Party in NOLA, party in NYC

New Orleans... OMG. So much fun! The trip started out well as Blondie and I had an excellent flight on the way down to NOLA. The Delta terminal at LaGuardia simply rocks, and then we had gotten exit row seating which gave us a bunch of extra leg room. We landed in New Orleans, caught a cab to our hotel, and 5 minutes later headed out into the evening. We met up with the initial group of guys for the bachelor party at Pat O'Briens and enjoyed many hurricanes before heading back to the hotel to meet up with Slick's group. After that, back out for many more libations, a stop at Cat's Meow to hear some horrid karaoke before finally heading back to our hotel around 3:30 am.

Friday morning started out bad - due to massive hangovers on both of our parts. We finally worked up the energy to meet up with Slick and group for breakfast, but they had stopped for beignets and I needed "real food". So we only went into the restaurant to say hi to them before taking off for massive plates of red beans & rice, and crawfish etouffee. And bloodies. Several bloodies. Breakfast made me feel a bunch better so we headed back over to Slick's group and hit up Laffite's Blacksmith Shop (the oldest bar in America). We spent about 3 hours just lazing around there, chatting, drinking, listening to music. By then, the beignet group was starving so back up Bourbon St to get some po' boys, before making our way over to Harrah's.

We finally left the casino around 8 pm, and headed to our hotel to get showers before meeting back up with the group and Pauly P for dinner at Emeril's NOLA restaurant - it was really good, and I only expected to partially like it. I had shrimps and grits, as well as smoked salmon salad. Along with girlie drinking it up with mojitos as my liver was fried on beer. After dinner, we headed back down Bourbon Street (where we saw an episode of True Blood being filmed - FYI, Alexander Saarsgaard is ginomorously tall in person) and grabbed some Hand Grenades before making our way over to Frenchmen's Street to hear a brass band play. I called it quits early-ish, around 1:30 am, and we headed back to the hotel to crash out.

Saturday hurt - We started at Mother's restaurant for mass quantities of po' boys and red beans & rice (and bloodies yet again) before hitting up the casino. I went up pretty big time playing video poker while watching the Rangers win, while Blondie tried his luck at Pai Gow. Eventually all the guys ended up in the video poker room with me, watching sports, drinking for "free", etc. Finally we decided to walk our drunk butts down to Bourbon St, where we hit up a bar that had a backyard patio. It ended up getting too late to go back and get showers (stink central), so we all just drug ourselves to Acme Oyster House after the bar. It ended up being nice b/c the adult establishment across the street from Acme had $1 entry, so we took the opportunity to go back and forth to see the dancers while we waited in line for dinner.

After dinner, we headed back down Bourbon to the "main event" of the weekend - a trip to the drag club to celebrate with Slick. It was a blast - the bouncer was an older lady who walked with a cane, and there was this young kid who glammed onto our group - at 1 point, I walked past him and he smacked me in the back (not sure why there) and this woman threw her cane down, grabbed him by his shirt and tossed him out of the bar. It was all kinds of awesome. The night pretty much ended after this club - we danced around the club for awhile after the show, and then went back to Bourbon, but Slick was pretty much done in by this point, so we ended the evening around 2 am.

Sunday we said goodbye to everyone throughout the day - leaving just me and Blondie crashed out in our bed that night watching HBO as a treat. And then Monday happened - we went down around 4 am to check out of the hotel, and the lady mentioned that we had "checked out on Sunday". So I was all "uh, no we didn't". Apparently Marriott's reservations were screwed up - all of my paperwork (emails, confirmation printouts) had us staying until Monday, all of their systems (even though their systems sent us the emails) had us checking out on Sunday. Still not sure why our keys still worked, etc. That was 20 mins of the receptionist on hold with Marriott main office, but they ended up comping us our last night so that worked out well.

Then we headed to the airport, got on the plane, and had the most awesome announcement ever. Basically security was backed up so they were waiting on 1 person to get through the line, but the captain was all "You see folks. They have to push the bags to the left. But they can't. Because they have to get people through the line. And then the bags back up. And then the people back up because the bags are backed up". Blondie and I were all "uh, what the fuck?" It took us about 20 seconds to decipher what was going on.

Then we took off - and hit weather in NYC. So we circled for 1.5 hours over Richmond, VA, before they announced we were out of circling fuel and we were then going to touchdown in Allentown, PA, to refuel. Ah well, nothing we could do about it - and then they came across again and announced LaGuardia had just re-opened so we were going there instead. But if we had to circle at all, we would have to go back to Allentown. So we flew having no idea what was going on, until about 10 mins before we landed when the flight attendant told us we were cleared to land in NYC. PHEW. The pilot was super funny too - we landed and he said "Folks. We're late. But we're here. Unlike a lot of people".

So you'd think we had a low-key week after our NOLA madness, but we didn't. Monday and Tuesday were very low-key, but then on Wednesday, good shit happened. It started with my walk back to my hood after work - normally I take a subway but the weather was beautiful and I was meeting Blondie for dinner anyway, so thought I'd walk. I started talking to my mom a bit, but then the traffic was loud, so about 3 secs after I hung up the phone with her (and about halfway home on my walk), I noticed the ginormous crowd I was going to have to pass - they were hanging out on the sidewalk in front of a movie theater, and all of a sudden, just as I got to them, they started screaming. To me it sounded like "Leo" or "Liam" so I stopped for a sec to see who it was. And then Will Smith was 10 feet in front of me. "Will", when screamed loudly, sounds like "Liam". It was the NYC premiere of MIB 3. I'm not a Will Smith fan, but I almost screamed too.

I met up with Blondie for dinner after that, and then we decided to hit up our normal bar to watch the Rangers game. It also happened to be the start of Fleet Week. We got latched onto by a young lady (I think she was very lonely) - who did nothing but rag on people. It was soooo funny. She had mean things to say about everyone - her half-brother's mother, a woman in her unit, one of the guys in her unit, etc. We ended up hanging out at the bar way beyond when we meant to, buying drinks for the navy people and just catching up with everyone else.

Thursday was trivia night - I met up with my bar friend and one of her friend's to try our hand at it again. This time, "Freak Gasoline Fight Accident" (5 pts if you caught the Zoolander reference) came in 3rd place earning us a $10 g/c to the bar. Afterwards, back to our normal bar to meet up with my bar friend's husband. I missed my "Fleet Week friends" by just a few minutes, but they apparently were doing Blowjob shots when they were there, so my group decided to have a round in honor of them.

And then Friday - the start of my summer Fridays. I met up with Blondie and my bar friend at our poison bar for lunch and drinks. And then like 2 shots and 7 beers later, we stumbled over to do our grocery shopping. Our grocery store just redid part of the store, and they have a lot bigger selection now, so I had a blast in there. Prosciutto, canadian bacon and mixed nuts make an awesome dinner by the way. After the shop, we headed home to crash for a bit before meeting back up with our bar friends at our normal bar. The night ended early - I'm all about day drinking, but only if it's beer - day drinking shots does a number on me.

Saturday was recovery day - we didn't do crap all day (as I slept until noon) and then we met up with our bar friends around 5:30 pm ish to go see Avengers. LOVE LOVE LOVE. That movie ROCKED. Afterwards, we headed home to order in tacos and drink a beer, while watching Ironman. And then Sunday was crazy - I got a pedicure Sunday morning before meeting up with everyone at Pony Bar. 4 hours later, I headed off with my bar friends to go to our normal bar while Blondie headed home. We only lasted a few beers at our normal bar before we all were done.

And Monday - omg. No Sunday dread!!!! Monday was nice - we were supposed to have our bar friends over for dinner, so we did a massive clean on our apartment. It turned out they couldn't make it, but it was nice having everything sparkling. We mixed up a pitcher of hurricanes (brought some mix back from NOLA) around 3 pm, then we made dinner, and then we drank everything else in our apartment.

Today came too soon. Back to the grind. I need to get back on working out - I hope to start that tonight; but it might wait until tomorrow morning. Plans coming up include seeing an old SF friend on Thurs for drinks, seeing an old Dallas friend next Thurs for dinner, Blondie to WI in 2 weeks for family camp, and then we're free until mid July when it's time to hit up KY. I'm tired today.

--K