Party Time!

Independence Day. You wouldn’t know it from walking the streets of New Orleans. Aside from the increase in American citizens wearing t-shirts with the star-spangled banner emblazoned across them, and the occasional drinks offer in some of the many, many bars that line the streets of New Orleans. But sure enough, it was the day that the US celebrates its birthday and send off fireworks into the sky in remembrance of the founding fathers that fought off the oppressive English regime. But for James and Tim.....we just wanted to party!

As we were to be confined to the French Quarter we decided to walk the boundaries and see just how bad it could really be. We had been told that by going only a street or two outside of the French Quarter could land us in trouble, so off we set to peep across the boundary roads of Canal Street, North Rampart and Esplanade into the dark and unknown blocks that housed the dodgier folk of this great city. And yes, now I can understand why people say to never cross those boundaries. Although we felt very safe on our side of the street, there definitely seemed to be a division between the two sides, with boarded-up houses and people loitering on the non-French Quarter sidewalks. After hitting all three boundaries we headed “inland” along the streets that just seemed so pretty and would look completely out of place anywhere else in the world, but just seemed to work so well in the fair city of New Orleans. We even happened across a couple that were (arguing about) looking for Bard Pitts house, and although she really didn’t want to look for it he was insistent. To the point where I thought they were going to have a blazing row about it as soon as they turned the corner from us.

Brad Pitt's house.......probably. Probably not.

After lunch we attempted to find a place (other than the hotel lobby) that had wi-fi available, and James had scouted out 5 or 6 places to try, coffee shops for example. But being the 4^th of July, guess how many were open! Yup, none. So we tried the Starbucks we had seen across the Canal Street boundary road, but again, that was shut too. We eventually found a ‘Bucks near our hotel and hurriedly set about trying to find our accommodation for Fort Worth or Dallas, which was to be our next stop, as we had not had any luck on previous attempts. Well, when I say luck, we had had some luck.....bad luck. Everything was either way out of our price-range or was miles away from the city centre where the Greyhound would drop us. Maybe some more Couchsurfing would help us out....

One of the reasons for coming to America was to sample some of the places featured on Man vs Food, and luckily enough there were three in New Orleans! One was across boundary street and seemed quite pricey for what was essentially a sandwich, so James and I headed off to the ACME Oyster House, where host Adam Richman had eaten 180 oysters within one hour. Now I knew that even between us that would never get finished (let alone us afford it!), and we certainly wouldn’t want to take the rest away in a doggy bag. So James went for a bowl of seafood gumbo, whereas I opted for the Seafood Etoufee (nope, I don’t know either) with a side of sweet potato fries. For an appetiser I chose a single oyster shooter as I have never had oysters before and I wanted to try one, but not a whole plate of them. It turns out that the Oyster Shooter is a single oyster in a shot glass, with vodka and Tabasco sauce. Hmmmmm. But when in Rome! The Etoufee was delicious and was a great start to our evening of celebrating.

Ready for my Oyster Shot!

We had enough time after dinner to get a beer before the fireworks would be setting off at 9pm, so we headed back down to Bourbon Street to see what we could find. The $2 margaritas were sadly not on offer, so we plumped for two “Big Ass Beers” from a guy selling drinks from a small mobile cart in an alleyway. These Big Ass Beers were essentially just a pint (an English pint at that) in a plastic cup, but as is the custom in Bourbon Street.....and indeed the whole of New Orleans it seems....it was perfectly acceptable to drink it whilst walking, so we did, on our what seemed like 8^th length of Bourbon Street. A quick toilet break at our hotel and we were standing on the banks of the Mississippi with hip flask in hand, waiting for the big celebrations to begin. The show that kicked off at 9pm was good, but seemed to be lacking the brilliance of New Years Eve shows. Either way, it was already the best 4^th of July we had experienced, and there was more to come! As soon as the fireworks had finished we heard a jazz band strike up nearby so we wander over for a closer look. They were fantastic, and we could have stayed there listening all night, but they seemed to pause quite frequently between songs, probably just to catch their breath and mop the torrents of sweat from their brows, as it was still stifling hot out there!

USA! USA! USA!

My tiny hip flask (it only held 50ml of brandy) was soon empty, and we knew the party on good ol’ Bourbon Street would still be going on so off we went to grab another BAB for $3. Whilst walking down the street James had managed to cajole a young lady from the balcony into throwing him a set of her beads, and this was without (thankfully!) him having to expose any flesh whatsoever. I was a little jealous as I had nothing around my neck, but was gonna be sure to keep a look out for any more heading me way. We decided to sample the festivities from a bar balcony so headed up and out of the nearest one that seemed cheap, and before we had chance to buy a beer we were accosted by a Shot Girl (a young girl selling an array of coloured alcoholic drinks from test tubes for $3 a pop). After advising her that we were on a tight budget (which I think we should get t-shirts printed) she said it was fine and we chatted for about 20 minutes, safe from the craziness that was going on below us. I’m not sure that Zoe will get many points in Travellers Top Trumps, but I’m sure she will make it through the first round to Boot Camp.

Bourbon Street in all it's glory

A few more lengths of Bourbon Street and we had finished our hip flasks and another BAG, and I had got my beads! Again, no exposing of flesh was needed to obtain these purple and gold beads, merely joining the melee outside a gentlemens club where one of the......employees.....was throwing out beads by the armful. Sure enough I grabbed three as they rained down on us, much to the dismay of the girl behind me, but hey, if she wanted them so bad she coulda jumped for them like the rest of us! And so that pretty much brought the curtain down on the 4^th July celebrations, and as me and James lay on the loungers outside the hotel to have one last chat of the night we were both content with our evenings festivities, and that we should try and do a “Good Riddance” party on the 4^th July 2013.

The boys with their beads