Slowly we pieced the previous night back together and Erin made a run to the store and to get us some chocolate milk. That stuff cures anything!! We decided to get cleaned up and head down to the French Quarter to do some sight seeing and get some lunch before all the crazy Mardi Gras people came out. Below is a picture of Matt and Erin in front of their apartment before we took off. It was a really pretty house. Their apartment was on the bottom floor. It wasn’t very spacious but really nice. They also had a nice pool out back which I forgot to get a picture of.
We called a taxi to bring us down to the French Quarter. On the way there we drove past the high school that the Manning brothers played football at. I think the taxi driver said it cost $20,000 a year to go to that school but the Manning's had football scholarships. Could you imagine that, a scholarship to go to high school? We also drove past a few of the above ground cemeteries that New Orleans is know for. I didn't feel right taking a picture of them. We had the driver drop us off close to where Matt and Erin got engaged. It is called the Cornstalk Hotel. It has a wrought iron fence shaped like corn stalks. Evidently the story is many years ago when the hotel was a house the owner married a girl from Iowa. He wanted her to feel like she was at home so he had the fence made to look like corn stalks. What a sweetheart he must have been!
Below is one of the first thing we saw after we got out of the taxi, The Naked Cowboy from New York City. If you’re not familiar with him he walks around time square in NYC dressed like this all year around singing for money. I actually saw him there a couple years ago. I don't blame him for coming to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. The 60 degrees and sunshine on Saturday had to be much better than the freezing temperatures and snow in NYC. For some reason no body wanted to get their picture taken with him. Not even Nic!!
We then walked around the French Quarter a little more and ended up at St. Louis Cathedral. The Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis King of France is the oldest Catholic cathedral in continual use in the United States. It was established as a parish is 1720. It has been rebuilt at least once since then.
There is a big square in front of the cathedral were a lot of people were selling about anything. There were carriage rides, all kinds of artists selling paintings and sketches, psychics and palm readers, and even street performers. I'll get to the part about Nic getting his future read by a psychic later. There were also the holy rollers in front of the cathedral preaching about how god hates homosexuals, drunks and so on. Nic didn't get along with those guys very well...
It was time to get lunch. We walked around until we found this little New Orleans style restaurant. I don't remember what it was called but it had your typical French Quarter architecture. We had to try the local food of course. I was a little daring and went with an Oyster PO-Boy (below). There are several stories about where the name came from but most of them say it originated from a sandwich for the "poor boys". It is basically Louisiana French bread with your choice of Oyster, shrimp, crawfish, catfish and even some types of meat. It was very good. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to try any crawfish but I'm sure there will be a next time.
After we stuffed ourselves we decided to take a walk down Bourbon Street while it was early in the day yet. It was already starting to get crazy. There were plenty of people throwing beads off the balconies and all kinds of street performers trying to make some cash.
We had to stop for a hand grenade which is a strong alcoholic cocktail drink. It was first made at the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition. It is sold at four locations in the French Quarter. It consists of 1½ ounces of rum, gin, vodka, grain alcohol, and melon liquor served over crushed ice and garnished with mint. It seemed like a good way to start the day off... After all it was already after noon!
We walked down Bourbon Street until we finished our hand grenades and then we decided to check out the other streets. At this point we thought it would be a good idea for Nic to get his future read. We all assumed his future is going to be pretty dark but to our surprise (according to the psychic) he is going to have a pretty good future. In March he is going to meet that special someone who is going to be a lawyer or doctor. They are going to have 4 kids (2 boys and 2 girls). He is also going to run into some money in 2013. Since I've been friends with him my entire life I decided to hang around for a few more years until he runs into that money. He promised that he would build a racetrack and buy us all cars to race around with. Now that I think about it, I should have put that down on paper and asked him sign it. Oh well I think he will be good to his word.
After that we decided to head back to Matt and Erin’s apartment to cook some steaks donated by Matt’s lovely mom! Matt used a southern style marinate from one of his coworkers on the steaks. Nic worked his usual magic on the grill and we had a great dinner.
At this point we are all stuffed and exhausted from the night before but we decided to man up and head back down to Bourbon street at night when all the crazy's come out. Erin being the awesome person she is decided to stay back and let us have a boy’s night out. She kindly dropped us off and told us to give her a call when we decided to come home. At this time we thought that call would be around one or two in the morning.
We bought a couple beers and walked down Bourbon Street to check it all out. It was absolutely crazy at night. There were people everywhere. Drunken people that is. The one thing that amazed me is that I did not see a single fight. There were so many people pushing and shoving just trying to walk down the street but everybody was there just to have a good time.
The street was too packed for us so we decided to go into a bar. We went to a country bar called Bourbon Cowboy. Get it? Bourbon Cowboy - Urban Cowboy. Somebody is creative.. After a few drinks there we decided to make the mechanical bull our beotch. We made the guys in front of us look like the sissies they were. I didn't notice it until I posted these pictures but for some reason I am right handed but I was holding on with my left hand. Hmm thanks again bud light!
After we mastered the bull we moved onto the dance floor and unsuccessfully tried to get rid of our beads. The rounds of beer and shots kept coming. Those stupid test tube shot girls kept walking around practically forcing us to drink them...
A sweet picture of Matt photobombing Nic and Jason.
The two chicks below tried to take my Purdue hat. The first one tried the "I'll let you buy shots off me if I can have your hat move" and the second used "My brother goes to Purdue and oh by the way I'm really freaking cute move". I showed them some of my sweet white man moves on the dance floor and took my hat back and went home. At least that’s how I remember it.
Remember earlier when I said we were planning on calling Erin around one or two to come pick us up. Well we missed that by a couple hours. It ended up being around 4am. (Erin if you’re reading this thanks for putting up with us intoxicated morons!)
Anyways it was an awesome night until we had to get up at 8am and drive 13 hours home. Luckily Jason and I somehow missed the hangover stage and didn't feel too bad on the way home. I can't say the same for Nic though...
"and we are the three best friends that anybody could have" If you don't get that go watch the Hangover
Until next time....
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