After checking out of our sweet room around 11:00 AM, we were back on I-10 headed to The Big Easy, The car ride was hovering around normal with occasional "almost stops" to see live baby alligators (a life-long dream of mine) when we arrived in New Orleans at about 2:30 PM.
Mind you we had nowhere to stay, very little knowledge of New Orleans geography and minimal funds. So, we drove to the first hotel that looked haunted in the French Quarters walked in and asked the concierge (French word) for a hotel room. He looked at us skeptically, pulled out a cute little notepad, jotted down something and slid the paper to me face down like I was getting an estimate on a kilo of cocaine. The next words out of my mouth were, "Per person or all together?" He responded adamantly and said, "All together."
So, lady luck reared her pretty little head in once again, meaning we paid $25 per person to stay in a hotel fifteen feet away from Bourbon Street. So far so good. We unpacked what little luggage that we had in the car and made our way to the greatest street in the United States of America.
We started pretty basic and slow. I was the only one who was semi-familiar with New Orleans, so I had to play tour guide. I offered life changing tour knowledge like, "Hand grenades get you really really drunk. They are sold right there," and "Last time I was here, I got hammered at this place, it was awesome." So, we went into this place, because it was awesome and they had live music. Now it was January, it was pretty cold, and it was the middle of the day, so needless to say this place was not very crowded, but there was still more people than most would have thought. The band was awesome. They asked us where we were from and played music accordingly. Also, due to the fact it was still daytime we were getting offered outlandish specials like buy one beer get three free.
We went from bar to bar for a while, following our ears to whichever bar had the best sounding live music. At about 5 or 6PM (things were beginning to get perpetually fuzzier at this point), the girls went back to the room to change and get ready for the evening. So, there we were two 22 year-old-boys on Bourbon Street, I went ahead and asked what Gerald was already thinking. "What strip club do you wanna go to?"
Surprisingly, Gerald had never been to a strip club, and it's a little difficult to explain the massive amounts of talent in a no cover strip club, on Bourbon Street, in January, on a Tuesday, during the middle of the day. For lack of a better analogy and to sound severely misogynistic, I felt like I had just bought myself a ticket to a discount petting zoo. A petting zoo that was relocated from Chernobyl. Regardless, Gerald had the time of his life and the drinks were reasonably priced and I promised him we would go to a "real" strip club were they don't squirt your hands with Purex on the way out.
After a few more drinks we headed back to the hotel to meet the girls and get ourselves ready for the evening. When everyone was good to go, we stopped by the strip club one more time to introduce TC to our new friends. She showed her gratitude by threatening to murder us after we held her down to her chair for a lap dance (on the house might I add).
A few more bars later, and a completely failed karaoke attempt, we ended our evening at my personal favorite bar in the French Quarters. None other than Pat O'Brien's Piano Bar. A very quaint little spot with two giant copper pianos facing each other and pianists that work for their tips just like the good ole days. Naturally, I asked the pianist to play "Piano Man" by Billy Joel about one-thousand times. She was a good sport and she played, and we sang.
There are other details from this night but they are pretty fuzzy. I can remember meeting some Australians who wanted to marry Texas girls and ride a bull. I bought a really awesome shirt at some point too.
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