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 May 23-24, 2001
 Photos (14)
I had told Stefan to meet me in New Orleans at 6 PM. I based that time on the length of my drive from Atlanta. Miraculously, I arrived at exactly 6 PM -- Eastern Time. I never thought about the time difference, so I arrived exactly one hour ahead of time. Stefan, as is his custom, arrived one hour late -- Central Time. Given that I expected him to arrive any minute, I couldn't leave my room, so I got started early with some Vodka I had bought in Atlanta.

Shortly after Stefan arrived, we walked to the French Quarter, where all the tourists go. Stefan himself had warned me that New Orleans is a "smelly, dirty place." We stuck to the part of town where we'd be least likely to get mugged. Cajun food is as good as everyone says it is, and the drinks are as ridiculously expensive as you'd expect. I took a few photos, but I felt stupid about carrying around my camera, and I was getting nicely drunk, so we decided to head back to the hotel to drop off my camera.

Apparently, it is not illegal in New Orleans to walk around the city with a drink in your hand. I was sucking down a Hurricane -- a slushie with Rum -- as we walked the considerable distance to the hotel. We were far from the French Quarter when we noticed two suspicious characters following us, with not another soul in sight. When I drunkenly dropped my camera, Stefan confronted them. They turned out to be Kate and Melanie, two fine young ladies from Connecticut.

We helped them find their hotel, a few blocks East of ours, and made plans to visit the famous cemetaries the following day. Not five minutes after dropping off my camera and heading back out towards the French Quarter, we found them wandering around again. We trouped into the French Quarter together and hung out having a pretty damn good time until 5 AM.

We spent most of the next day together taking pictures of the Metairie cemetary -- which turned out to not be the one filmed in Easy Rider. The place was vast, and full of extravagant monuments to wealthy late residents. I took most of my photos of New Orleans here, partly because I didn't have my camera with me in the French Quarter.

Stefan left early to try to catch a plane. I had an early dinner with Kate and Melanie, and hightailed it out of town. As much as I enjoyed New Orleans, the West still called to me. I ended up finding Stefan in his apartment in Lafayette, LA, 200 km West of New Orleans, because he couldn't catch his flight. There I recovered from my day-long hangover and sunburn, slept for 10 hours, and headed for Texas.
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