Day off :)

New Orleans day off

Today was our first day off! I celebrated this fact by waking up at our normal time (stupid internal clock!) then rolling over and going right back to sleep. So satisfying! I slept in until the ripe old hour of 9am, then went downstairs to coordinate plans for the day. A hearty breakfast of lucky charms, lots of discussion and waiting for people to grab last minute things and we were on our way. We took the #88 bus from St Claude street to Canal. The bus ride was very fun and seemed so fast compared to our ride into the city the day before. Debarking on Canal, our big group split up and we went our separate ways. My group headed down the street where we found something we all had been missing: McDonalds. It may seem strange, but we spend our days riding past McDonalds's but rarely ever stop there to eat.  I got some fries and a glass of water which were quickly eaten. Then we set off to do our touristy best to see everything. With this trip I decided to deviate from my usual pattern. Normally, before I go anywhere remotely interesting, I will Wikipedia, googlemaps, and research as much as I can before I go so that I can have the best touring plan for the day. I made a very impressive itinerary for our trip to DC last year, but for this trip I decided not to do that. I figured that I would follow recommendations, go with a group and see what they saw. I can come back to New Orleans again if I don't feel satisfied, but I can never do it again with these people! We started out the day walking down Canal until we found a map... Then we turned around and walked back the other way when we realized that we had already missed the French quarter. We strolled around, looking at shops, artists and the sites. We even found a giant oyster festival in the square. I admit it, I didn't try the oysters!  Looked at all of the varieties, but nothing really appealed to me. So I had a snowball! They are a southern specialty that may even beat out sweet tea. Like a snow cone but with finer shaved ice, more flavors, and a bigger cup, that are everything you need when wandering around a strange city for hours at a time. I had a "wedding cake" flavored snowball which was vanilla-ee and wonderful! Later we found a gelato place and enjoyed paninis  in their store. It made me laugh to see my first true B&B takeover. Between Alyssa, Kelsey, Sadie, Summer, Prachi, Lama, Dre and I, every table was taken by a B&B-er. Granted it was a rather small shop, but it was still fun to watch. We wandered and shopped more. We ran into other B&B-ers which shuffled our group a little. Eventually, we ended up on the trolly heading back to canal. We had some bad luck waiting for the trolly, but managed to get on it with only one incident! We rode to Canal where we decided to go back to Camp Hope where we could shower and prep for the rest of the night. We had a relatively uneventful trip back, where Steph made friends with everyone else on the back of the bus. We showered and met up with other groups. Eventually 12 girls set out for NOLA and a good dinner. We caught the bus and headed for the French quarter again. The Gumbo shop was our destination and it was wonderful! I had some chicken gumbo...mmmm! So good! Not too spicy, very flavorful, and perfect amount of soup. I highly recommend them. Because of the 50 minute wait forthe next bus,we decided to take a cab back. Christine and I had a great conversation with our cabbie. I don't remember his name, but he worked in the Pakistani police when he was younger and farmed. The last 3 years he has driven for NOLA. It was very interesting to listen to him tell his story. After we got back we crashed and went to bed!