Nutty in New Orleans

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Well since my last entry I have travelled all the way to New Orleans! I enjoyed the natural history museum, a walking tour of Brooklyn and some window shopping on 5th Avenue, a discussion about Brazillian politics (with 2 Brazilian girls I met at the hostel) before leaving for my tour on 4th July. It turned out that a girl in the bed above me in the hostel was on my trip! What a coincidence! There are 2 Southern Sun trips with 13 people on each plus a tour leader. My trekamerica groups consists of 4 South Koreans, 2 Swedes, 1 Dane, 2 Germans, 2 Scots and one other girl from England! Interesting mix of people! Oh and on the other trip is a guy from my home town - Abingdon who went to the same school as me!

For 4th of July celebrations we headed to Washington DC and enjoyed the fireworks from the National Mall seeing them behind the Washington Monument. Pretty cool! We then had one day to explore Washington so I saw the White House, Lincoln memorial, Jefferson Memorial and got soaked in a thunderstorm going to see the Iwo Jima momument. Can laugh about it now but at the time I didn't find it funny getting completely soaked! Then enjoyed the Smithsonian and the modern art musuem, oh and some live folk music and the folk festival. Even if there were some very strange people there including a lady with a moustache!

Then headed out of the city and enjoyed stopping at the Jack Daniel's distillery in Lynchberg Tennessee. Unfortunately it is a dry county so you can't have any samples! Went rafting on the Ocoee River. This time I went out of the raft twice and got a nice bruise on my shin. Oouch! Still good fun but now I realise how scarey it is when you come out! Ended up laying a huge game of flip cup and regretting it the next day!

Yesterday we did a swamp tour just outside new orleans and saw aligators, blue herons and loads more wildlife which I forget the names of. Stopped on the way for a large strawberry daquiri (it was enormous!) and then got ready to party till I dropped. Had some local food which wasn't quite to my taste and lets say didn't look pretty before getting drunk on hand grenades, dancing and watching the Scottish girls fall on the dance floor while singing karaoke. Hilarious. Oh I also got a nice bright pink mardi gras mask to wear! Got to bed about 3am and now looking around the city before we head to Texas tomorrow! Phew! Not relaxing but having a great time!

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