We arrived in New Orleans two hours late and got to our hotel where we had two lovely beds we didn't have the time to sleep in. We want to visit a jazz bar. Completely unnecessary, as soon as we got on to Bourbon Street there was a jazz band playing on the street.
We had dinner at a restaurant, delicious shrimp and calamari that had been fished out before BP's oil had ensnared them. First bar had a three for one deal on Budweiser. I should not drink beer after a large meal. As I may have already mentioned. So we went home.
Ed complained as I lay on the bed, trying to recover some sense of well-being. Then he nearly fell asleep. The beds were comfortable and we could have easily gone to bed. We would have woken up feeling fresh and with completely clear consciences. That wouldn't have been fun.
We had been told that New Orleans was going to be loads of fun. A bit weird for such a tragedy stricken city. We had been told that New Orleans was like a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah, places of such great perversion that God turned the entire populations into pillars of salt. With great determination we heroically got out of bed and set out to discover this side of the city. For educational purposes only.
Bourbon Street. Every other bar is a strip bar. The non-strip bars are often highly sexually charged as well, with the shot girls offering body shots. We avoided the strip clubs and focused on the drinking. At least at first. After several drinks we started drinking something called a hand-grenade. Some kind of melon liqueur influenced cocktail served in a plastic container shaped like a grenade. They don't tell you the ingredients but they do come with a warning on the limits. I can't find them at the moment but regarding your fifth drink the warning was: "You’re on your own. We don't recommend having five".
I had 3.5 deciding to leave the final half so one of us was sober enough to get us to the bus. Ed had between 4-6. I can't remember, he definitely won't remember. Then we went to a cabaret club. Not a real cabaret club, it just happens to be a New Orleans euphemism for a strip club. Which Ed and I had never been to, so I was curious to visit one. For educational purposes only.
The club was actually pretty nice. Like an upscale cocktail bar. Except there were naked women dancing on the stage. It was certainly a good way to keep two drunk people up. We had to stay awake because our bus left around 6am and we wouldn't wake up with any intention of leaving our beds if we went to sleep. Ed started panicking. "I'm a feminist" he declared passionately, "this goes against everything I believe in". Having never heard Ed describe himself as a feminist before in my lifetime, I had no idea how to react. I hadn't forced him to come into the strip club and I certainly didn't plan on trying to convince him that it was compatible with a feminist viewpoint. We left when it closed a little later.
Ed, ahead of me on the street, called out "come in here there's no cover charge". I looked over at the dodgy looking strip club. They don't even bother to call it a cabaret club. Clearly, the Bourbon Street smell, a perfume of vomit, salt-water air and desperation, had gotten into Ed's nostrils and overpowered his newly discovered desire for equality. I was resistant but Ed was led in by one of the women so I felt I had to follow. We both had virtually no money at this point and I explained this to be told, we have a cashier in the building. I still tried wanted to leave. Genuinely I did. Ed, slightly unsure of himself, gave me the responsibility of decision maker.
"I'll do whatever you whatever you want to do."
"I want to leave."
"Right," then Ed turned to the cashier "100 dollars please."
I won't go into further details but I am proud to say I did nothing illegal. Despite the offers. I will also say that a lap dance where a naked woman bounces up and down just above your pelvis when you're dying for a piss is extremely uncomfortable and awkward. It is not sexy and is enough to put one off strip clubs for life. Despite all Ed's early protestations on the grounds of feminism, we probably felt the most degraded. After all, we had indulged in the seedy world of a city overrun with real tragedies and problems. We also spent far more than we intended. Ed compulsively washed his hands when he got home. But you can't get a sense of sinful shame off with soap.
We hadn't quite been ruined by the house of the rising sun. But at least we had found our Sodom and Gomorrah.
