So after digesting our yummy dinner and beverages and doing a blog post, we hit Bourbon St! It’s so cool, they actually close the street down from 6-6 so no one can drive down and everyone can just roam around. It’s basically like a huge block party… well except there’s a lot of people you wouldn’t invite to your block party that hang around these parts. After just walking around in the street for a while we figured we were ready. Our first stop was Pat O’Brien’s to get a world famous Hurricane!
We got there, ordered our hurricanes and so the night began! I actually hated it because I assumed since it was red it would be fruity, not so. Here’s the reason for the lack of fruitiness… I asked the bartender what was in this concoction – their passion fruit mix and 4 shots of rum. Okay so yea 4 shots of rum is why this was not yummy as I was expecting, silver lining – only $8!! So we sat around with our hurricanes for a bit and then the fun began. We started talking to these 2 guys (who each had about 3 empty hurricane cups) and they were awesome! When the photographer came around to rip people off, Bill told us to get in a picture and he bought it for us! He also bought us our second hurricane – oh goody! I’m sure it’s understood that the second one was not as bad as the first but it was still pretty brutal. So this went on for a few hours. We were mostly talking to Bill as Ben kept disappearing but he was definitely another interesting person! Don’t worry Sam, I asked him if he thinks it’s interesting to kidnap girls and put them in his trunk and he said no, so I was safe! Well actually he said only on Thursdays but it was Tuesday, so I was safe! Oh and here’s an interesting little history lesson. We knew that we had to come to Pat O’Brien’s for a hurricane but we had no idea why. So Bill asked one of the guys working there to explain the history and I think I got most of it right, here goes… So when it first opened, it was a speakeasy during prohibition! Apparently everyone was loving them some whiskey and bourbon and no one really cared about rum. So Pat’s had all this rum (since it was so cheap) and then started bartering for these funny looking glasses (hurricane glasses). To get people to drink their abundance of rum, they invented the hurricane and when people would buy it, they would get a free hurricane glass! Pretty interesting, right? So after we were there for a few hours and a few hurricanes, it was time to say goodbye to Pat’s and our new friends (see below for Brian, Ben, Colleen, Bill)
So we grabbed our to-go cups and headed back out. We definitely saw some things I was not expecting. I obviously knew there were bars all over the place but I had no idea how many strip clubs and trick strip clubs there were! There was a place called Rick’s Sporting Bar which you would think is a sports bar… until you see the slutty dressed mannequin swinging out the window! Tricked you! Some other places were not as tricky, like the one with a girl spanking herself in the doorway – I knew what that was right away! So we continued down and I saw a Howl at the Moon (chain dueling piano bar that we went to in San Antonio). I really wanted to go in but Brian said we just went to one the night before. He should’ve let me go… Instead, we walked by the next place that sounded like they had good music and we went in there. I ordered us drinks specifying I needed the bartender to make something fruity with rum. So he made us rum punches that were disgusting, half the size and $12 each! We sipped it, listened to the band that turned out to actually not be good and left. We threw the $20 in the nearest garbage and headed back down the street. That’s when I saw what seemed like the greatest idea ever… Daiquiris and pizza!! So we went in there. Brian wasn’t interested, I have no idea why! Oh wait, yes I do. Apparently New Orleans pizza is the worst pizza you could probably ever get in your life! Of course when you’re drinking, everything tastes better, right? Not so. That’s how bad this pizza was. So I decided to wash it down with my strawberry daiquiri (in my Jester souvenir cup) but this was even worse than the pizza!! It tasted like nail polish. I think it might have been. So since we just threw away the $20 crap punch and my 1 slice of terrible pizza and disgusting daiquiri cost us another $16, I finished the pizza.
Then we left and I gave it my all with the daiquiri but just couldn’t do it. I don’t know if it’s physically possible for anyone to drink this entire thing. It’s just so bad I can’t imagine anyone being able to finish more than we did. So I threw the rest out and brought the Jester up to the room! Then back out! We were walking around and saw Bill and Ben at a Lucky Dog hot dog stand! Bill was buying everyone hot dogs and sausages, even the homeless guy who claimed to have Lebron James’ sneakers. This is also when we met the 43 year old toothless prostitute, speaking of interesting. We think she wanted to marry Ben… I guess in an effort to entice him, she flashed him. Brian was lucky enough to have turned around at just the right time and catch this. He hasn’t been able to sleep since. We went back to the room again and when we were leaving ran into these 2 British ladies! They were so nice and even gave me beads! So I officially got beads in New Orleans and don’t worry Mom, they were given to me as a nice gesture, nothing was done in return!
So we headed across to the next bar which was Brian’s choice, since I had already proved I have poor decision making skills. While we were there, Bill walked in with a woman who had teeth. And she had money pinned to her shirt, but she wasn’t a hooker, here I go learning again! Apparently it’s tradition in the south to go out on your birthday and people pin money on you or buy you a drink! So Bill was buying her a beer and we wanted to participate so she told me we should do a shot. Even better, she said that it’s good luck for both of us, yay! Here is me and the birthday girl… oh and pay close attention to the blonde on the end of the picture, she’s our next story.
So now we started talking to this blonde lady and the guy she was with. They seemed pretty interesting. They were from California, blah blah blah oh and while she was super nice, he was TOTALLY creepy!! Oh and we found out they were staying in the same hotel as us, small world! Okay now for weird... So then they invited us up to their room for a drink. When I get nervous I freeze so I said oh I don’t know, Bri? He was so thrilled I threw this one to him. He politely told them that we would be staying out for a while. Now in my best attempt to see the best in people, maybe they thought it would be more relaxing to have a drink in their room? Maybe the noise was getting to them? No I’m sorry, there’s no good excuse. Our hotel was on Bourbon St, there’s no getting away from the noise. There’s a few realistic options here. First and we’re pretty sure this was it, they were swingers. Not sure what kind of vibe we’re giving out to attract people like that but this will probably put an end to me talking to strangers… well at least for a little while. Second option is that they wanted to get us to the hotel and rob us and then lastly they just wanted to murder us. I’ll tell myself they were swingers and pretend to be flattered, this should help me sleep a little better. So they left and we ran back to Lucky Dog to report to Bill what happened.
As strange as it sounds, this is where we spent the rest of our night. We were talking to the Lucky Dog couple (a real couple that works the cart together) and anyone that would come for a lucky dog! Totally not funny but I thought I should include, so if you're looking for entertainment skip this part. The lucky dog girl was telling me that she’s not allowed to work by herself. Apparently she walks to and from work (about 45 minutes) and one night while walking by herself, she was held at gunpoint and raped. So this burst my bubble a little bit. Apparently when you go down a few blocks, it’s a really bad neighborhood. So her boyfriend doesn’t let her walk by herself anymore. They were both really nice and as much of a downer as that little chat was, it really got me to thinking about how lucky we really are. We went back to the room around 3:30 and refused to set the alarm!
In the morning we got up, got ready and walked down to Café du Monde for the much anticipated beignets! They were delicious, pretty much zeppoles but they’re called French donuts so you’re allowed to eat them for breakfast. In the interest of time, we got them to go which was maybe not such a good idea! My entire right side was covered in powdered sugar from walking and eating them, well worth it!
Okay back to serious so skip if uninterested...I was really expecting New Orleans to be our fun stop where we would just have a great time and not worry about anything. I am so surprised with how much we learned, not just about the history of the hurricane, buying birthday drinks and burying people above ground. I think we were so lucky to have had the tour guide we did on our bus tour. We both thought it was so great to have someone actually from the 9th ward giving us the tour and telling us about Katrina first hand. And now to meet the Lucky Dog couple and see how their life is. I complain about driving an hour to and from work and I’m safe in my car. They have to walk 45 minutes each way… and don’t forget it’s ridiculously hot out there! But they were both still so positive and nice. They do the walk because they have to and they are fine with it. So in conclusion for New Orleans, we had a great time, met some very interesting people (mostly good) and would love to come back!
So Wednesday morning we started driving up to our next stop, Tennessee. We stopped in Memphis to go to Graceland. Neither of us are really Elvis fans but we figured it’s one of those things we had to do while we were here. We were so glad we did! This was such an excellent tour! If you’re an Elvis fan, you really HAVE to go and if you’re not and you’re within 2 hours, you really should make a point to go. The tour takes you around his house and gives you a history of all the rooms, it has clips of Elvis, Lisa Marie and Priscilla on there as well. I never really knew too much about him but one thing that really impressed me was how charitable he was. They had cases full of checks that he wrote to different charities, he gave cars to people and it seems like anytime someone went to him with a need, he would help them out. I was also impressed with how hot he was! I guess I always had the picture of him as the older, bigger Elvis, but they had pictures of him when he was younger and yea, he’s a hottie! And don't worry there was fun for Brian as well, he was quite taken with Ms Priscilla... Oh and they also had home videos of them around Graceland and it was so cute to see them as a family. Apparently he was very family oriented and really took care of his parents as well. Another crazy thing was just the amount of awards he had, I can’t even describe how many, I’ve never seen anything like it. The tour ends in the meditation area where he is buried with his parents and grandmother. There’s also a plaque for his stillborn twin brother, we had no idea he was a twin. The audio tour ends with him singing and it’s just really touching. This is definitely a must see!
After this, we went to Rendezvous for dinner. They are famous for their ribs so Brian got those and I got a pulled pork sandwich. We were starving and knew we would regret it but got an appetizer anyway. We got barbecue nachos which was nachos covered with pulled pork, pulled chicken, some amazing cheese, their secret seasoning and their awesome sauce, it was ridiculous. Needless to say, we had no regrets about ordering the appetizer. Our dinners were awesome as well and since I don’t like beans & slaw which is what comes with every meal, I substituted pickles – yay!! So we stuffed our faces again and then back to the car. We stayed with Brian’s cousin Sara Wednesday and Thursday night in Nashville which was a short 3 hour drive from Memphis – that’s nuthin!
So we got to Sara’s late Wednesday night and she was waiting with fresh baked cookies!! And it was an entire plate full, so long Doubletree, Sara surpassed them in the first 5 minutes of us being in Nashville! We stayed up eating cookies and catching up for as long as our eyes would physically stay open, which ended up being after 1 which completely impresses me! I’m pretty sure when we get back to “normal” I will be falling asleep at like 8 every night for a month. So Thursday we woke up and started our day in Nashville at this amazing place called the pancake pantry. I know I keep talking about how great the food is everywhere and I’m totally not lying! Here’s what makes pancake pantry awesome (before even tasting a thing) when the waitress came around and we were telling her we’re unsure between this and this and this, she suggested we just get one of each! So you don’t have to actually commit to one type of delicious pancake or ridiculous French toast, you can pretty much create a sampler! So I got a sugar & spice pancake which was like gingerbread and a raspberry which was like delicious. They also give you this cinnamon cream syrup which is just to die for. Oh and the French toast is like nothing you’ve ever had before. They use crazy bread like Texas Toast and when you order a full order of French toast, it is a bunch of these pieces spread around the plate covering the entire plate and looking like a pretty flower! Or you can get half order which obviously would be half or like we did just a piece, which is really 2 pieces because this place is so great! Do I even have to mention how good the hash browns were? Are you sold yet? Yea this was definitely a favorite! Here's a picture of my food. Please note I had already started because I was so excited.
So we could barely move and we went to see our first historic landmark of the day, the Carter house. This is the house where the battle of Franklin was fought during the Civil War. It was pretty cool to see the old house and the battle damage like all of the bullet holes all over the house but what really made this place was our tour guide. He was the most passionate tour guide we’d ever seen, it was hilarious. Think Matt Foley from Saturday Night Live (…in a van down by the river), if you haven’t seen it, you should look it up because it’s so funny and because then you can see how entertaining this tour guide actually was!
When our tour was over, Sara took us to downtown Nashville to Robert’s Western World. Since we had such a crazy breakfast we decided to stick with healthy vegetables as snacks so we got fried pickles and onion rings. The pickles were spears which is the best way to make a fried pickle (we’ve done research) and they weren’t beer battered, they were breaded (think if a mozzarella stick and a fried pickle had a baby), they were all delicious. What’s really cool about Nashville is that every place you walk by has music just blaring out. So there was this live band playing and people doing crazy dancing, swinging, lifting, twirling – yea everything! It was so cool! But then we learned there was a celebrity among us! Three time world champion cowboy Wayne Ford. Or that’s what it sounded like his name was but Sara googled him and couldn’t find anything. So we may have seen a famous cowboy… maybe! We strolled around Broadway (slightly different than NYC Broadway) for a little bit, saw where the Grand Ole Opry used to be and then came back to the apartment to finish off the cookies from last night. After bumming around for a little bit, we went to the park to see the Parthenon. Did you know that Nashville is the Athens of the south? I don’t know why but that’s what it said at the Parthenon! So they have a full size replica of the Parthenon, right here in Nashville. It is huge! The columns are insane! And I’m not trying to insult Greece but this one appears to be in MUCH better condition than theirs!
After this, we headed back downtown to hear some music and get some more BBQ! Since Nashville is so music oriented and awesome, they actually have these free concerts every Thursday until the end of October. It’s basically this big open green where they set up a stage and tents for vendors and people just go with chairs and blankets and listen to a concert for free! The music is good and everyone is just very laid back- really laid back, not just stoned! And the best part, it’s open to dogs so we got to see sooooo many little cuties! We took a break and went over to Jack’s BBQ for some dinner which again was oh so tasty! Tennesseeans really know their way around a BBQ! Then on the way back to the concert we stopped at Mike’s for some delicious ice cream! We stayed at the concert for a while and then back to pass out for our last night in TN!
CONCERT
Our next and final stop is Brian’s sister Michelle and her husband Michael’s house just outside Baltimore. Even though this will be a day late by the time I upload, we want to wish them both a VERY HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!! We can't wait to see them! Thanks so much to Sara for being an amazing tour guide, bringing us to such yummy restaurants and for hosting one of our final stops on our trip! We really appreciate it and can’t wait to see you soon!
