Monday, November 14, 2016

New Orleans II, Part 4

Can we ignore the orange elephant in the room for just a second? I know, it's not easy, but a lot of good things have happened right around the time America woke up to the sound of the doomsday bell ringing and I'm trying to separate these memories from that bad national hangover. There will be plenty to say in the future, I'd imagine. 

So let's rewind the clock and go back to a time when things were still alright. I had just gotten back from my trip to Vegas and San Francisco ...

Which was awesome, thank you very much!

... and I found myself with about a week and a half of breathing room before a flurry of friends and family were about to descend upon my quiet little apartment on Waldo Drive. On Wednesday before Halloween, Andrea, one of my best friends from high school, and her friend Anita arrived here. That gave them about 24 hours to brace themselves for storm front Alex (aka my cousin) that was rapidly approaching New Orleans. Signs pointed towards an interesting weekend, to say the least. 

Pictured: the promise of an interesting weekend.

Friday: We started off nice and slow with some live music (duh), a drink or two (or three) and delicious gumbo at a place called Roux Carre in Central City. The band was called Joy Clark and Friends and once Joy (nomen est omen, I tell you) found out that she had German speakers in the audience, she surprised us with this little gem:

All it took was a semester abroad in Graz.

This was followed by a selection of New Orleans' finest: more live music, a gory burlesque show ("Make Vampires Great Again!") and a spontaneous but fateful nightcap at the neighboring karaoke bar. The girls had picked a pretty sweet weekend to visit New Orleans!

Saturday: They also seemed to enjoy the following Saturday, which is strange, as they did not spend it with me. While I was busy taking in all the beauty that is Voodoo Fest ...

Including an unforgettable headlining gig by Tool.

... they celebrated girl's night out with Theresa, who devoted a whole blog entry to their adventures

Sunday: I woke up at about 5am to the sound of Alex trying to knock our front door off its hinges. I hadn't seen him in a while (Friday morning, actually), so that was a nice surprise. He seemed to be wearing nothing other than (or under) his Deadpool morph suit and all I had heard from him the previous days came from a stray text message that let me know that he'd apparently left his phone at a casino. Naturally, I was quite curious to hear how he was doing. My requests in that regard were only answered by loud snoring though, and by the time we woke up a few hours later his memory wasn't exactly top notch. Looks like his exploits will stay shrouded in mystery until Wikileaks releases the records. Oh well.

None of this stopped any of us from having a great time at the final day of Voodoo Fest. It already started off pretty great with Alex-as-Deadpool cutting off his leg in a crowded bus and then casually striking up conversations with our fellow bus travelers. 

Not that anybody in this town truly raises an eyebrow at this point.

That day, Voodoo Fest ended early, so I finally had the chance to catch some sleep went for "one last drink" to Frenchmen, which started off a nightly Halloween odyssey that began at a Vampire Masquerade Ball and only got weirder and more fascinating from there. 

Monday: Needless to say, I had a great day at work the following morning. Now it was officially Halloween (not sure what we'd been celebrating so far), and that meant: time for our costumes.

I put on my makeup right after taking that picture. 

The South Tyrolean marching band "Chemietuttn" (don't ask, I don't know) got us into the perfect mood for a night that ended a little more Halloween-y.

Never have I been more appropriately dressed for two occasions that were as wildly different as that. 

Tuesday (who are we kidding, this is all still part of Halloween weekend): Again, I had a great and productive day at work. Then I went home and for the first time ever watched Grease. I did this with three girls who sang along throughout the whole movie and I can't even begin to describe how much fun that was. 

Eventually bidding Andrea, Anita and Alex farewell was not an easy thing to do. Luckily, I had the best medicine in the world delivered straight to my doorstep: Ecuadorian princess (look it up, I dare you) and one-time NoLa resident Eileen decided to grace me and this city with her presence once again. However, she and Gladys, a friend of hers, were in the middle of recovering from their trip to Chicago (nothing much going on there), which probably contributed to her getting sick about a day into their New Orleans trip. This meant that we had to take it down a notch, even though that notch still included yet another burlesque show, a haunted house tour and Joy Clark at her usual best. Those were sad hours indeed when she and Gladys finally had to head out on Monday afternoon. I haven't seen the sky here cry so hard over someone leaving ever since yours truly rushed to the airport in June 2011. Girls, I'll miss you!

This concludes my Halloween update. I still have to tell you about my awesome job, our trip to the Whitney plantation and I've got a thing or two to say about the new president - but not today. Today's a good day and thinking about memories I have with people I love has got me convinced that everything is going to be alright again.

Let's keep it optimistic, shall we?

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