playing some good jazz music right on the first corner. Awesome! Oh, and the street is PACKED! I mean, literally, it was the most crowded street I'd ever seen in my entire life. Elbowing was the only way to move around. However, it was pretty cool. The balconies overlooking the street were packed with people, the bars were all hopping, and there were police everywhere...even police mounted on horses. It was completely safe. Chaz and I wandered down the street for quite a while, just taking it all in, drinking here and there*, and just having an amazing time.
*Beers and Daquiris were $2, no joke.
Once we got a ways down Bourbon St., we turned down a cross street and headed towards the river. Eventually, we made it to Jackson Square, which is right on the river, and the site of New Orleans' street party for New Years. They had a stage set up on Decatur St., people packed in the Square, and a Fleur de Lei on top of the Jackson Brewery to serve as their countdown ball drop. At midnight, the ball dropped, and we had prime spots on the riverwalk to watch the fireworks being set off over the river. We also got kisses from some dude's girlfriend and a free bottle of champagne. Life was good.
The next day was New Years day, also known as Thursday. Thursday was a totally chill day of exploration. The weather had warmed up nicely, and it was a perfect 75 and sunny. We started off with lunch at Brennen's Steakhouse, where we had turtle soup. It was delicious. Then we wandered down Bourbon during the day to see it without a billion people there. We also explored all the other streets of the French Quarter, and Jackson Square. Jackson Square is really cool. There's a huge statue of Andrew Jackson in the center of it, and along the outside of the square (which has a large, iron fence around the whole thing) are tons of street artists. The art was all pretty cool, but one artist, Sanford, caught our attention particularly. Both Bubs and I picked up paintings as our main souvenir for the trip. It's totally New Orleans and awesome, and is being shipped to me this week!
After exploring the French Quarter and Jackson Square, we dropped in on the Sugar Bowl fanfest being held in the Brewery's parking lot. There was a big stage and a huge screen for watching the other bowl games, and some games (kicking field goals, throwing passes...and the like); there was food and drink, and booths giving away free t-shirts and things. It was pretty cool. The best part of the Fanfest was the free concert they had that night, Blues Traveler. Chaz and I were off to the side of the stage when it started, and Chaz made friends with the cop running backstage security, so he let us backstage to hang out and enjoy the concert from the side of the stage. We also met the actor who plays Bergwood in the Allstate college football related commercials, but he wasn't very interesting. After the concert we had a devine dinner at Mr. B's Bistro. The crabcakes were delicious, and I made a wonderful mess of the place wrestling with my shrimps, which were also delicious. After that it was some more chillin on Bourbon St. and then off to bed.
Friday was Sugar Bowl day, and the hotel was amped. The Utah fans were chomping at the bit for gametime. Chaz and I took that opportunity to get out of the hotel for a while and meander around the French Quarter some...and also have another delicious meal, this time at K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen. Chaz and I split an order of frog legs (which were spicy as all hell, but the meat tasted just like chicken!), and then I had a blackened drum* which was just out of this world. I'm not sure what seasoning's they used, but it was so flavorful! Just incredible. But I should have expected no less from a Paul Prudhomme restaurant, the man who taught Emeril Lagasse how to cook!
*Drum is a kind of fish. Everyone asks me, constantly, so I figured I should clear that up.
At 5 we set off for the Superdome. Poydras St. was shut down to cars as all the fans walked up to the game, and it was just a sea of red all along the street. I won't talk too much about the game itself, as I'm not ESPN. I will make a few points, though. One, watching football in a dome is weird. Its just not natural. But there is something to be said for the comforts of climate control! Two, my Alabama hat was awesome for convincing all the Alabama fans around me that I was cheering for their team. Three, my allegiances could be bought. Once all the Alabama fans left with like 5 minutes left in the game, my Alabama hat went hidden into my pocket, and I became a Utah fan. Besides, we were staying at the Utah hotel, and I wanted to party with the winning team! I could give a rats ass about Alabama and Utah in general, but I was willing to play the side that made us the most friends. All in all it was an awesome game, and a lotta fun to be at.
Saturday, everyone left. The Sugar Bowl was over, and it was time for all the college football fans to go home. But not us, we had a reservation on a fanboat for a tour of the bayou! The bus that picked us up drove us about 20 minutes south of New Orleans to a town called Jean Lafitte. There we got on a fanboat* and our guide took us into the swamps! This was one of the coolest parts of our trip! We saw tons of alligators. The landscape out there is just, so different to anything I've ever seen before. It's just like its depicted everywhere else, dead trees with moss growing off the branches hanging down to the river, grass lands in between, stumps and branches poking up out of the water... Our guide also brought us a baby alligator to play with and hold (and tap on the nose so it would get angry and open its mouth and hiss at us...good times!). I feel like I'm shortchanging this part of the trip, since I didn't write too much in detail about it, but its just one of those things you have to experience for yourself...I can't describe it to you.
*The fanboats are friggin fast. When zipping between spots to stop and view the wildlife, we'd be getting up to 45 mph! And man, they were loud as fuck! We had to wear noise canceling headphones the whole time we were going fast.
Just as we got back to catch the bus back to the hotel and go get some lunch, it started to rain a little bit. Back in New Orleans, we had lunch at the Red Fish Grill. Then we wandered around the French Quarter some more, and went back to our hotel to relax and watch playoff football at the bar. After the Arizona-Atlanta game, we went out and had dinner at Nola, Emeril Lagasse's French Quarter restaurant. And this was just as delicious as any of the other amazing restaurants that we ate at over the long weekend. I had a garlic crusted redfish that was very very good. The surprise of the evening came when Emeril himself walked through the restaurant, shaking hands and just checking in on his restaurant that evening. So, that was pretty cool.
When we got out of the restaurant after dinner, it was absolutely pouring and there was lightning flashing constantly. Nothing like a good southern thunderstorm to make your walk back to the hotel an interesting one. Chaz and I first went out to Jackson Square to watch the lightning, and then ran from overhang to overhang, trying to stay as dry as possible. Unfortunately, about 5 blocks from our hotel, there were no more balconies...so we just had to run for it. It didn't help. It was raining so hard we couldn't see more than a few blocks in front of us, and we were just absolutely drenched by the time we got back to the hotel. At that point, it was pointless to go back out, so we changed into dry clothes, hung our wet clothes up in the hopes they would dry enough to pack, and then watched the lightning from our room, as well as the second half of the Chargers v. Colts game (when the satellite would allow, the lightning kept knocking out the signal).
Sunday was the travel day home. Our airport shuttle picked us up at 8:45...our flight wasn't until 12:40...yeah, pretty retarded. But it was either that (which we had already paid for) or a 50 dollar cab ride. So we chilled in the airport, flew to Dallas, enjoyed some playoff football during our 3 hour layover, and then flew home. And, I am spent!
It's now Wednesday, and I still haven't recovered. I also think I caught a cold from someone on one of my planes. Chaz is sick too. He's worse off than me, though. I'm just a little stuffed up.
Anyways, I highly recommend New Orleans for anyone looking for an interesting place to vacation for a few days. The food there is phenomenal. There are jazz bands playing on the street corners, and street performers in the Square...not to mention all the cool art on display and for sale. And Bourbon St. is just, well, insane. I'm pretty sure I left out some key details from the trip, but it was just so jam packed with awesomeness, that its easy to forget some of the smaller things.
This is going to be a hard trip to top in 2009, but I'll definately have fun trying!
~Q
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