Two weeks since my last post… sorry! I need a five minute break from work so here goes my best five minute bachelor party in New Orleans recap:<br/><br/>Steve (lived diagonally from me freshman year) is getting married in a month… He’s who we’re going for.<br/><br/>Flew Reagan to St. Louis, hour delay in STL, grab some nachos and Budweiser at the Chili’s Too in the airport. Upon taking off I was able to spot the arch; Budweiser and the arch… now I never need to visit that city. I found I really like the accent the black folk in STL have; they all sound like Nelly, whom I didn’t see… Crap! I didn’t see it all! Oh well, maybe he’s in town soon.<br/><br/>Land in NO, cab to our hotel, the <a href=”http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g60864-d93034-Reviews-Royal_Sonesta_Hotel_New_Orleans-New_Orleans_Louisiana.html” target=”_blank”>Royal Sonesta</a>, on Bourbon Street. Get our bearings, clean up a little, and out we go. It may be a Thursday night, but we’re here for one reason, and the street out front is able to provide that… It may be late and we may have traveled all day, but that’s no excuse. GAME TIME! Many drinks, a fine meal at <a href=”http://www.yelp.com/biz/felixs-restaurant-and-oyster-new-orleans” target=”_blank”>Felix</a>, and a fine meal at another hole in the wall that was delicious, we retire around 5am. Some of the guys stay out a bit later, some people puke, and that’s that.<br/><br/>The next day we wake up around 1:30pm, walk through Katrina Jr. (seriously, rain so bad that we had to wade through it), grab some beignets and coffee at <a href=”http://www.cafedumonde.com/” target=”_blank”>Cafe Du Monde</a> (most of the guys weren’t interested, but it’s something we had to do… I actually loved it), then head to a real lunch at a fancier pub-type place down the street. I’m the only one to not order a beer; gotta watch the calories when I can, and a beer at lunch is a waste. I can’t remember what we did after all that, but I think we just chilled until it was time to go out again. Went out, same old thing, great time, I signed up for karaoke, but we didn’t stay long enough, some blurriness, and then we walk out of a bar in which some drugged up guy won $1000 on $.25 video poker and we’re greeted by daylight. TO BED!<br/><br/>Wake up/become functional around 4pm the next day. Grab some grub on Decatur again, check out some art, street performances, then back to the room for napping until about 9. Shower, get dressed, repeat the debauchery. This time we went to <a href=”http://www.patobriens.com/patobriens/” target=”_blank”>Pat O’Briens</a> for “The Original Hurricane.” It was nice; not full of sugar, and apparently had four shots in it. After downing three, I knew they lied. 12 drinks and I’m near death. Shoot, six and I’m there. I wasn’t even drunk. Some friends were pretty obliterated on less; I think this place is on to something. Tell someone who wants to get drunk that they are drunk, and they’ll act drunk. Not hating any friends or anything, just pointing it out. Anyway, once again some people puke before the night is over [Note: I am strong]. Three nights in a row! Nice. David and I play it smart and get in bed before 3am; we know traveling hungover is no fun… Little did we know, any traveling with American Airlines is not fun.<br/><br/>Get to the airport, check-in, see we’ve got an hour delay. Great. Eventually, it turns in to like a three hour delay, and we’ll not make our connection in Miami. After putting up with a pretty rude agent, we’re rebooked for Dallas. Louis gets first-class, which is totally lame since he sat in the lounge napping [supposed to be watching our stuff] while we rebooked his ticket. Get to Dallas, I think another delay? Maybe not? Maybe we were just really angry? Finally get to DC, I guarantee my bag didn’t make it despite the agent in NO calling down to baggage to make sure they had it routed correctly, and sure enough, my bag didn’t make it. We’re told to sit tight for another hour as a flight from Miami is coming in and there’s a chance it got on there. I didn’t have high hopes, but sure enough, it arrived. It’s now 11pm on Sunday night. Caitlin has been sitting in the parking lot for 1.5 hours. Do I spend another ten minutes telling AA my bag arrived? No chance, time for me to waste their time…<br/><br/>I’ve been getting calls twice a day from AA asking about my bag. Do I pick up? No chance, they still owe me a few hours. Keep looking, shite airline!<br/><br/>AA – never again.<br/><br/>As far as NO goes, it’s a great place to drink, but really doesn’t seem to offer much else. I went on a long walk Sunday morning (through a few districts), but didn’t find much sightseeing. Good long weekend vacation, but I’m not going back anytime soon. If you’ve been thinking of going, but are worried of Katrina rebuilding or anything, don’t be; I tried to find signs the city was flooded out a few years back, but couldn’t.<br/><br/>I chose to not use a real camera and instead documented the trip with my phone. <a href=”http://www.facebook.com/iammikeDOTorg?ref=profile#/album.php?aid=38179&amp;id=772254395″ target=”_blank”>You can view the pics on Facebook</a>.<br/>