So most of the day on Friday was spent recovering from Bourbon St., but once we finally got ourselves motivated enough to leave the hostel, we walked up to Magazine St. and had dinner at a nice little restaurant called The Jackson. We had an appetizer called Diablo Dip, which was a guacamole-based dip layered with some kind of cajun-spiced cream cheese and topped with shredded cheeses, black olives, tomatoes and chives, and was served cold with tortilla chips to dip with. For entrees, we split a dish called Gnudi, which was similar to gnocchi dumplings, but with spinach and other spices mixed in, and served with an oil/butter sauce. We also split a fried oyster & shrimp basket, and the oysters were out of this world! So tender and sweet, and no grit whatsoever. The fries that came with the basket were also amazing, and we also had a really good mashed sweet potato side and super-salty cole slaw...
After dinner, we walked back to the hostel and prepared for a ghost tour... We were expecting it to be a tour through a haunted mansion, plantation, or graveyard, but instead, it was just a short walk around the French Quarter.
They're not allowed to do the graveyard tours at night because there are too many druggies and other unsavory folk who hang around and cause problems for the tourists. Even though it wasn't what we expected, the tour was actually really interesting. Our guide, Mark, brought us around and showed us the buildings that were supposedly haunted, and told us all sorts of different stories about the horrible things that happened in old New Orleans... So we got a really cool history lesson about how New Orleans, and specifically the French Quarter, came to be what it is today. We also got to hear some of the more gruesome tales that are just enough to make you think really hard about what went on in the old days, and give you a little bit of the chills as you stare up at the old buildings,
imagining what they used to be... Added bonus: the 2-for-1 hurricane (drinks) that came with the purchase of the tour! Even better: the bartender topped off our nearly empty drinks right before we left, free of charge!!
Saturday morning we got up and packed up, and then had our leftovers from dinner for lunch. As we were getting ready to leave, one of the guests at the hostel asked Heather for a haircut, because we had mentioned her profession in passing conversation earlier. Upon seeing her snipping away in the common room, several other guests wanted cuts too, so we ended up leaving the hostel around 2:00pm, with $50 for gas money!
9 hours later, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas, at Jessie & Matt's house, and were greeted by a very excited 7-year-old Casey Wheeler, who was not in the least bit shy and wanted to show us everything he could think of in the entire house! Eventually we made it to bed, and at 7:40am this morning, I awoke to the sound of the bedroom door creaking open, and the pitter-patter of little feet approaching the bed... Let me just say this: since I have never been a parent before, I did not realize that pretending to still be asleep does nothing to deter a 4-year-old from trying to wake you up. However, when I heard Casey's little brother Kyle whisper, "Mommy?" and then felt him climb up on the bed, I knew- from babysitting experience- that getting that close to someone you think is your mom, and then realizing that it is NOT your mom- and in fact, is someone you have never met before, can be a very frightening and traumatic experience! So I slowly propped myself up on one arm and whispered, "No I'm not your mom, I'm your aunt Laura..." and did my best to smile reassuringly at him, while still half asleep. He sat there for a second, not sure what to do, so I gave him a small hug and told him to go back into the living room to play with his brother, and that his mom was sleeping in her bed and would be up soon... That seemed to ease his mind enough for him to slowly crawl back off the bed, but the second his feet hit the floor, he was racing to the door, and as soon as he made it out into the living room, I heard him holler, "It's not mom!!!" I couldn't help but laugh, knowing how close he must have been to completely freaking out, because in his shoes, I would have probably done the same...
Later in the day, we went over to Seguine, TX to visit Matt's parents, Laura & Phil Wheeler, and had an awesome chili dinner! After dinner, we played a few rounds of Apples To Apples, and then played a game that was new to us, called Pit. The game is relatively simple, but really gets your blood going! Basically, you just have a set of cards, with commodities on them such as wheat, oats, barley, corn, etc. and you have to trade cards wall-street style in order to attain all of one commodity in your hand... whichever player achieves this first, rings a bell and earns the points assigned to that commodity. The catch: there is one card in the deck that subtracts points if you get stuck with it, so that card gets passed around amidst the trading like an Old Maid card! Needless to say, we all got a little riled up, but had a really fun evening!
Laura (Mom), sent us home with a care package of first-aid materials, since she is a nurse and was extremely worried when she found out we didn't even have any band-aids with us! Fortunately, we haven't needed any first aid yet, and if all goes as planned, that package will stay packed away for the entirety of the trip... knock on wood!
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