The Big Easy!

The other day we were traveling from Tampa Florida to Hildalgo Texas, total distance was 1,359 miles. So we broke it up and had a care free, nothing to do day in NEW ORLEANS:)

The first half of the day we did a lot of exploring... we should have done a walking tour or something but they were $20 and we were being really cheep for some reason. The above pics are just stuff that I thought looked cool. My over all impression of the city is, sinful. There was a little of everything! A lot of sex shops, voodoo shops, witch craft stores and then of course you have you're gift shops, art gallery's, Jazz clubs and what is New Orleans without it's food!!! It would be so easy to leave N.O. weighing 50 lb's heavier then when you arrived!

For Breakfast we went to Cafe Du Monde.

The Cafe was established in 1862. All they serve are little danishes with some glorified powdered sugar, black coffee, coffee with hot milk in it, OJ (witch was added to the huge menu in the 70's) and Water. I don't see what all the fuss is about... we left with powdered sugar all over our pants.
We ate lunch @ Cafe Pontelba. The restaurant is in the oldest apartment building in America. It was build in the like 1802 or something crazy like that! The food was ok... We got this cajun shrimp dish with cesar salads, when we left I was still hungry!

Enough food talk! I'm gonna tell you a little secret... N.O. is SO HOT!!!! we were dying!

This lady was handing out free fans advertising her ghost tour, (Thank the Lord!!!) we would have melted away without them! Oh P.S. I got a new pair of Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses! That's them in the pic above. I got them on @ a huge blow out sail;) ... they were $5! Haha

One thing that I absolutly loved was on every corner was a different street performer or palm reader / fortune teller...

The girls thought that it would be really funny to play a little joke on me... We were all walking down the street. I stopped to take a picture of something. When they start obnoxiously calling me over to them. They said they wanted me to take a pic of them with this statue. So I walk over, mind you I have my camera in one hand and the fan in the other, all sudden the statue throws a ball at me! Scared me half to death! Of coarse I screamed like a little girl, but Mom, Dad you would have been so proud - I actually caught the ball! Can you believe it:)

In our wandering we did see some pretty funny stuff:)We saw these little ornaments in this gift shop that made us laugh so hard! I got to magnets that are similar to this one for the fridge at home:)

Christie thought that she needed to stick out, the ghost fan just wasn't cutting it for her so she got her own:) Of coarse it maches her outfit perfectly... that's why we're such good friends:)

Now I'm probably ganna go to to hell for this ... but this girl was the fattest most unhappy girl I have ever seen in my life. She wanted to be anywhere but were she was going!

Before we got ready for the nights festivities, Christie and I did a little shopping:) My big scream of deal was a Fuji Camera. Somehow I got him sell it to me $150 less than what he wanted... I don't know how it happened I couldn't recreate it if I tried! I get it from my mom ... thanks? I guess:) We also did really well at French Connection. They were having a sail; 40% off the already marked down sail price. I paid $20 for this shirt.

Isn't her dress cute. I picked it out. She's really easy to shop for, everything looks good on her, little bitch;) After dinner we went to:

An Absinthe Bar. They recently legalized Absinthe in the states, don't wory there's no hallucinogens, however the alcohol content is thru the roof. I had one... it didn't really effect me the way I had hoped, I was totally sober! Mostly cause they were expensive! These pics turned out kind of funny though. I was still learning how to work my camera:

This is what your vision would be like if you had too many of glasses:) Our next top was karaoke place called Cat's something. It was really fun! The host was great! Everyone sang except for me... they didn't have any songs that I new so I played Photographer/ videographer Here's Laura:)

Christie was so excited to sing this song... until she realized that she really only new the first verse... Hahaha

This was our host for the night. She was pretty funny.

If you look behind her, you'll notice two piano's - they're full of props. If someone wasn't doing so well she would drape something funny on them. And you know no karaoke night is complete without drunken strait men!

After the host found out we were all on tour, she kept announcing to the entire bar that we were with the "Backergains" apparently she misunderstood us:) We had a really good time though. After the embarassing enouncement people kept coming over to talk to us. We got all these invites to diffrent bars and a house party... but at this time it was 1:30 and our bus left at 2 so we had to leave. Shawn took the honers in giving us the perfect exit performance.

New Orleans is definatly a place that I want to come back to and explore a little more.

Love you all. Talk to you later.