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Published: November 3rd 2007
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Bourbon Street
Totally rocked This place is totally mad! I was in heaven. So I arrived in New Orleans with my contiki tour group and stayed with them for the two days they were here and then they headed off on their way to L.A whilst I stayed for a little while longer and I am so glad I did because New Orleans was just amazing.
Our first night in N.O we did a riverboat cruise on the mississippi river, it was run by engines but had the big wheel at the back so was pretty cool (think proud mary - big wheel keeps on turning). We had dinner which was really yummy soul food style cooking - got to love the mashed potatoes here apparently they put mayonaise in it sounds weird but really yummy. The view of the city from the river was lovely and we cruised for a while and had a few drinks. Afterwards we headed to Bourbon st to sample the NO nightlife - talk about sweet man. So it was middle of the week and it was still pretty packed people all up and down the st and you can actually buy drinks to go as long as
Riverboat Cruise
Me & Ben on the riverboat cruise on the Mississippi you are in the french quarter yay. I tried the Hurricane which is a pretty strong drink and it was delicious one or two of those (its rude to count past two on the drinks etiquette hehe) and life was all good.
The next day we did an airboat ride out on the Bayou and swamps and see some gators. I will admit to being a little disappointed because i thought gators would be as big as crocodiles but they weren't really and not scary at all you know what i mean i'm not saying i would have gone swimming in there but i expected a bit more. Oh you wouldn't believe how beautiful the bayou was though. It was just amazing, so peaceful and beautiful with lots of trees covered in the spanish moss and lots of wildlife - didn't see any snakes neither but our boat driver guy said there are plenty of them in there even if you can't see them. Watched the sun go down on the Lake Pontcharian or whatever and just a beautiful outing.
That night we went to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co for dinner which was really cool. They had lots
French Quarter
Me and Nicole having a hurricane or two of memorabillia from the movie and lots of yummy cocktails to drink which is also good. Check out my photo of my cup (that wasn't my first drink either so you can guess how much fun we had that night). After dinner which again was just delicious, we went to Bourbon st and hit a few bars and things and pretty much had an amazing night. Kate & Sarez you would be proud to know that I am still a groupie at heart cos we were at this club and the band leader was really cute and stuff. He pulled me up on stage with four other girls for the "shake your ass" competition. It was hilarious. The fun thing with NO as well is you collect beads off people (no i didn't have to flash anything to get the beads - just in case dad reads this mwahaha) so went home with a pretty nice collection of beads and a pretty good hangover. What a great time.
The next day the tour group left and I moved to my hotel in the Garden District (and then went to bed for the rest of the day to sleep hehe).
The Bayou
We did an airboat ride through the Bayou and it was just awesome. I did a couple of tours in NO. A cemetery tour, city tour which took you through the warehouse district, uptown, french quarter and garden district which was really fascinating and they gave us a lot of the history about the place. I also did a tour on Hurricane Katrina where they told us about the hurricane and what went wrong, what they've done to fix it and also took us out to like the 17th street levee which was one of the major ones that broke and you could see a lot of the houses were still ruined and also where rebuilding had been done. Totally fascinating. The tour guide also told us that the reason some areas aren't rebuilding yet is because they are still in the process of fixing the levees and things to make sure it won't reflood and won't be finished until about 2011 (eg lower ninth ward would probably flood again if another big hurricane came through so there is only about 7% of the population back there right now). He also told us that 80% of NO is back to where it was prior to Hurricane Katrina but driving through we saw an
Baby aligator
Me holding a little one, they aren't as scary as crocodiles awful lot of damage still and houses not yet rebuilt as well as a lot of houses with the trailers out front that people are living in while they fix up there houses so not sure how accurate that is but it was absolutely fascinating anyways.
Anyways got a few photos on here but New Orleans was really cool and I would recommend it to anyone for a visit. Oh the other thing as well is that the people there are just SOOO friendly. Everyone speaks with this gorgeous southern drawl and its all how you doing sugar and honey and all that. I thought it was so cute! Oh and if i forgot to mention it the drinks are really yummy too. Loving New'arlins sugar!!
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Bernie, Peta, Jacob and Patrick
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G'day
Hello Chloe, looks like you are having heaps of fun. We are enjoying reading about it.