The next night, Lee was gracious enough to watch Ellie while Greg and I checked out the night life.
Both nights consisted of basically the same thing---walking up and down the streets with hundreds of other people while holding a drink, occasionally yelling "WOO!" at the people around you. And I just don't see the point. Unless a professional sports team has just won a big trophy, it isn't fun to yell "WOO!" at random strangers on the street. There wasn't much bead throwing going on and none of the women were taking off their tops. It was like we were all going through the motions of Mardi Gras, but we didn't have our hearts in it. And I guess that's what it's like there every night of the week.
This is the oldest bar in the western hemisphere.
This is a gay bar that on a different trip to New Orleans Greg and his friend stood out in front of for a very long time before realizing it was a gay bar, even though it was filled entirely with men and there's a rainbow flag in front of it.
It is extremely easy to get drunk in New Orleans for two reasons. First, their drinks are overloaded with alcohol. Lee and I stopped in a spot to get a drink called a Hand Grenade. It's a sugary, super-alcoholic drink served in either a small plastic cup or a big cup with a long neck and a straw. We got the small. The cups all come with a small plastic hand grenade floating on the top. "You're supposed to keep the hand grenades," Lee told me. "Why?" I asked. "So when you go to the ER, you can tell them how many you've had."
I couldn't even finish one.
The second reason it's so easy to get drunk is because the whole point of being in the French Quarter is to walk up and down the streets with your drinks, finding your way to whatever bar catches your fancy or whatever music calls you to it. You can order a drink in a bar (or the many booze counters along the streets) and take it with you. But you can't bring your drink into a bar. They want you to buy their alcohol, so you'll have to finish your drink (or throw it out) before you can go in. So you want to try karaoke. Well, you've got to finish your drink first. Guzzle it down, sing your karaoke, order another drink, then head to the next place. Oh, you want to hear that great jazz band? Sorry, finish your drink first. Now you can hear the band and order another drink while you're there. Before you know it, you're at Tulane University Hospital counting plastic hand grenades with Mike the Intern.
But what a music scene. Every single place you pass has a band or karaoke and there's often music on the street as well. Greg and I saw a group of guys playing jazz trumpets out on the street, surrounded by a huge crowd of people. They were so good. We also sat at the outskirts of a little outdoor cafe listening to a trio play old timey jazz that sounded so authentically New Orleans. It was fantastic.
The trio. These guys were so good.
After we'd been walking around for awhile, Greg decided he wanted to get a cigar to go with his drink and he asked me if I wanted one. I said I would try a small one, like a cigarillo. So we stopped at a cigar stand. (Yes, they have a tiny store that's basically a cigar counter along the street.) They didn't have cigarillos, but they did have a cigar that was smaller than the others. "That's our smallest cigar," the guy told me. "You could smoke that in 15 minutes." So I decided to get it. He clipped off the end, told me that the only thing to remember was not to inhale, let me take a few puffs while he lit the end of it, and handed it over.
Half an hour later, I was barely over halfway done. It was not a 15-minute cigar. And I was sick of smoking it after about 5 minutes. Finally I went back and asked the guy if you can put out a cigar and smoke it later. "That's not a great idea," he told me. "It tastes kind of bad when you smoke it again. Like ash."
It didn't taste very good the first time, so I didn't think I would smoke it a second. He gave me a plastic bag to store the cigar in and told me the proper way to put it out. Greg put out the cigar for me and stuck it in the plastic bag and I stuck the bag in my purse. When the cigar was out, I was about done too, so went back to the hotel.
The next day, my purse reeked. It smelled like an ashtray full of horse manure. I was convinced I was going to have to throw my purse out. I let Ellie smell my purse in the hopes that the utter rankness of it would put her off of all tobacco products for the rest of her life. If that doesn't do it, nothing will. And luckily, my purse survived.
The French Quarter isn't really my scene (though the music was wonderful), but I'm glad I went and I'm glad I didn't drink much while I was there.
More lay-tah
2 comments:
Isn't it fortunate that once we get out of our 20's, we're much less inclined to saturate our brains with alcohol. You showed wise restraint...
Yes, my body thanked me very much for my restraint. Unfortunately, I didn't show as good restraint around the butter-infused food that was everywhere. My body didn't like that much.
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