After my brief
stay in Fort Lauderdale, it was off to the Big Easy - New Orleans. This
was undoubtedly the most anticipated part of the trip for me, mostly
because of all the stories I had heard about the place. I had a vision
of it in my head, and I wanted to see if the real thing matched what I
came up with.
It didn't. It was even better.
After connecting through Tampa and finally getting to my hotel, I was amused pretty much immediately. The hotel is so big that it has a weird elevator system. Instead of just pushing a button, everyone getting on, and stopping 10 times before you get to your floor to let everyone else off, you go up to the big computer and punch in your floor number. It dispatches you an elevator, and voila - non-stop service to your desired floor. It sounds odd, but in practice it worked really well. It was probably the coolest part of a pretty underwhelming hotel overall.
After getting settled, I immediately set out to find a sports bar. This just happened to be the day of the Euro 2012 final between Spain and Italy, and there was no fucking way I was missing it no matter where I was. Luckily for me, New Orleans isn't exactly short on bars. In fact, that might be the understatement of the fucking century.
I found a bar just a couple of blocks into the French Quarter with a simple sign that "Soccer - back". Okay then. I went to the back, and...there was no one there. 'Well this is lame' I thought. Whatever, they had beer and the game. Who gives a shit if I'm the only one there, right?
As soon as I sat down at the bar, the cute bartender chick (a soulless ginger) from behind the counter said "You're not from around here, are you?" with a Fargo-type accent. I responded with "you don't sound like you are either". She laughed and said she had just moved there last week. We went on BSing for a bit while I drank my first Nawlins beer, an Abita Amber (awesome, for those that care).
I asked her why there was no one in the bar except me and one Italian couple, and she told me that it'd fill up for sure because a party of 30 had reserved a bunch of tables (the place probably only seated 45). Sure enough, right before kickoff they showed up. And they were all Spaniards. And they were all pretty drunk already. The Italian guy and his girlfriend looked like they were going to puke. It was great.
If you care about soccer at all, you likely remember the result - Spain absolutely blew Italy out 4-0. For the first two goals the crowd was going bonkers, but they were still pretty respectful towards the Italian couple, They couldn't help themselves after goal three though. At least 10 of them jumped up, joined hands, and danced around their table while singing some sort of celebration song. Finally the Italian guy lost it and stormed out, while all 30 of them chanted at him. It was fucking hilarious. I wanted Spain to win anyway, so I was having a great time. Two of them even ended up buying me a beer, which was very nice of them. I've learned this many times over the years, but drunk Spaniards rule.
After the game, I ventured further into the Quarter. It's about 9 blocks long and maybe 12 blocks wide. And there are HUNDREDS of bars, of all shapes and sizes. While Bourbon St. is the most recognizable area to most, I didn't really like it. It's really gaudy and over the top. Neon, touts, the whole deal. It was like the West End in San Antonio in Ibiza. I was already half cut and in no mood to be harassed by people of all shapes and sizes, so I checked out some other streets instead. At first I was a tad worried about security since NO is known as a dodgy city, but the Quarter was perfectly fine. I spent most of the night meandering between different bars and just walking around, taking in the atmosphere. It was loud, amusing, and didn't feel threatening. There were so many people everywhere that it would have been pretty hard to get robbed or anything.
After a good sleep, I set off to explore more of the city the next day. I went down to the water (Mississippi river) and walked along the banks a bit. Checked out the Harrah's casino. Walked up and down Canal St (the border between the Quarter and the Business District) and into the CBD a bit. All nice and chill. Then I decided I was going to go to a cemetery.
I know that sounds odd, but Nawlins might have the coolest cemeteries in the world for one reason - the city is below sea level. They can't bury coffins because they just get pushed back up above the ground (imagine the first person to figure that out - yikes). So all the coffins are above ground, set in massive crypts with crazy decorations and headstones and shit. I wanted to see a good example of one, so I asked my hotel concierge to direct me to the closest one. He told me the hotel had tours to Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1, just across Rampart from the Quarter. And the tour was 'the only safe way to go there'. 40 bucks. It was 5 blocks from my hotel. Fuck that, concierge. Turns out the place was really nice. Not unsafe. And free.
Later that night, I decided to check out a couple of bars behind my hotel. The same concierge from earlier told me that the food was pretty good at a couple of them, as long as I didn't "look too hard". I assumed he meant that the places were easy to find. He didn't mean that. At. Fucking. All.
I headed to the end of the street and popped into a bar on the corner. I didn't really look around since there were people on either side of me, but I ordered a beer (2 bucks) and a pizza (6 bucks off the menu). The bartender chick then took off to my right, which caused me to look in that direction.
And I immediately thought "Holy shit. I'm in fucking Cambodia".
I was looking into the "kitchen". Which wasn't a kitchen at all, it was just some big ovens with stuff hanging all over them, and a big counter full of all sorts of foodstuff. It was separated from the bar's front door by a flimsy cubicle wall. I have no idea how I missed it coming in. But I couldn't miss the cook as he walked past the bartender into this den of depravity. He was a little black dude with an apron, and he was singing. As loud as he possibly could.
I had two choices at this point - cancel the order and fuck off, or drink as many beers as possible until my food came and hope that might kill all the diseases on my pizza. My decision was made a lot easier by the bartender chick, who saw me staring into the kitchen and mainlining my beer. She came back and said "Food falls into two categories here - 'Are you willing to risk food poisoning?' or 'Are you a pussy?"." And walked away before I could respond.
That settled the point pretty damn well. The pizza turned out to be pretty good too. Not long after I finished it though, I finally clued into what the concierge said. He didn't mean "don't look too hard to find a place to eat". He meant "don't look too hard AT the place you're getting the food from". I followed that advice for the rest of my stay in New Orleans, ate some really good stuff, and I'm still alive. Go figure.
After seeing all the stuff I wanted to see in two days, I just spent the rest of the time in the Quarter or the bars and restaurants around the hotel. The French Quarter in New Orleans is, pound-for-pound, the most interesting place in the world to talk to people. Whether they're from there or not, they always have a story to tell and everyone's pretty...unique. To say the least.
After having lunch at a cool bar (gumbo? Awesome. Po' Boys? Fucking subway sandwiches with too much shit shoved into them), I headed to a bar someone told me about. He said it was an "Irish Dive bar", whatever that meant. Cool. When I got there, there was only one couple in there. I sat down and quickly laughed at the bartender, because he was pouring a shitload of Jamesons into his own coffee. Take a big gulp, pour. Gulp, pour.
"Rough night," he said at my laughter. "Want some?"
"Fuck no. Can I just get an Amber?"
"Suit yourself."
He talked to me a bit about Katrina and the other bars he worked at. He also kept screwing up the order of the only other couple there because he was already shitfaced. "Wine? You wanted wine right? No? Vodka seven? Wow, I was way off."
That went on for a while before a couple of dudes came in and immediately blew the place up. A black dude in his late 20's, and a white dude in his late 30's. The black dude was singing and dancing before he even got to the bar, while the white guy was telling an animated story to his oblivious friend with spastic hand movements and even some jumping up and down. And of course, they sat down right next to me.
"Awwww snap! We needs some jager bombs! My boy here's going to the UFC!"
Say what?
I couldn't help myself and had to ask if he was telling the truth. The white dude looked too old and too skinny to knock a table over, much less fight professionally.
"Man, it's great. I'm on my way! I finally got signed up for this kickass fight gym in Kenner today. Took like six months for me to get the bread together! Now I'm gonna train and fight in the UFC!"
The whole time he's saying this, the black guy is shadowboxing behind him, and ducking and diving behind his back and popping up over each shoulder, making faces at me. He was either the funniest dude I had seen in a while, or he was reaaaally high.
"He's gonna be the world champ! Awwww snap! And I'm his manager!"
"Yup, Tyron's got my sponsors and shit. He's the brains, I'm the...uh...fighter guy!"
I quickly found out that Tyron was from Guyana and was either a drug dealer or a "professional playa". And he started every sentence with "Awww snap!"
"Aww snap! You gotta take that back to Canada wit you, boy. That's how a playa talks!" I didn't have the heart to tell him that's how playas talked in 1989 and he was a tad bit behind the times.
And it turns out that Joe was his personal cab driver. He drove cab for a real company and all that, but was at Tyron's beck and call and would ignore dispatch requests if he was doing something for him. Since Tyron paid better. I can't see many cab companies being big fans of their drivers ignoring dispatches, but whatever.
After a while of bullshitting with these two characters, Tyron saw my tablet that I had brought with me. After asking me 10 times whether it was a phone, ("That bitch is bigger than the phone that white kid had on Saved by the Bell!") He snatched it away from me and proceeded to do about seven improv skits with it. It was a phone while he talked to his mama. Then it was a tray (he even put drinks on it, much to my dismay). Then it was the world's biggest pager ("Pagers for big bitches!"). I really thought he was gonna break the thing, but it was so fucking funny that I didn't care at that point.
I didn't think he could top that, but he managed to. In the midst of telling me and the bartender a story about living in Jamaica (he went from Guyana to Jamaica to the US apparently), he just stopped dead and turned his back on us in the middle of a sentence. The bartender and I just looked at each other with a WTF face, then heard noises coming from the door.
Four African-American ladies had entered the premises.
Joe tried to say something to him, but he just whispered "Shut the fuck up Joe! You don't know me! Don't look at me!" under his breath. Then moved down a couple of stools. It took me a few seconds, but I finally clued in - he didn't want to be seen by the black chicks hanging with a bunch of goofy, drunk white guys. And right as I came to that realization, he popped out of his seat, walked over, and went to work.
"Ladies! Mmhmm, some beautiful sistas up in here now! How are you this fine evening? Tyron would like to buys yous some drinks!" They turned him down cold. But like any good salesman, Tyron was persistent.
"Tyron doesn't take no for an answer when they ladies are this beautiful! You, barman! These ladies would like shots of your finest tequila!"
"They're 13 bucks a shot, Tyron."
Without missing a beat, he replied, "Barman! These ladies would like your finest jager bomb!"
Everyone in the place, including the ladies, were laughing at him by this point. So they graciously took his shot, and he sat there and worked his game for a while. We could overhear everything he said, and my stomach hurt so bad from trying not to laugh out loud because it was so fucking ridiculous. Finally after they got up and left, he came back to the bar, sullen and defeated. "Hoo-ers!" he yelled in a terrible English accent. Which cracked everyone up again.
I spent a while there getting more drunk with these three goofs until Joe decided they were gonna go. "There are 250 bars in the Quarter right? Tyron, I think we should go to every single one of them tonight."
"Aww snap! Let's do this! You're not driving though. Hey Saved By The Bell, you comin' or what?"
These guys were pretty wasted by this point, so I figured it'd probably be better to start over somewhere else with a saner crowd. After giving me shit for give minutes about the tablet again, we went outside and outta nowhere, Tyron ran up for a horse-drawn carriage and jumped in. Joe quickly ran after him. "Grab your own Saved by the Bell, they're ain't room for you in my chariot!"
I just laughed and shook my head and walked back towards my hotel. I thought I was free. But Tyron had other ideas. After five minutes or so, I hear clopclopclop and "Awwww snap! Saved by the Bell! We gonna follow you!" Fuck. The white chick driving the think just looked at me and shook her head, which made me laugh. They continued to yell at me until the end of the block, when they turned left and finally took off.
Just another night in New Orleans.
It didn't. It was even better.
After connecting through Tampa and finally getting to my hotel, I was amused pretty much immediately. The hotel is so big that it has a weird elevator system. Instead of just pushing a button, everyone getting on, and stopping 10 times before you get to your floor to let everyone else off, you go up to the big computer and punch in your floor number. It dispatches you an elevator, and voila - non-stop service to your desired floor. It sounds odd, but in practice it worked really well. It was probably the coolest part of a pretty underwhelming hotel overall.
After getting settled, I immediately set out to find a sports bar. This just happened to be the day of the Euro 2012 final between Spain and Italy, and there was no fucking way I was missing it no matter where I was. Luckily for me, New Orleans isn't exactly short on bars. In fact, that might be the understatement of the fucking century.
I found a bar just a couple of blocks into the French Quarter with a simple sign that "Soccer - back". Okay then. I went to the back, and...there was no one there. 'Well this is lame' I thought. Whatever, they had beer and the game. Who gives a shit if I'm the only one there, right?
As soon as I sat down at the bar, the cute bartender chick (a soulless ginger) from behind the counter said "You're not from around here, are you?" with a Fargo-type accent. I responded with "you don't sound like you are either". She laughed and said she had just moved there last week. We went on BSing for a bit while I drank my first Nawlins beer, an Abita Amber (awesome, for those that care).
I asked her why there was no one in the bar except me and one Italian couple, and she told me that it'd fill up for sure because a party of 30 had reserved a bunch of tables (the place probably only seated 45). Sure enough, right before kickoff they showed up. And they were all Spaniards. And they were all pretty drunk already. The Italian guy and his girlfriend looked like they were going to puke. It was great.
If you care about soccer at all, you likely remember the result - Spain absolutely blew Italy out 4-0. For the first two goals the crowd was going bonkers, but they were still pretty respectful towards the Italian couple, They couldn't help themselves after goal three though. At least 10 of them jumped up, joined hands, and danced around their table while singing some sort of celebration song. Finally the Italian guy lost it and stormed out, while all 30 of them chanted at him. It was fucking hilarious. I wanted Spain to win anyway, so I was having a great time. Two of them even ended up buying me a beer, which was very nice of them. I've learned this many times over the years, but drunk Spaniards rule.
After the game, I ventured further into the Quarter. It's about 9 blocks long and maybe 12 blocks wide. And there are HUNDREDS of bars, of all shapes and sizes. While Bourbon St. is the most recognizable area to most, I didn't really like it. It's really gaudy and over the top. Neon, touts, the whole deal. It was like the West End in San Antonio in Ibiza. I was already half cut and in no mood to be harassed by people of all shapes and sizes, so I checked out some other streets instead. At first I was a tad worried about security since NO is known as a dodgy city, but the Quarter was perfectly fine. I spent most of the night meandering between different bars and just walking around, taking in the atmosphere. It was loud, amusing, and didn't feel threatening. There were so many people everywhere that it would have been pretty hard to get robbed or anything.
After a good sleep, I set off to explore more of the city the next day. I went down to the water (Mississippi river) and walked along the banks a bit. Checked out the Harrah's casino. Walked up and down Canal St (the border between the Quarter and the Business District) and into the CBD a bit. All nice and chill. Then I decided I was going to go to a cemetery.
I know that sounds odd, but Nawlins might have the coolest cemeteries in the world for one reason - the city is below sea level. They can't bury coffins because they just get pushed back up above the ground (imagine the first person to figure that out - yikes). So all the coffins are above ground, set in massive crypts with crazy decorations and headstones and shit. I wanted to see a good example of one, so I asked my hotel concierge to direct me to the closest one. He told me the hotel had tours to Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1, just across Rampart from the Quarter. And the tour was 'the only safe way to go there'. 40 bucks. It was 5 blocks from my hotel. Fuck that, concierge. Turns out the place was really nice. Not unsafe. And free.
Later that night, I decided to check out a couple of bars behind my hotel. The same concierge from earlier told me that the food was pretty good at a couple of them, as long as I didn't "look too hard". I assumed he meant that the places were easy to find. He didn't mean that. At. Fucking. All.
I headed to the end of the street and popped into a bar on the corner. I didn't really look around since there were people on either side of me, but I ordered a beer (2 bucks) and a pizza (6 bucks off the menu). The bartender chick then took off to my right, which caused me to look in that direction.
And I immediately thought "Holy shit. I'm in fucking Cambodia".
I was looking into the "kitchen". Which wasn't a kitchen at all, it was just some big ovens with stuff hanging all over them, and a big counter full of all sorts of foodstuff. It was separated from the bar's front door by a flimsy cubicle wall. I have no idea how I missed it coming in. But I couldn't miss the cook as he walked past the bartender into this den of depravity. He was a little black dude with an apron, and he was singing. As loud as he possibly could.
I had two choices at this point - cancel the order and fuck off, or drink as many beers as possible until my food came and hope that might kill all the diseases on my pizza. My decision was made a lot easier by the bartender chick, who saw me staring into the kitchen and mainlining my beer. She came back and said "Food falls into two categories here - 'Are you willing to risk food poisoning?' or 'Are you a pussy?"." And walked away before I could respond.
That settled the point pretty damn well. The pizza turned out to be pretty good too. Not long after I finished it though, I finally clued into what the concierge said. He didn't mean "don't look too hard to find a place to eat". He meant "don't look too hard AT the place you're getting the food from". I followed that advice for the rest of my stay in New Orleans, ate some really good stuff, and I'm still alive. Go figure.
After seeing all the stuff I wanted to see in two days, I just spent the rest of the time in the Quarter or the bars and restaurants around the hotel. The French Quarter in New Orleans is, pound-for-pound, the most interesting place in the world to talk to people. Whether they're from there or not, they always have a story to tell and everyone's pretty...unique. To say the least.
After having lunch at a cool bar (gumbo? Awesome. Po' Boys? Fucking subway sandwiches with too much shit shoved into them), I headed to a bar someone told me about. He said it was an "Irish Dive bar", whatever that meant. Cool. When I got there, there was only one couple in there. I sat down and quickly laughed at the bartender, because he was pouring a shitload of Jamesons into his own coffee. Take a big gulp, pour. Gulp, pour.
"Rough night," he said at my laughter. "Want some?"
"Fuck no. Can I just get an Amber?"
"Suit yourself."
He talked to me a bit about Katrina and the other bars he worked at. He also kept screwing up the order of the only other couple there because he was already shitfaced. "Wine? You wanted wine right? No? Vodka seven? Wow, I was way off."
That went on for a while before a couple of dudes came in and immediately blew the place up. A black dude in his late 20's, and a white dude in his late 30's. The black dude was singing and dancing before he even got to the bar, while the white guy was telling an animated story to his oblivious friend with spastic hand movements and even some jumping up and down. And of course, they sat down right next to me.
"Awwww snap! We needs some jager bombs! My boy here's going to the UFC!"
Say what?
I couldn't help myself and had to ask if he was telling the truth. The white dude looked too old and too skinny to knock a table over, much less fight professionally.
"Man, it's great. I'm on my way! I finally got signed up for this kickass fight gym in Kenner today. Took like six months for me to get the bread together! Now I'm gonna train and fight in the UFC!"
The whole time he's saying this, the black guy is shadowboxing behind him, and ducking and diving behind his back and popping up over each shoulder, making faces at me. He was either the funniest dude I had seen in a while, or he was reaaaally high.
"He's gonna be the world champ! Awwww snap! And I'm his manager!"
"Yup, Tyron's got my sponsors and shit. He's the brains, I'm the...uh...fighter guy!"
I quickly found out that Tyron was from Guyana and was either a drug dealer or a "professional playa". And he started every sentence with "Awww snap!"
"Aww snap! You gotta take that back to Canada wit you, boy. That's how a playa talks!" I didn't have the heart to tell him that's how playas talked in 1989 and he was a tad bit behind the times.
And it turns out that Joe was his personal cab driver. He drove cab for a real company and all that, but was at Tyron's beck and call and would ignore dispatch requests if he was doing something for him. Since Tyron paid better. I can't see many cab companies being big fans of their drivers ignoring dispatches, but whatever.
After a while of bullshitting with these two characters, Tyron saw my tablet that I had brought with me. After asking me 10 times whether it was a phone, ("That bitch is bigger than the phone that white kid had on Saved by the Bell!") He snatched it away from me and proceeded to do about seven improv skits with it. It was a phone while he talked to his mama. Then it was a tray (he even put drinks on it, much to my dismay). Then it was the world's biggest pager ("Pagers for big bitches!"). I really thought he was gonna break the thing, but it was so fucking funny that I didn't care at that point.
I didn't think he could top that, but he managed to. In the midst of telling me and the bartender a story about living in Jamaica (he went from Guyana to Jamaica to the US apparently), he just stopped dead and turned his back on us in the middle of a sentence. The bartender and I just looked at each other with a WTF face, then heard noises coming from the door.
Four African-American ladies had entered the premises.
Joe tried to say something to him, but he just whispered "Shut the fuck up Joe! You don't know me! Don't look at me!" under his breath. Then moved down a couple of stools. It took me a few seconds, but I finally clued in - he didn't want to be seen by the black chicks hanging with a bunch of goofy, drunk white guys. And right as I came to that realization, he popped out of his seat, walked over, and went to work.
"Ladies! Mmhmm, some beautiful sistas up in here now! How are you this fine evening? Tyron would like to buys yous some drinks!" They turned him down cold. But like any good salesman, Tyron was persistent.
"Tyron doesn't take no for an answer when they ladies are this beautiful! You, barman! These ladies would like shots of your finest tequila!"
"They're 13 bucks a shot, Tyron."
Without missing a beat, he replied, "Barman! These ladies would like your finest jager bomb!"
Everyone in the place, including the ladies, were laughing at him by this point. So they graciously took his shot, and he sat there and worked his game for a while. We could overhear everything he said, and my stomach hurt so bad from trying not to laugh out loud because it was so fucking ridiculous. Finally after they got up and left, he came back to the bar, sullen and defeated. "Hoo-ers!" he yelled in a terrible English accent. Which cracked everyone up again.
I spent a while there getting more drunk with these three goofs until Joe decided they were gonna go. "There are 250 bars in the Quarter right? Tyron, I think we should go to every single one of them tonight."
"Aww snap! Let's do this! You're not driving though. Hey Saved By The Bell, you comin' or what?"
These guys were pretty wasted by this point, so I figured it'd probably be better to start over somewhere else with a saner crowd. After giving me shit for give minutes about the tablet again, we went outside and outta nowhere, Tyron ran up for a horse-drawn carriage and jumped in. Joe quickly ran after him. "Grab your own Saved by the Bell, they're ain't room for you in my chariot!"
I just laughed and shook my head and walked back towards my hotel. I thought I was free. But Tyron had other ideas. After five minutes or so, I hear clopclopclop and "Awwww snap! Saved by the Bell! We gonna follow you!" Fuck. The white chick driving the think just looked at me and shook her head, which made me laugh. They continued to yell at me until the end of the block, when they turned left and finally took off.
Just another night in New Orleans.
