Kyle Gets Stupid in New Orleans

The title may have fooled you. No I did not get drunk on Bourbon Street. In fact when most people get stupid in New Orleans they can at least claim they were drunk. I don't even have that as a defense.

I'll describe three events that occurred, which did not make me look stupid because I'm smart enough to keep my mouth shut. However it made me feel stupid and does make for good blog material. I have to be willing to be self deprecating because it's funny. (And it allows me to write about my wife because, hey I make fun of myself so she's fair game too.)

Scenario Number 1: Kyle's not so much with the crossing of the traffic.
I stayed down in the warehouse district just a few blocks from the French Quarter. The streets in this area are not much more than alleyways, so you pretty much walk wherever you want to go. This requires you to cross some streets, unless you just want to circle the same block several times (which I ended up doing). So on the first day there I decided to go explore a little bit.

I would often find myself coming to an intersection as a car stopped at a stop sign in the same intersection. Now not being a frequent pedestrian I would find myself unsure of whether I should go or they should go so I would change my game plan all together and just turn down the same sidewalk. This resulted in me circling the same blocks of the warehouse district over and over again. I made it as far as Canal Street, just 5 blocks away. It is a major thoroughfare which separates the warehouse district and the French Quarter. Needless to say since I had trouble crossing 10 feet of pavement I didn't make it across by myself and turned around and headed back to the hotel.

I know your saying, "Wow, that's stupid, but I was hoping for more." Let me introduce you to,
Scenario Number 2: Oh, God! There's a pigeon on my hand.

During a lunch break I decided to venture out on my own and explore the Riverwalk Mall and get the girls some souvenirs so I would have time to visit the WWII Museum later that afternoon. (By this point I had mastered the whole street crossing thing so I was good on my own.)

The mall and lunch were pretty calm. I made my purchase ate a Philly cheese steak and dined while watching barges go up and down the Mississippi. (Yes it's an exciting life I lead, I know.) The real fun occurred on my walk back to the hotel.

I bought the girls Mardi Gras masks, and a bear for Madisyn. They each had large black feathers protruding from the mask, mixed with some purple, green and yellow. They didn't quite fit in the bag some some feathers inevitably stuck out. As I walked I noticed two pigeons walking along the ground.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a long black feather, similar to the color of the pigeons I was just looking at, near my hand. The only logical conclusion my mind could come to at that point was, "A pigeon is on my hand. Oh my God!" So I began to swing my arm to get it off. As I swung I noticed that there appeared to be no extra weight on my hand other than the bag I was carrying which had the mask in it, which were covered in large black.... "Oh jeez!"

Yep, I freaked out because I saw a feather from the mask and thought it was a pigeon. Honest mistake right? Anyone could do that. Well, my friends meet,
Scenario Number 3: New Orleans is magic. Wow!

On my second night there, I met up with three other people from Texas, and colleague from New Orleans suggested that we visit Cafe Maspero. It was good, and relatively inexpensive. He did have one condition that we all join him at Pat O'Briens, a bar down in the French Quarter.

After dinner I walked along with the group and we made our way to Pat O'Briens (Of course the whole time I wanted to crack the joke of, "I thought he was just an alcoholic, I didn't know he owned his own bar," in reference to The Insider host Pat O'Brien. Yeah you didn't laugh either that's why I kept it to myself.)

Many of the buildings in the French Quarter have an open air courtyard in the center. (This is something I was not aware of.) We walked through the front door, (right across from Reverend Zombie's Voodoo Shop, aces!) To the right was a piano lounge, to the left a bar and then through another set of open double doors.

This is the point when I looked up and thought to myself, "Wow, look at this ceiling. It looks just like the sky. It's like the great hall at Hogwarts. How did they..." As the cold wind swept over me and I noticed the trees peeking over the walls I realized that, yep, I was outside. I was not looking at a bewitched ceiling. I was looking up at the sky.

Overall the trip was good. (Other than my stupid episodes which thankfully only occurred by myself or in my own mind, but reproduced here for your entertainment.)