Quacking, haunting and the blues (Day 80)

The only way to make the most out of being in a hot place is to get up early, do all the sightseeing, have a siesta and venture out for a refreshing nightcap! The intentions to get up early was there, but attempting to rally others was not so easy! But we got there eventually! Dragging Chris and a bunch of awesome Aussies (I have to say that since I know Anthony will be reading this as he has a tendency to stalk… ;)) from the other van, we ventured in to town on the longest walk to that involved sitting down a few thousand times and Nick and Kelly being sent to various naughty corners for antagonising each other the WHOLE time!! We eventually found the ferry to head over to Algiers, apparently a cool looking place. We did get on the ferry but we just didn’t get off and went back the other way! Its ok, it was free.

I’m not a huge fan of seafood but we stopped off at a seafood restaurant that I at least thought was cool because it had these giant crawfish at its front! I had a giant Roast Beef Po Boy, effectively a massive Subway the size of my head…. So how do you make a sandwich famous and unique? Give it another name.

You don’t need to wonder why the ‘mericans are so fat. They have serious portion control issues. Everything is about being BIG. They pride themselves in serving large portions and fookin’ huge cups of caffeinated drinks but by doing so means you need to consume it all or it goes to waste. I hate the wastage but I’ve stop torturing my body in attempt to finish a mean. When I feel full, I stop. That’s it. No more stupid guilt that my parents had instilled: “You’ve still got food on your plate, think of all those starving children in Africa…”. So I should stuff my face because they are starving?! Give me a postbag and I’ll friggin’ send it over! [My fellow Chinese homies out there will empathise with me on this rant!]. Then again when Chris is around not much is normally wasted on my plate as he seems to hoover up the left over (dude, you’re going to get fat I’m telling you!) I seriously crave a GOOD salad that’s not laden with a million calories. Oh how I long for simple non fried food. I miss… I miss, my kitchen.

A strange phenomena happened on our walk home, I appeared to have been quacking. At first thought I accused Chris’s shoes but then it appeared to be mine. It wasn’t my left shoe, neither was it my right! It was my arse. Well, my bag more precisely! It had skipped my thought that I had purchased a rubber duck bead necklace for Julia on our bus that was collecting ducks and the little fellas were quacking as my bag pressed against my *ahem* child bearing hips as I walked. The quacking proved to be good entertainment for the several blocks walked back for a much needed siesta! Tonight’s entertainment? New Orleans's Phantom Ghost walk.

Whether you are a believer of the paranormal or not, nothing beats a story told by a good story teller. New Orleans seems to have a past of many husbands butchering up their wives and resultant haunts thence and sighting of haunted spirits jumping off residences of sadistic doctors of the past (property which is now owned by Nicolas Cage). There are hotels with playful ghosts of boys from a boarding school fire that likes to watch Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and areas that gives you the hibbi-jibbies where bodies were stacked during the many bouts of yellow fever. Also not forgetting the thieving morticians daughter that likes to steal jewellery in a bars ‘rest room’ that was formally her workspace.

As the setting for the film ‘An Interview with a Vampire’, this nocturnal setting has a vampire past and present – Avoid The Dungeon pub if you rather not become an involuntary blood donor have a hang over. Pillars called ‘Romeo posts’ holding up old balconies strangely had hooks (formally spikes) donning its upper edges were identified as preventative measures for fathers to keep their daughters chastity. Our guide quipped: “You climb up a Romeo post, you might come down a Juliet!”. Last but not least the only elementary school in the French Quarter. Nothing haunting or ghostly about it but its alumni including that of Lee Harvey Oswald (JFK shooter?) and Richard Simmons -an old American fitness personality who wears short shorts with a video called: ‘Sweatin’ to the Oldies… Now that’s creepy.

We continued the evening chasing other spirits, Daiquiris to be specific. To top it off? Listening to amazing Jazz at Maison Bourbon. On our walk home we even witness a WASP in a football top on and a girlfriend of some sort jumped and wrapped around him stopping him from having a bust up with a guy… Wait for it, in leather chaps proper brook back style with bare bottom, leather jacket and cap and a gag round his neck. My experience in the Big Easy is finally complete!

Oh I do love a good ghost story. But… I couldn’t switch the lights off for several hours to go to sleep. I’m a wimp.