Day 03 - New Orleans

Hello again from New Orleans. We're back which means time for more entries.

Friday morning before the cruise consisted of even more shuttling. We were all moving to one hotel near the port and had an obscene number of bags and people to cart back and forth. We were starving by the time we finished around one, so we went to this small divey looking place near one of the hotels. It looked tiny from the outside, but was actually huge. Turns out they specialize in delicious po' boys. They were good and despite the fact that we all got the smaller versions of the sandwiches, we still waddled out of the restaurant very full.

Several of us went out to the French Quarter while everyone else went back to nap. Chris, Mia, Andrew, Gianni, and Uncle Brian went out for what was supposed to be a walking tour but ended up being a Hurricane fest on Decatur St, where we got Chris tipsy. We walked along the French Quarter a little more after that and made it to the marketplace before we realized we were running late for our big dinner reservation and headed back.

Almost all 22 of us in the group went to this place Mulates for dinner. The only one not there was Chabba who was still in transit. The restaurant was fun. The food was good and there was living music and a lot of dancing. Grandma especially had a lot of fun and was dancing all over the place.

After dinner, we walked with most of the group back to the hotel, but after a few minutes, Chris, umma, Andrew, Gianni, uncle Brian, James, and I all took the trolley back to go back to the French Quarter. We meant to take Andrew to Cafe du Mode but first ended up trying to meet Oppa, Nonny, and Nonno at Bourbon St. This may have traumatized Andrew.

While eating beignets, we discovered that Chabbavwas coming in several hours later than we had thought, so we had to alter plans around that. Other than that, we pretty much just walked back to the hotel, unsuccessfully tried to pre board the cruise, and went to sleep.

Day 01 - San Jose to New Orleans

Hello from wireless at a restaurant in Jamaica.

Our first day of the trio was the normal routine. After staying up until 3 am doing something we probably shouldn't have waited until the last minute to do, like packing, we woke up at the crack of dawn to make it to our 815 flight. Things ran relatively smoothly for the first leg of the flight. Almost left Mia behind because she was buying breakfast, but other than that I think we were all out for the flight.

We had a short layover in Las Vegas, where we had a short and unnecessary panic about whether we had to go through security a second time. In that hour, we got pretzel dogs, won a couple of dollars on the slots, and watched as James and Mia started an epic argument about whether it is better to eat small or large meals...that is still going on.

The second leg of the trip also went smoothly. James fell asleep after arguing. Mia slept. I read. The flight to New Orleans was actually pretty fast.

We got to New Orleans and after fighting to get our bags had to weave around to find the shuttle to the Enterprise. We got our car and drove into town to check into our hotel.

Our first hotel was a cute little hotel in the French Quarter. Its apparently like a block away from Bourbon Street. Anyway, we were famished by the time we got in, so we set off to find some food. The first place we found turned out to be super dive bar-y. Then, we actually ended up in Bourbon Street where James and Mia were both traumatized. Eventually, we made our way to Decatur St where we just ate at Bubba Gumps.

After dinner, we made our first trip to Cafe du Mode, where we enjoyed beignets and Mia spilled cafe au lait everywhere. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and eventually went to sleep.

Day 02 - New Orleans

Our second day condisted of endless airport runs. We woke up around 1030 and got ready for breakfast. We had brunch at this restaurant called Dooky Chase, which is owned and run by a 90 year woman who, according to the travel channel, was the inspiration for the main character in The Princess and the Frog. The restaurant looked a little run down from the outside, but was absolutely adorable from the inside. We got the buffet style lunch, which was good. Had the most flavorful white bean soup, some great fried chicken and amazing meatballs. It was an all around good meal.we were happy and it was a good break before a day of shuttling.

We dropped James and Mia off at the hotel, checked into grandma and grandpas hotel, and drove over to the airport. We took Grandma, Grandpa, and Halmony in the first shift. We took them to Harrahs and rounded back to the airport to get Chris, Gianni and Uncle Brian. We dropped them off, got James and mia and then took a short break at Harrahs. It was short, but not short enough for me to avoid losing money on a dumb LOTR slot machine.

On trip 3, we got Oppa, Nonny, and Nonno. It took us a while because Umma couldn't find the car. I had walked that trio, so I had no idea where it was either. We were going to have dinner with them, but they were tired so we ended up at this Mexican restaurant that was surprisingly good to my California taste buds. We, of course, followed this up with beignets, where James tried to steal Uncle Brian's.

Andrew was trip four, but his flight was delayed until 140 am, so we had time to kill. harrahs does this thing where you can get free parking if you gamble for 30 minutes, so we did some gambling to get our free parking. Apparently, you need 30 qualifying minutes, so Mia Umma and I had to slave away at slots for almost two hours. At least we used up time.

By the time we picked up Andrew, we were deliriously tired. Between getting to the airport and walking to Holiday Inn from Harrahs, it was almost three when we got back and went to sleep. At least we got most of our airport runs done.