Living the Life of Luxury

Be proud, we actually got this out pretty quickly…thanks to our 9-hour car ride to South Carolina. Upon arriving in New Orleans, we did our usual…check-in, get ready, and then go out for dinner. When we first got our drinks at dinner we were taken aback by the fact that they were served in plastic cups. However, we quickly realized that they’re “to-go” cups so you can carry them around on the street with you. How awesome is that?! Obviously we had no problem finishing ours prior to leaving, but it’s a nice security measure. Following dinner we made our way to Bourbon Street, which as I’m sure you all know is party central USA. Similar to Austin there are no covers and tons of great live bands, making for great bar hopping. To add to the epicness of New Orleans they have “Huge Ass Beers” (Yes, that’s actually what they’re called), which consist of an entire 6-pack in one giant plastic beer bottle. Obviously one of us had to get one, and Lindsay volunteered to be the brave soul to take it on. Don’t worry she had no problem finishing it. Sam and Britt decided to go with the other classic Bourbon Street drink and got one of their 176 flavors of daiquiris. Between the delicious drinks, great bars, and camaraderie of every one on Bourbon Street it was just like being back at UConn for spring weekend, making for a great night.

Since we have been considerably under budget (Go us!), we decided to treat ourselves, and upgraded to a better hotel. Probably one of our better decisions because they found out it was Sam’s 25^th birthday and gave her a complimentary bottle of sparkling wine. Apparently this is why people enjoy staying at nicer hotels. In the afternoon we decided to make our way down to New Orleans’ famous French Market, containing a mix of various food and shopping vendors.

While at the market we got lunch, and being the brave souls that we are, we decided to try alligator sausages. Turns out it tastes just like other sausages with a slightly thicker skin. Needless to say it was much better than we anticipated. Having eaten a late lunch, we decided to order room service for dinner while we were getting ready. Talk about an upgrade from our previous hotels. The only challenge with this was that they’re very strict about how many people are staying in your room because if there are more than two, they charge you an absurd amount, especially staying in a nice hotel. This made for an interesting conversation when we ordered three meals since they specifically asked how many people were eating in our room, and we obviously had to say that there were only two of us…”Uh…we’re just really hungry tonight”.

When we went out to Bourbon Street our first stop was obviously the daiquiri/”Huge Ass Beers” shop. After our first daiquiri, Sam ordered a vodka tonic. With it being her birthday the bartender decided to make it “special”, and by special we mean extra extra large. It was like a supersize me vodka tonic. Britt on the other hand opted for a fishbowl, which is literally the size of a fishbowl, and Lindsay stuck with her beer. Being a Thursday night it was even more packed than Wednesday, making for another great night. Friday morning we were pretty dead, so we decided to sleep in and get a late breakfast. It ended up raining most of the day so we just hung around the hotel, which is probably what we needed. We grabbed an early dinner and then did what probably 95% of America was doing…we watched the Olympics opening ceremony in the hotel bar. Knowing we had a long day of driving ahead of us, we called it a night after watching the opening ceremony. Since we’re currently driving to South Carolina, you’re as caught up with us as you can be. With another long day of driving ahead of us tomorrow, you can expect another update soon.

Until next time,

As they say in Creole, Ba Bye