New Orleans - Hurricanes and Hand Grenades

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After an intensely celebratory graduation weekend, 5 am Wednesday morning began with sneaking the trash from our house two blocks away to a dumpster. There is probably still an incriminating trail of potato salad which rotted in our dining room for 4 days on Grady Avenue. After this adventure we were finally able to get in the car to begin what would be a 14 hour trek to New Orleans, Louisiana.

As I'm sure you all know, you pass through many states from VA to Louisiana. We thought it would be a cute idea to catch the 'welcome to _____' signs, however after many failed attempts decided that is actually a very lame thing to do. Who knew it would be so hard!

We arrived in New Orleans around 8 pm and were pleasantly surprised by our hotel. It was definitely old, but had everything you could need and was in a good location (about 2 blocks from the french quarter and bourbon street). After getting ready and doing a little pregaming in our little courtyard, we headed to bourbon street.

We were instantly bombarded with the insanity that is bourbon street. Upon recommendations, we headed first to Tropical Isle to drink the famous 'hand grenade'. The glass, shaped like a hand grenade and with an odd alien-ish face, we decided was the perfect Demetria replacement (our missing roomie 😞 ). Of course many a creepy picture was taken.

We next headed to Pat O'brien's, the home of the famous Hurricane.

There was a two-piano piano bar which played an a great mix of old songs, which paralleled well the level of belligerance we were reaching. After many failed attempts to teach them the good ol' song, we finally decided to call it a night and head back to our hotel. We had been up since 5 am after all...

We woke up the next day feeling less than awesome, but after a huge, wonderful breakfast at Petunia's (including a little hair of the dog), we did a self guided walking tour of the city which included eating beignet's at cafe dumonde, the cathedral (less than thrilling), the river, neat buildings in the city, and.... well we ended up cutting it short as it began to pour rain on us. Wanting some typical New Orlean's grub we went to the acme oyster bar and had an assortment of crawfish, raw oysters, gumbo, jumbalaya, and red beans and rice.

To sum up, we ate, we drank, we explored. Overall take aways: pregaming is unnecessary, and always carry an umbrella

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Comments

[Pete]

San Fran
Hey Blarney and Nikki, I heard ya'll were coming up California way. Give me a call if you're coming up to the bay area and hopefully we can meet up in the city or in Napa. Hope the trip is going well, sounds like it is.