Fat strippers and ting

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3rd July Our first night out in New Orleans was pretty decent. Live bands and a good group of people to go bar hopping with. Rich got insanely hammered last night. I wasn't feeling great but i had been sick last night so got a lot of the alcohol out of my system. It was a good sick, 3 big lung fulls of 3 different colours. This consisted of brown green and yellow. He gives me so much grief for when I was actually ill and couldn't do anything during the day when we were in key-west but when he's hungover it's perfectly acceptable to sleep in till 4 pm. This day was our last chance to go swamping and see the alligators and alligator fighting. I was pretty peeved at him as this was our last opportunity. I was up and about chatting to other hostel goers. After a quick trip with Anna and Matt to Walmart we grabbed some snacks and pizzas for the night and headed back. Rich by this point was just about functioning but unfortunately for him it was almost drinking time again. Anna had picked up two lads on her travels as they were going the same way and she has a car. It makes it more economical for all that way. If I was ever to do the states again I would rent a car and come with 3 other people. Hotels prices, petrol and comfort are all at there best when travelling with 4. These two lads were Karl from Essex and Steve from Australia. We all started pre drinking and it actually turned out to be one of the American lads birthday that night so we automatically new it was going to be a big night. To be honest we were not sure if many people would be out as it was the 4th of July. A bunch of us started the 1/2 mile walk to get onto the tram which was normally full of weirdos and head into town with the aim of hitting bourbon street pretty hard. Of course we started the night with a Jester. These were the strongest drinks that are allowed to be sold in the states. The bad thing is you can't taste the alcohol really as the fruit flavour is so strong and it comes in slushy form. If you had two of these over the night you would be drunk as a skunk and most likely sick as they were pretty sickly. Maybe that's why I was sick last night. The good thing about bourbon street is that you can take a drink from one bar and into a completely different bar down the street. You can do this as long as you take it in and out in a polystyrene cup which every bar provides and normally serves you in in the first place. Literally every bar on the strip has a live band in playing covers from all decades. The whole place has got a good buzz to it and everyone seems to be friendly. One disappointment is there were no clubs, it was a bars with live music and a small dance floor. The drinking culture is different from England. In England people get drunk in the bars and head to the clubs. In the USA so it has been couples going for casual drinks or a group going for a meal and drinks. We went to the oldest bar in the whole of New Orleans. I can't remember the name but apparently it used to be a pirate pub. To be honest it just looked like an old English pub just a bit more worn down. The Americans get very excited and intrigued about the history of stuff as the USA hardly has any. England has loads of history and stories dating back for hundreds and hundreds of years. As it was Nicks birthday he got to chose where we went. The next destination was...... The dirtiest nastiest looking disease ridden strip club. It was free to get in. That is probably why the strippers were ( I don't want to be rude as they are people too but...) fat, had rolls coming from everywhere, they could hardly speak in English, heavy when they tried to sit on you and to be quite honest, at least two that came near me smelt of B.O. Luckily we had come on a Tuesday which meant any $2 beers all night. This suited me down to the ground as if I was going to fend of all the monstrosities in here I would need to be in a more relaxed state. As at the time, if another fat lady sat on me again I was more likely to head butt her on the nose than get a dance. Corona for $2 is a bargain to be fair out in the states. It's usually a lot more. So there we were sat with our beers watching the main stage where one girl flings herself around on the pole. Some of the girls were very skilled and we were impressed but a couple of the girls were woeful. I could get up on the pole and swing around better and sexier than them. Fending off the walking strippers all night was pretty tiring, but with a lot of peer pressure we managed to get the birthday boy to get himself a private dance. Off he went with some horrendous girl. I think that's what made this night funny. Some of these girls should be paying us to come sit on our lap. They kept calling us English lads stingy because we wouldn't give them any money. On the next table to us there were three guys all with so many $1 notes each. Matt heard one guy change $200 into $1s. They were just literally throwing there money away. The strippers weren't just dancing for them they were kissing them amongst other things. This kinda led our table to believe these girls were up for a bit more than what was on the books or these guys were some form of pimps. We decided that they may be pimps as they were strongly encouraging us to join in and get private dancers and telling us how much so much dollar would get us. They knew a little bit too much info for my liking. By this point the other American lad had been persuaded into a private dance with some ugo. It was just the English standing tall and holding onto our dignity and money. Being th social bug that rich is he managed to get talking to the "pimp" who, long story short said he would pay for rich to get a dance and don't worry about the money. Anyone with a clue would not take this offer as he was clearly lying. After rich tried to refuse he reiterated to the women he had no money and could not pay. She still went ahead and took him away. This is funny in two ways. First she was big, fat and black. Just up rich's street. Second when they came out the enviable happened. She wanted money, rich had none and the pimp refused to pay. Fun times. At this point Nick (birthday boy) walked straight past us and out the front door with haste. He had a funny look on his face but also a scaredish look. You'll have to wait until the next blog to find out what happened here. Soon after we swiftly left but our numbers had been diminished. All that was left were me, Rich, Anna and Matt. We saw the last tram of the night and ran for it. The driver opened the door and literally shouted us to get on. We were shocked at his rudeness but got on. He told Anna she couldn't bring her drink on so she turned around to put it in the bin 5 yards behind her and the driver shut the door and drove off. Obviously we didn't just leave her. Matt stuck his hand in the door and we all shouted at at the driver to let us off and how could he drive off when he knew she was getting on. What a moron. It's ok, we let him know he was a moron. We jumped off and went back down the tram line a bit to where we found anna talking to two guys. These guys offered us a lift back to the hostel. We accepted and and all four of us jumped into the back of the car. It was a squeeze but Anna is small so not too bad. Whilst on the way home a police car drove past and shouted out the window to turn your lights on. Apparently we didn't have them on. We weren't bothered about the lights, we were bothered about having too many people in the car. The police car turned around and looked as though it was coming for us. So we did the sensible thing and make a turn off the main road and try and turn as many times as possible to lose them. It didn't work. We got pulled over. The police officer did the usual questioning but compared to England it was nothing. He asked if he had been drinking and the driver said no. He believed him. If it was England a breathalyser would be done every time at 4 in the morning. Long story short we got out the car and started walking in the direction we were told by the police man. He was a nice guy but I think he took a particular liking to Anna. Either way off we went to find the hostel/any taxi we could flag down. After walking for a good 20 mins I managed to get on some wifi outside someone's house. We were not going in the right direction. Again off we go on our wonders. It's about 5.30 in the morning by now and I was getting a bit ratty. We made it to a petrol station where I found a taxi. He wouldn't take us but he rang another one for us. 15mins went and it turned up, but a few seconds after a little mini pulled up in front and guess who got out. The police from before. He had just got off shift and seen us walking about aimlessly. He shouted for us to leave the taxi and get in his mini. This is 3 big guys and a girl. The second strangers car we had got in for the night, and he didn't even have sweets. Me and rich were in the back along side a gun, pepper spray and a baton. Literally feet on the ceiling as there was no room. Anna sat on matts lap in the front and again off we went. An uncomfortable 20 minute drive later we arrived at the hostel. We got out and then the police man told us he hated New Orleans and he was joining the French foreign legion. He wanted our opinion if it was the right move. I honestly didn't have a clue.Neither did any of us. Apart from the man who thinks he knows everything. Rich. He can say so much about something that means absolutely nothing. The most vague generic statements came out of his mouth. He is like a fortune cookie. We swiftly headed into the hostel and went to sleep after an eventful night.

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