I am not going to recommend New Orleans for single female tourists at all. I wonder how close I came to disappearing without a trace. But the city is beautiful and the culture .. its a whole new world. Definitely something I would love to visit with a bunch of crazy mates. I left a lot of unfinished business in Bourbon Street.
So Mandinas on Canal street is where I had the best turtle soup in the world and a typical New Orleans sandwich called a Po-Boy which I had with soft shelled crab. I think its lucky that I have become both a seafood lover and a beer lover in my time in Canada, go figure. In fact I am stepping outside my little box and opening up a lot more to new experiances, yay go me.
Now I was introduced to this by my couch surfing host Philip who was a born and raised New Orleanian. After dinner we went back to his place and his girlfriend Nancy came to, we talked a lot. Nancy mentioned to me about wasn't I ever scared about staying with people Id never met. Well Im really not, in fact now that I think about it.. why aren't I. I mean I'm scared of pretty much everything so why not strange internet people... I mentioned that I can read people fairly well and if I felt that I couldn't trust the person I would just leave.
So go figure I should have one of my crazy nightmares later that night.. Phil came into my room and was smothering me with a pillow and I couldn't scream. I managed to wake myself out of it but it was one of those really crazy half-dreams where it really feels like its happening and you have no power to stop it.. hmm.. Anyway it was just a dream and Phil is a super nice guy!
So I had Tuesday to myself and I walked up to the French Quarter along the main street (Canal) and its 11am in the morning im surrounded by houses, shops, life and this car pulls up. This guy winds down the window and he looks like your typical business type guy (I am also going to mention he was white) and he asks me if I want a ride. Like seriously.. who the fuck does that anymore especially on a main road at 11am. Do I look like I need a ride? That really creeped me out, who knows what that guy was going to do with me when I got in his car.
I took the free ferry across to Algiers some historic part which was like this weird ghost town and I felt like if I walked around I was going to get kidnapped. And my host told me later that if I was going to go there I need to have a gun... So lucky I didnt venture to far into it or another reason for me to be missing in the morning. Now I'm a pretty adventourous person but New Orleans and I were definately not agreeing.
So many weird people stop me on the street to ask me how Im going and then proceed to tell me thier life story or tell themselves thier life story while im standing there. One weird little white rapper meth head dude had some kind of carboard box and was standing there talking to me about how he was just walking around town with his box.... uh yea. Then I had this black woman stop me in the street and yell curses I couldnt understand into the sky. So I'm a pretty friendly person and coming from Australia im used to people saying how ya going and not being weird ..
Anyway I had lunch in bourbon street and sat at the bar talking to another new orleanian Nathan whilst getting day drunk on Akida beer. I met three guys who were from Kansas City and we talked a bunch so that was fun. They owned some company there and were at a conference but got bored so got drunk instead. Its so cool how you can just carry beer around the streets, bars will give you to go plastic cups. And there is no laws on when you can sell alcohol one bar has some record for being the longest opened bar it was even open during Katrina. Also just admiring the french quarter was great.
My host definately made New Orleans awesome for me he took me out to some amazing blues/jazz secret musician who was crazy talented but only played in strange little bars. He made me appreciate the good side of New Orleans. I would love to come back but with a group of friends I could party with. Its really not something you can do on your own, unless you want to become a missing person!
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