New Orleans

The 12 year high school "reunion" was held by Lamar, George, Jon, Alex and I in New Orleans April 19th-22nd. I got up at 4:15 in the morning to catch my early flight. Lamar and I arrived first and we started off early with a slushy form one of the many alcoholic slushy stores. We walked up and down Burbon St. to get an idea of where things were and then headed over to Decatur and looked at some restaurants and souvenir shops. We had some crawfish, which were delicious, but are quite a lot of work for not a lot of meat. Alex joined us a few hours later at a random bar we had stopped in.

Alex and Lamar started getting loud and jokingly argumentative almost immediately, which I just found hilarious and took me right back to high school. It was great! Afternoon activities and dinner and music watching ensued before George and Jon arrived later that night. When they did finally get into town, we continued on the strip and got some more drinks and food. The first night ended, after unknowingly getting late night breakfast at a gay breakfast place. At 3:15 am central time and I headed to bed right at the 24 hrs awake mark. Needless to say, I was tired,  but happy we all made it to NOLA.

As I think back on our trip, I was going to try and recount most of our adventures, in a cronological order, but we went to so many places that there's no way I'm going to get the order right, and it really doesn't matter when, before or after, we went to one place or another. We went to a whole lot of restaurants, bars, music venues, shops, and stores. To name just a few: D.B.A., Spotted Cat, B.M.C., Maison, Blue Nile, 13, Cure, Stanley's, Mena's Palace, Superior Seafood, Blacksmith Bar, Toute de Suite, Cafe du Monde, The Dungeon... and those are the ones I knew the names of or remember. We stopped in many other places for drink or a bite to eat and then continued on our way to see the sites and sounds of New Orleans.

We saw Sylvester Stalone making a movie, and Lamar might be our next big star. He might get left on the cutting room floor, but he definitely made a guest appearance in one scene.

We took the steam boat tour, a horse and carriage ride to learn some history and the ferry across the river to see Algiers point and breakfast.  We stopped in the casino a couple times to watch people throw some money away.... I picked up a couple touristy souvenirs like coffee from Cafe due Monde and some hot sauce as well as some local artists stuff, and brought back some of the famous pralines. 

It was an awesome trip and I look forward to the next one. Be it Boston, or Chicago, or whatever other city we might decide on. Here's a few more pictures of NOLA! Link