An entertaining afternoon it turned out to be with messing round with the dogs, trying to catch floating debris for Joe to burn and enough funny banter to keep us chuckling , still.
Of course drinking in the the sun in the afternoon leads to early hangovers and so to combat this we dove into the remaining xmas booze and readied ourselves for the evening in town.Around 10 o'clock we got the bus into town, by this time the French Quarter was already heaving and more hectic than we could have possibly imagined.
Learning from our previous visit to the area we went prepared complete with a couple of beers and a bottle of rum ( decanted into a sprite bottle and wrapped in a brown paper bag...classy ) To our joy and suprise the cheap tinnies we found later where also dispensed in such a manner. Another one our American dreams realised!
Nothing else we have experienced quite prepared us for the melee that is New Orleans on New Years Eve. The crowds, the drunkeness, the noise, the freaks and general kaos. What a hilarious night it turned out to be.
After walking around the area taking in the sights for a while, including New Orleans finest N.O.P.D hanging around, just smoking cigars....and nothing else..seriously.. you could have taken their cars if they weren't being used to prop up their ample behinds.. We settled on a spot on Jackson square to see the new year in.
What a great spot to watch it all go on, those blurs are actually two blokes dancing, they definalty had the moves and would soon launch themselves over the edge..!!The New Year was counted in by various local dignatries and local artist who had previously been entertaining the throng..and is commemerated by the dropping of a Gumbo pot from the top of the JAX brewery..This was hidden by a tree and the thing is so small i'm sure it's just a way of getting the out-of-towners to look up so the locals can rifle your pockets..(don't quote me on that..I might have made it up)
shortly after twelve....
The mass's all left Jackson Square and headed up to Bourbon St, we had no choice but to follow. By 1 am we found ourselves parked up outside a restraunt with fresh paper bags in complete awe of the sights and sounds. This whole situation was compounded by the fact that the entire student and local populations of both Florida Gators and Cincinnatti Wildcats ( College football..not soccer as we are constantly reminded) also decended upon the city for the Annual Sugar Bowl New Years day game.
Unklike the UK where any opportunity to have a brawl with the opposition is taken up with great gusto. The Americans see it as a "game" for some reason and at worst might chant at the opposition supporters..well scary as none of them can sing..esp at 1am NYE...They love it too.. everyone is well keen..
The locals we met seemed to be doing the same as us and mainly watching the progress of the evening and after a few drunken chats. Including one guy telling his girlfriend not to take a drink from us..(the paper bag was giving off all the wrong vibes) we decided that it might be time to find a bar off the main drag to hole up in for a few hours.....and boy did we acheive that..!!!
Ok..this might take some explaining...The bar we found (The Round up ) was just off Bourbon st. This place was just an open doorway into a dimmly light room .
We were intrigued...walking around this bar to find a stool we were aware that the clientel were of a different style but could not quite put our fingers on it.
After finding our spot and ordering a $5 pitcher of beer (This was like finding the grail!) it struck us..All the ladies were not what they had, at first appeared.
They had the extra bits..some had not made any real effort with disitinct 5 o'clock shadow and a walk that showed them off for the iron workers they were mon-fri..but some (below) had taken things to a whole new level..see joss's face...quite pleased with himself ..and so he should be ...Alex was a great looking lady...
This place was actually amazing. we managed to meet loads of funny people...The people we really wanted to meet...Freaks....not the generic Americans out for New Year but those on the fringes..They were all really great...fun banter and no poncyness or judgment about our paper bag status...just wanted to talk and drink..The bar staff were polite and constantly topped up the pitcher which was sitting infront of us..to the point that we still hadn't finished our second pitcher 4 hours later..
The patrons were a mix of Trannies, gay guys and the odd tourist like ourselves..all having a laugh together on New Year. The way it should be.
It was 530am when we decided to leave..not because it was late..just that the rent boys had started kicking off with the crackheads and we thought it best to leave them to duke it out while we went to complete our New Year with the post booze Kebab..but its ok.. they're Gyro over here..much classier...really..no really.!!
Egg rating: a hilarious minus 8/9
