Volume 5: Pete in the USA Part 8. A young balding mans journey through 20 something states and back
Day 15 – New Orleans
Gav and I enjoyed a sleep in before heading to Bourbon Street and inner city New Orleans. Somehow, Bourbon Street stinks even more during the day than at night. Instead of smelling like straight human sh*t, by day it smells like something I can only guess that has left the exit hole of a diabetic, lactose intolerant dog and spent a number of minutes in a microwave. The initial breath you take is enough to nearly knock you off your feet, but you somehow get used to it and are able to function properly. The street is also devoid of the many people who littered it the night before, who are no doubt sleeping off their hangovers in their hotel room or in a gutter in a nearby street.
About halfway down Bourbon Street we took a detour and visited Jackson’s Square (which judging by it’s subtle décor was not built as a tribute to Michael Jackson). We popped into a tourist info centre and asked some old bloke working there where the nearest internet café was. He replied with an answer, and then a question I had already heard 1,521 times earlier on tour; “Where y’all from?”. The people are so nice in the south, providing you’re not black or Jewish. We thanked the older timer for his friendly assistance and made our way to the internet café and a chance to send a sober email. I read the email I had written the night before from Krystals and not surprisingly it resembled something other than English.
After a quick stroll through the French Quarter we found ourselves on Decatur Street. It was there I purchased a stubby holder with the Bourbon Street sign on, which I knew would give me many years of pleasure, before walking further up the street and stumbling across a store called the “Cigar Factory”. As we were going to be cruising up the mighty Mississippi that night on a paddle steamer I suggested to Gav that we purchase some cigars to smoke on the boat, a small tradition I had started back in Germany of smoking a cigar when travelling up major waterways. He agreed it was a great idea so we entered the store and purchased a couple. I don’t know much about cigars, but the blokes rolling them looked Cuban so I knew they had to be of good quality.
From there it was a short stroll to Harrah’s Casino on Canal, so as we had helped fund state infrastructure for the state of Nevada, we thought it only fair that we should help the state of Louisiana accumulate much needed gambling taxes so we spent an hour in there doing our part for the state. It was in there that someone stole Gav’s shopping bag, which now only contained a t-shirt that hadn’t been washed in 15 days, as Gav had decided to wear the original contents of the shopping a bag, a new t-shirt. It was also in the Casino that a woman behind the bar referred to me as “love”, meaning my sweetie/love aura had not left me.
Dinner that night was spent on a paddle steamer named “Creole Queen” as we cruised the mighty Missipp. After dinner, but before some more flirting with aussie Victoria, Gav and I made our way to the top deck of the boat to smoke our Cuban cigars (well they were rolled by Cubans). It was only on completion of the cigar I remembered why I didn’t smoke cigars on a regular basis. Gav wore a suit on the boat, and judging by the reaction it was getting from the women on tour you’d have thought that suit was going to responsible for curing cancer such was the warm reception it got. Never before has a garment that contained 30% polyester got so much attention.
After the boat ride it was off to Bourbon Street. My attempts of completing the onshore double took a dive when aussie Victoria informed me “I was trying too hard”. I had upped the flirt pace to about 6 to 7 a minute, a pace not even she could keep up with. Meanwhile, the other half of the onshore double must have wanted 500 beads, because that’s about as many times as Flipper flashed her ample bosoms.
My small group eventually ended up at some piano bar the chicks had spent the previous night getting free drinks from some blokes that worked for Microsoft. As the Microsoft blokes weren’t there this night, I’m tipping they were now tired and had crashed (get it? Microsoft; crash).
We eventually got tired (I believe I was falling asleep in my chair after sculling a hurricane) and headed back to the hotel, but not before trying to get some KFC. Inside the store was closed, so we were directed by some pimple face earning minimum wage to use the drive thru. Given we were all drunk, we thought nothing of the fact we weren’t in a vehicle as we walked through the drive thru to the first window. It took about 10 minutes to reach the first window, so naturally we weren’t exactly ecstatic when the store manager told us they don’t serve people on their feet. I’m sure in our drunken state we made some compelling arguments as to why they should serve us, occasionally citing precedent like “Saunders vs the City of New Orleans”, but those arguments fell on deaf ears so we headed back to the hotel devoid of any chicken related products in our bellies.
We got back to the hotel at 2ish to find Gav was fast asleep. Dave, Mason and I thought that was weak, so naturally we bum rushed his bed and played stacks on the mill. Meanwhile, as that was going on JP had hooked up with an old lady friend who bought one of her friends back to the hotel. Apparently at some time in the night the friend of the friend freaked out and left his room. I’m tipping that time was when he turned on the light and she saw his face for the first time in a well light room.
Just another night on tour.
Day 16 – New Orleans to Pensacola
Just for something different, today’s first stop lasted all of about 2 minutes. We stopped at the old naval ship the USS Alabama, at least I think it was the USS Alabama, it all happened so fast all I could remember was seeing a bunch of “a”’s and the occasional “b”, “m”, and “l” on a big bell out the front of the ship. This was a thing that was becoming an all to common occurrence on tour, the stop to piss, eat, and on the rare occasion we spent more than 2 minutes at the stop, do your fly back up after the piss. I’m sure the old girl, the USS Alabama, would have had many tales to tell, but we were back on the bus before I had a chance to ask her.
On the way to Pensacola my suspicions that tailgating was in the US constitution were confirmed as I watched countless cars on the highway following each other so close that should they have been in a car accident the car in fronts airbag would have also restrained the forward movement of the driver in the car behind. I’ve heard of back seat drivers, but when the back seat driver you’re hearing is in the car behind you it’s an indication you’re driving too close together. It also became apparent on the highway that day that driving a large truck into a bunch of trees was also in the constitution, or at least was some Florida state law, as I saw 2 trucks do just that (well the aftermath of them doing that).
Lunch today was in Pensacola, so as we didn’t have far to go to the hotel we spent a few hours at Pensacola beach that afternoon. We all enjoyed a pleasant lunch at Americas most respected restaurant, Hooters. For me, the typical average bloke whose 3 main interests in life are beer, sports and women (not necessarily in that order) my expectations that Hooters was to be a shameless shrine to a bygone era where scantly dressed women in the workplace were an accepted norm and where if you thought a woman had a nice arse you had no shame in telling her about it, even if you didn’t know her name, were officially crushed at my second visit to a Hooters restaurant. For all the hype, in the end the women who work in Hooters were reasonably dressed. Sure, it may have created a controversy when they opened in the 70s (and judging by the age of some of the women working there they could have told you some stories as they would’ve been there on opening day) but in the 21st century where the masses have been desensitised by TV, movies and that great tool of learning, the internet, the Hooters experience all seems pretty lame these days.
After lunch a few of us went jet skiing, while the others kicked back on the beach. Poor old Mason, or should that be poor young Mason, was too young to drive a jet ski according to local regulations so he was forced to sit on the back of Cathy’s and enjoy possibly the most responsible use of a jet ski ever. According to Masons account, she must have ignored the fact that once you passed the buoy you could go past 5 miles an hour. When a person rowing a boat with his girlfriend in the back goes past you, you know you could probably open the throttle up a bit more. As for me, I was trying to get some air off the wake of the other jet skis, while Jamie and Danielle fell off their jet ski at least once. Now that’s how you’re supposed to treat a jet ski. Before getting back on the bus I purchased a shirt that said I was part of the Pensacola Beach Lifeguards. I figured it might serve as a good defence strategy in any future sexual harassment lawsuit I may find myself in. Something along the lines of “Kissing her?!? I wasn’t kissing her you fool! I was bringing her back to life with CPR”, a strategy that surely would only work if I was wearing my newly acquired Pensacola Beach Lifeguard shirt in the witness stand.
The entertainment that night was spent at a unique venue. It essentially had 8 to 9 bars linked together, but you only had to get carded once to gain entry to them all. So as per standard procedure, the bouncer on the door asked me to produce ID, ignoring the fact I hadn’t looked under 21 since I was 20. The whole ID thing in the US is mental. I can get asked for ID at a bar to prove I’m above an age which I clearly am (surprisingly they don’t ask me to prove I’m a male when I use the men’s room) yet when I use my credit card they couldn’t give a shit about checking that my signature matches that on the back panel of my credit card. I saw a sign out the front of one bar that read “If you’re under 35, you will be asked to show ID”. I felt like carrying a sign that I could produce when asked for ID that would read “If you’re under the illusion I’m under 21, you will be asked ‘Are you fucked in the head or something?’”.
Anyway, once in the bar the Contiki double was officially cancelled when Big Sam started sucking face with aussie Victoria. I thought it was a particularly nice touch she chose to do it 2 people down from me on the bench we were sitting on. It added another chapter to the vast volumes I was now compiling on the topic “What the fuck are chicks thinking?”. At last count I was up to volume 21. The thing that pissed me off the most about the incident was that I had played the role of Top Bloke on numerous occasions telling her my clear intentions, sure not altogether classy intentions but never the less honest intentions, and that if she objected to those intentions then she should inform me and we would part under amicable circumstances and I would go about hitting on the local women. But no, she continued to play the flirt game for a solid 3 days. After she’d finished removing the last of Big Sam’s meal from the back of his throat, she then all of a sudden felt obligated to have a heart to heart with me on a quiet bench in between bars. She then informed me she had chosen Big Sam “as he wanted a relationship, and wasn’t just in it for the sex”. After I picked myself off the floor and sewed my sides back together, as I found the comment about him not being in it for the sex so side splittingly funny, I informed her just how silly a comment I thought that was. Anyway, for the rest of the tour I did what any mature person would do; ignored her and responded to her with only 1 word answers. With the benefit of hindsight, I think Gav put it all in proper context when he said “What the fuck are you 2 doing? You’ve only known each other days and you’re sitting down having big heart to hearts”. It was a fair point, I just guess tour life magnifies stuff beyond what normal reality would. Aah women, the more you learn the less you know.
To blow away 3 wasted days I used 3 hurricanes. I just don’t know why I was so cut up about losing 3 days. If I was a bloke on death row 3 days out from getting the chair it would have made a lot more sense, but in the context of a 26 year existence, which in theory has at least another 26 years left, 3 days is a grain of sand in your butt crack obtained on the beach of life.
The calm after the 3 hurricanes came sometime around 2am when I rested my confused head on my pillow.
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