I left a piece of my heart in that city. It was literally a life altering experience. I didn’t mean one soul who was not a good person. I was even able to discuss quantum theory with a few bums on the street at 4 am. Theres no real last call, and Bourbon St was the worst portion of that trip. An over-rated cesspit.

The Journey began much like any trip in America. A plane. Even though ours had a bee on it, and almost cut the trip short as Leigh Anne is allergic to bees, a few seconds later of my awesomeness and the bee was dead. Scares the shit out of you on a plane though to see some creature flying around at 10,000 feet. We had a Russian flight attendant who did all the announcements, he sounded like the Cosmonaut on the movie “Armageddon”. We laughed every time he spoke.

The first night we showed up, we went to this amazing bar out in a suburbia type area and got to see a band called “The Soul Rebels” play. I didn’t have my camera on me that night though, it was still in my bag at the house since we literally dropped our stuff off and went out to the town. Jesse, one of Leigh Anne’s friends who runs The Blue Nile, also manages that band, but we hadn’t run into him yet. We went out with this girl Amy who was one of the more sweethearts of the trip. Anyways, this first night out was my biggest shock. Besides there are no straight roads anywhere, everyone in the clubs, even the white boys that cant dance, do dance. Its almost an insult not to. I shuffled around just to not seem like some stiff board observing in the back of the room, but even then people were nudging me to move out into the crowd when I wasnt holding on to Leigh Ann, and we drank until 4 am. You can also smoke indoors, but I did not partake.

The next day we met up with Erica, who had gone to sleep right as we showed up. We were staying at her place for the duration of this trip. She came home on her lunch break to wake us up and go get some brunch. We went to this Mexican styled place around the corner from her house. Even being that it was Mexican food and I’m from Arizona, it was highly enjoyable. The food was delicious. We had a few margaritas with our meal and went with Erica to her work. She was working a summer job in the down town metropolitan area at an Summer school for the arts with young kids. This place was rad. We got to make glass beads, which let me tell you, was not an easy task. Yet these 7-10 year old kids were making sculptures like no ones business… ha, made me feel dumb for being out of touch with my art. Erica took the day off to hang out with us so we went off to go hang out with Jesse.

Jesse is an awesome guy, few years older than us, owner of the Blue Nile, the upstairs bar, and knows everyone in town. He took us to go see all of the sights and knew all of the history of the city, all of the back alley places, voodoo shops, and absinthe bars (which is now legal) so it was the real deal. I finally got to see the Mississippi River and all of the great architecture in New Orleans. After a long day of seeing the sights and feeling like a tourist, we retired to a restaurant by his bar and had an amazing meal there. One of those fancy schmancy places that served awesome food. However they’re appetizers were more appetizing than the courses. So that what all of us ordered. Muscles and Fries, 9 Spice BBQ shrimp (an odd experience), a white sauce ravioli and wine. After dinner we went home to nap before going partying at the Blue Nile and seeing the Soul Rebels play there for a 2nd experience that was equally as good. Later that night we went down Bourbon street to go the Dungeon. Bourbon street was disgusting, smelled bad and full of retarded frat kids that were vomiting in corners. A shame Dungeon had to be located there. Dungeon was a small place however very intricately designed, an awesome experience however they didn’t let us take pictures.

It rained Saturday morning, so the sight seeing was canceled and we all slept in. Later on in the day we went and drove up St. Charles to see the amazing mansions and architecture. We went to this cafe shortly after for some good afternoon breakfast. Afterwards, we went and met up with another person named Josh. A very cool cat to be sure, and hung out at his house for a bit, watched squirrels and to test out the local horticulture . From there we walked to this cheese and wine place. Again, the food did not disappoint. Cheeses from around the world and great wine to boot. We had some time to kill afterwards so we saw the new Batman movie…. probably one of the most amazing films Ive seen this year, although they should of killed off the joker at the end for obvious reasons. The movie went later than expected so we had to rush to the house so Erica could get her stuff for work (she works at the Blue Nile) and to meet up with Amy so Josh could have a ride home. That night was a little stranger than Friday. I think it was mainly due to the fact that we were a little exhausted and there wasn’t really any events going on that night so the crowd was odd. We went over to this place called DBS after a few drinks at the Nile and caught the end of a show there. DBS is another awesome venue. We went back to the Nile afterwards and relaxed for a bit for Erica to get off work, some seedy characters this time, but still everything was OK. We wandered around for some food with Amy and met up with Erica after failing when she got off work to go get some food. We ended up at this “colorful” place called Clovers Grill and had breakfast and burgers, Amy went home rather than joining us.

Sunday was quick, we slept in a bit. After an odd experience of a drunk Amy falling asleep in the bed Leigh Ann and I were sleeping in when Leigh Ann went to the restroom (a rather funny experience to wake up to, no worries, nothing bad happened). We got up, and checked out the Cemeteries. I got my mom a seashell that had been washed over onto the graves when everything was underwater. She likes to collect stones and trinkets that are unique to a place, I don’t think it gets more unique than a seashell from a grave that wasn’t supposed to be there.

Leigh Ann stayed behind another day so she could fly directly to Los Angeles for school, I get to see her Tuesday night or Wednesday. I already miss her, and New Orleans.