New Orleans part I

We were here for 4 days so I am going to tell you about it in installments. We did so much that if I told you all at once it would be too much to read.

It took us about 9 hours to drive from Jacksonville to New Orleans with a short stop in Tallahassee to have lunch with Coach Bond. When we arrived the Faust family greeted us with seafood gumbo, a Creole specialty that takes just about all day to cook.  The Fausts were amazing hosts and so nice. Alex graduated with us and was in our same eating club but because he was a financial engineer student (graduated with honors... so he actually did his work) and played varsity tennis for all four years so we didn't spend much time with him except for post or pre-practice breakfasts at the club. Breakfast was served before classes would start so very few people would wake up early enough to come to the club. The few that came to breakfast regularly were referred to as the "Breakfast Club"... clever. I know. He and I were both members. Anyways, it is amazing how hospitable he and his parents were given the fact that we did not know each other very well. We definitely felt like we were part of the family. Denise, Barry, and Alex, if you are reading this, thanks again for the unique and genuine New Orleans experience.

TOURISTS

That's exactly what we are and there is no denying it. We may be a little on the nerdy side, looking for copper plates with short history lessons engraved on them, asking restaurant owners about the demand for alligator meat since the start of the popular "Swamp People" show (history channel), going into strange antique stores with zero intention of buying anything despite quizzing the clerk about the products, and walking around the garden district guessing the asking prices of homes for sale.

As tourists there are certain things we had to do. We had to walk through the flea market where there are rows and rows of stands filled with all the same useless clutter. The things that people will buy are amazing. What would you possibly need a 3x3in. ceramic dog sitting in a basket for? Paper weight? Pet? Weapon? Why not just throw a rock?  I guarantee that half of the things bought get lost within a couple months of the purchase.

After the market we went to the Cafe Du Monde. It was the first coffee stand in the area. Since 1860 they have been serving coffee and beignets with cups of powdered sugar on top 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Yes, I read all of that on an imprinted marble slab on the side of the building.... These French donuts were amazing but what was even more interesting to me were the workers. They were, for the most part, all elder Asian women. It was strange, if not creepy, especially because we had not seen many Asian people at all. At night the waiters were mostly high school aged kids of all different ethnicities.

THE SWAMP

I mentioned earlier the show "Swamp People" on the history channel. It is about alligator hunters in the bayous of Louisiana. Julie and I watch the show religiously. I started watching it one day when I was sick because you can watch it without having to think and the second to last thing I could do was think (walking was the absolute last thing I could have done). Once I heard the characters' accents I could not stop watching. It was a Creole accent that is really hard to describe. Maybe a mix between hick southern and French? I'm unsure but what I was sure of was that I wanted to see it for myself.

We went on an airboat tour.... I mean ADVENTURE of the swamps. Julie found one that was only $30 compared to others which were twice the amount for the same swamp time. With that in mind we didn't know whether to be excited or scared. The trip started out pretty miserable actually. It rained and when I say rained, I actually mean poured. Flying along in the rain seems like it would be exhilarating but it was painful. The raindrops were like little rock pellets being thrown at us. So for the first 15 minutes we didn't even see the swamp because our heads were down trying to protect our faces from the stoning. After that the sun came out and the rest of the trip was amazing. Airboats are a lot different than propeller boats. Imagine a car that hydroplanes on every turn. We were soaring through the maze of swamp canals. How our guide knew where we were was a mystery to me. I asked him how he knows where he is going and he simply said, "When I leave I make a bunch of right turns and when I want to come back I make a bunch of left turns."

ALLIGATORS

I don't know who would ever want to go whale watching after a swamp adventure like this one. There were alligators everywhere. They ranged in size from tiny babies to 8 footers. We didn't see any TREE SHAKAs (10-12 foot alligators) but our guide probably would not have gotten as close to those. When we would see a gator swimming with its head above the water, we would stop the fans on the boat and the guide would throw marshmellows at it. Yup, alligators eat marshmellows, apparently they eat just about anything. The guide would slam a marshmellow in the water right next to the boat so that the gator could hear it, turn its head, and swim quickly over to the boat. The guide would then play with the gator. He pet it and rub it behind its eyes. He would touch it on its nose and its mouth would open up. He would play with him like a little kid plays with a puppy. I just compared an alligator with thousands of pounds of jaw pressure to a cute little puppy. When we was done playing with it, he would give it a marshmellow and then would kiss the gator on the head.

We talked to our guide a good amount. He used to hunt alligators during the season (the entire month of September only) and then started doing airboat adventure tours in the off season. While doing these tours, he said that he got attached to the gators and couldn't hunt them anymore.

During the adventure we stopped by a stump to play with an alligator like normal. All of a sudden, while we were pushing off the stump the guide yelled "O SHIT! EVERYONE TO THE BACK OF THE BOAT! AND HOLD ON!" I looked to the front of the boat and apparently there was a huge yellow jacket nest in that stump. The guide told us of a time when he was on the bayou and they ran into a nest and had to jump in the gator infested water, swim across to land on the other side and wait for five hours until the yellow jackets calmed down and left their boat.