The Big Easy: Where you can drink outside and smoke inside!!

To sum up my time in New Orleans: Rainy. Bad roads. BEST TIME EVER!!!!!
Seriously, this has been my favorite place by far up until now. Let's see if I can summarize what we did and why I am seriously considering moving here.

After we moved in with our couch surfing hosts (who were AWESOME, by the way!) we basically hung out long enough until it was time to go out. We went with our hosts to a local dive bar called Lucky's, a 24-hour bar, grill, game room, and laundromat where you can get things notarized and where you can bring your dog. WHAT?!?! First hint that this is the city for me. Haha. While it as fun, we were a little tired and wanted to find somewhere a little more hopping so that we would wake up a little. Cue our hosts hooking us up with one of our friends, who was out on Frenchmen St., which I think is north of the quarter and basically a small strip of jazz clubs. We got there, met up with her friend, and proceeded to see 3 different jazz bands in different clubs in quick succession. Let me just say that the blues are still going strong and definitely still relevant in New Orleans. It was like watching country bands in Nashville but a little more authentic and personal... hard to describe but great. Fun Fact- while walking back from Frenchmen to head closer to home, we saw the lead singer from the first band on the street, so we shook his hand and he gave me a CD!! The band is called Dumaine (named after one of the streets in the Quarter), and I'm so excited to listen to it!! Yet another reason to love this place.

Around 3 (I think?) We went from that strip to another 24-hour bar called Miss Mae's, where well drinks were $1, calls were $2 and premiums were $3. Yes, that means that you could get Johnny Walker Black or Knobb Creek for $3. Another hint that I love this city. haha. We met lots of awesome people there, had a great time, and went home around 4:30...ish...not really sure but some late time that did not feel nearly as late as it was.

Unfortunately, because of the rain and thunderstorms we didn't motivate enough to walk around much or get very far from the Quarter and the Garden District. Guess that just means I'll have to come back some day! We did manage to get ourselves to Parasol's for a po'boy, it was really good although there were lots of big bugs on the floor. But hey, it's New Orleans and they weren't bothering us, so we just let it be an enjoyed our po'boy. Delicious.

That night we spent the whole night at another local dive called The Saint, with our hosts, their neighbors, and some of the friends we had made the night before. Started the night with 1/2 priced drinks, continued with karaoke, and ended with me being very proud of my (apparently newly acquired) skill at maintaining myself by drinking booze slowly and water quickly. Definitely a useful thing to be able to do... glad it took me this long... haha. That bar wasn't a 24-hour one but last call was at 6a.m., yet another reason to love New Orleans.

We got home, slept for a few hours, thanked our hosts (and their dog) over and over and headed out for Houston around 2. It was a long, rainy drive to get here, and seemed even longer because of the weather and the fact that a 2004 Ford Ranger packed to the roof with backpacks, guitars, food, and beer is not the most comfortable place to try to sleep. But we made it, and subsequently had a long battle with Rice University over where the hell you are allowed to park overnight. Apparently nowhere. Agh.

So now we're up, doing computer things, and hopefully we'll make it out to explore the city a little before the storm really hits. Hurricane Alex can do nothing to weaken my resolve to drink and meet people. I'll keep you posted!

Once again,
Yours in Wandering,
Katie

...I don't think we're in Florida anymore...

Finally, we are out of the state of Florida. It feels like we were there forever, although I just realized it was only actually 6 days. The weirdest juxtaposition of this trip so far has been spending 6 days in one state, and then being in 4 states the next day. The U.S., England, and Mexico are all out of the World Cup running, so now all we have is Ghana to root for before all of our teams are out. (By "our" teams, I mean I get to root for Ghana because Dre went there once. I think we're becoming the smae person so that's probably ok.)

Tallahassee was an interesting place, we met some fun people at the pub (which was SO RIDICULOUSLY CROWDED) and ended up staying the night with an old hippie. Coolest house ever - I've never seen so many knick knacks all in one place!! We went out for a little bit that night, just trying to see the town, but there were only about 4 bars, and they were all like nasty college frat bars. Which can definitely be fun (clearly... who am I again?) but not really what we were in the mood for. No worries though, we went home, watched a movie and went to sleep!

On our way to New Orleans yesterday we stopped near Eglin Air Force Base to go to the beach, and ended up finding tar balls while swimming in the ocean. Really sad, the beach wasn't messy yet but just to know that it will be soon was depressing, especially because it was so so beautiful. Stopped at a few more places on the Gulf to try to see some oily beaches (half from rubbernecking, half because...how could we not?) but didn't see much. We finally made it into our campground very near New Orleans around 6, after a 8 hour total trip. Bayou Segnett State Park was so so nice, and if we hadn't found an awesome couch surfer to stay with for the rest of the time we would be totally happy to have stayed there. We made some Zatarain's Red Beans and Rice for dinner in honor of the occasion and the location, and then headed out on the town!

Another advantage of the campground was that it was only about a 15 minute drive to Bourbon St. However, we spent longer than that trying to find a place to park in the French Quarter. In the scheme of things though, that was the only problem we had, so the night was definitely a success! We went to a bar called Krazy Korner (I think?) and had a great time chatting with the upstairs bartender. We made a great friend who's really into traveling and couch surfing, and what more do you need when traveling than 3-for-1 drink deals (what?!?!?!) and new friends? Nothing.

Today has been mostly trying to sleep while the sun streams in the truck window at 7 a.m., and then dealing with rain. Go figure. But on the plus side, we got to our couch surfing location around 1 and it's been great to have air conditioning, a fridge, and wireless! And possibly a delicious Twix to help also. haha

For the rest of the night, I think we're going to look for free red beans and rice (apparently that's a common Monday thing... awesome!!) and then we'll head wherever the night takes us! I'm sure it will be fun, I decided that I'm totally in love with New Orleans and now that we know where to go for locals bars I'm excited to explore!

Alright, now that I"m all caught up it's time to get off my computer and go do stuff!
Thanks for reading everyone!
Yours in Wandering,
Katie