The original plan had been to go to Austin, Texas. But a little research with the AAA travel guide suggested there wasn’t that much interesting to do, aside from watching the bats. So we decided on New Orleans, where neither of us has been to before, although a little further than some of the other cities we could have driven to, such as Dallas, Memphis, or even Nashville.

The ride was uneventful enough, until we actually reached NO and couldn’t find the hotel – lots of one way streets in the wrong direction. Well, we did eventually find The Courtyard by Marriot – not to be confused with THE MARRIOT, or even Courtyard by Marriot @ NO Convention Center. 🙂

Anyway, after we dumped our stuff, decided to go check out Bourbon Street and the French Quarter — the main tourist attraction of NO. Lots of bars, tourists, cigar smoke, and gentlemen’s clubs — the Hustler one looks most promising. We went into this jazz joint, where this African-American saxophonist was playing, and it was pretty brilliant.

Then we headed out to another couple of bars, where we finally tried The Hurricane, which everyone seemed to be drinking. It was all right, I suppose, not exactly my kind of drink. We went into a trannie bar, where the posters told us “You’ll have to see it to believe it!” — well, we saw it, but we didn’t know what to believe –> that the “girls” were really men? No surprises there — they were ugly men, and they’re ugly girls.

Popped by next door at the strip club, where this black dancer girl came over to offer some services. Told her to bugger off cos we weren’t interested, but she kept coming back. Hmm. And the old waitress who brought us our beers remarked, “only 1 buck” [for 10+ of beer] – wanted to tell her its more than she’s worth, but didn’t think she was worth the effort.

It was about 2am when we decided to call it a night. Had also went into some shops to see what was available – lots of t-shirts with crude messages –> should really get one before we leave.

I did end up piss drunk and making a fool of myself outside the hotel, where I couldn’t seem to open the door with the security pass/key card thing, and had to press the button for help.

Apparently I was in a rather abysmal condition when I reached the room, but you’ll have to ask Randall for details. I can’t remember anything.