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Published: August 10th 2014
My flight to New Orleans leaves Buffalo at 10AM so I had to start driving at 5:30AM. I left this early to compensate for any delays at the border. The usual drive is about 2 hours in regular traffic. I packed lightly for this trip so I wouldn't have any checked baggage. Drive to Buffalo was ok no real problems at the border and the flight left on time to JFK.
I had hours of waiting at JFK T5 so I wandered around the terminal for awhile. I will say that JetBlue's Terminal 5 is quite impressive and has an extensive cafeteria area. My flight should have left at 4PM but the plane came in late and by the time we got on the plane it was 4:40PM and that is when we got stuck. Apparently there was a storm cell over New York that had closed various air lanes over JFK. So we were stuck on the plane for another 2 hours. JetBlue has some weird people working for them and our flight attendant decided to keep us entertained with a few jokes. My favourite one was when she said JetBlue does transport animals but apparently one of them
had gotten loose and we should look at floor for a brown hamster. That was to see if we were paying attention.
So we finally took off and it was a rough few minutes going through the storm but we made up time in the air and we got to New Orleans in good time. I took bus into New Orleans and walked about 1.5 km to my hostel. The last few blocks looked a bit iffy and it was starting to get dark but it turned out ok. The darkness was the bigger problem because I walked into a mud puddle in my flip flops. I jumped up and down to clear as much as I could before reaching my hostel.
India House hostel was chosen because it had decent reviews on Hostel booking sites and it was affordable at $20/night. I checked into the hostel and got to my room after cleaning off the mud on my legs, feet and flip flops. I was fairly hungry at that point and went looking for food. I ended up a burrito place called Felipe for a beef burrito. I got back to the hostel and decided to sit
out in the courtyard with everyone else. Burrito was ok but I will probably not eat there again.
One of the things at hostels is that if you sit down in the common area people will introduce themselves to you. First people to introduce myself was Sean who was New York, Melissa who worked at the hostel. At the table were 2 Aussie brothers and 3 ladies from Switzerland. After the standard intro questions (What's your name, Where your from, What are you dong here). We sat around talking and drinking for awhile and as normal it was table full of travelers. Some people had been traveling for months while some like me were just there for a weekend. I really enjoy chatting in the common room at hostels because I hear so many good stories and get a lot of ideas for my future travels.
This time the conversation did Segway into some weird categories as we discussed racism, BDSM and Blowjobs. The latter 2 were discussed because we were trying to work out what constitutes assault. We had some legal experts at the table so it was a lively conversation but I don't think we settled it that night. My view is what 2 consenting people do is entirely legal. For a good example watch this video
.
A group was going out to Bourbon street and they invited me so I decided to go out. I was fairly tired but I figured I could duck out at anytime. Group for this evening was Sarah from USA, Mary from Australia and Lisa from just north of London, England. We piled into a taxi to get to Bourbon street. I remember Bourbon street from Mardi Gras pictures and I was disappointed it wasn't Mardi Gras but as it turns out the crowds are year round. We grabbed drinks at various drinking stalls along the street and looked at the balconies where there were a ton of drunk college guys shouting out for women to shows their breasts for beads. I will say there were not a lot of takers but a few drunk guys on the street did pull up their shirts for the drunks on the balconies and were awarded with a barrage of beads. It was not just young people on this street but plenty of adults and quite a number of elderly people who I am guessing were there for curiosity. Also a popular sight were bachelorette parties who were wandering around with sashes.
We needed to use the bathroom so we went into a bar and the ladies were immediately carded by the bartender. He also told them you had to buy drinks to use the bathroom. I was wondering he didn't question me but a quick look around the bar told me the reason why. The number of guys and the atmosphere told me it was a gay bar we had wandered into. We decided to hang around and the guys at the bar were quite nice and Sarah danced a bit with one guy at the bar. After some drinks and shots we went back out and decided to take a pedicab to Frenchman street. The pedicab is supposed to hold 2 people but we tried to talk our guy into to taking all of us but he said he couldn't so he got another pedicab. The ride was fun and we raced each other to our next stop which was a place called Spotted cat club. We drank a bit more there and danced and listened to the band which was quite good. The place was crowded and popular with the hostel crowd. The 3 Belgian ladies I had met earlier were there but for the life of me I can't remember there names. The 2 Aussie brothers were named Howard and Jack. The band passed around a beer pitcher for tips but they should have spoken louder because I think people were not paying attention. I was impressed with the band to tip them $10. If you want to go to a great club in New Orleans, the Spotted Cat Club is a good choice.
We went outside for some air and we chatted a bit and that is when we ran into our first bit of drama. One of the customers who was being kicked out of the club decided to toss the remains of her drink at the bartender. After some shouting and some quick work by the bouncer who kept them apart it was over. After that we finally found Sarah who had wandered away at some point we headed back to the hostel in a taxi. I was drunk at that point but I had remembered enough to get back to my hostel room. It had a been a long day but I had a good time that night.
Tomorrow it was time for my tours to start.
