me - 1267th

Onward with the travelouge!

long - pics - etc



After leaving the floats at Mardi Gras World behind, we went back across the Mississippi via the ferry.


Candi and Cookie, sis n me, Lilly and Laura


Steve and Jeff



After getting off the ferry, Sara and I decided to hit the mall that's right there. Riverwalk I think it's called? Sadly, the recession has hit it fairly hard, and many of the stores we remembered from our previous visit 10 years ago are no longer there, and haven't been replaced.
We did find a completely fabulous locally owned food stand in the food court. (I know, right?) The owner was there, and was excited by how excited we were by the food, so she explained every dish to us, and then let us mix and match them into our own combo plate! Sweet! She even printed out a copy of her grandma's recipe for bread pudding for us.
One of the cooks came out from behind the grills to exclaim over us and tell us how hot we were, that she'd never seen such hot twins before, and why didn't we have our own reality TV show? *laffs*

After consuming our yummy and extremely filling meal we decided some exercise was in order.

We left the mall and headed north, to Jackson Square. During the day this is where the card readers, psychics, painters, balloon artists, and street musicians gather. Lined up along the front, along Decater St., are all the horse drawn carriages for hire, and at the back is the St. Louis Cathedral. In the center is a statue of Andrew Jackson.


I think everyone who has been to New Orleans has a shot like this




Then we walked a little further north, to the French Market, an outdoor market with local handicrafts, knockoff purses, wallets, piles and piles of Mardi Gras beads, t-shirts, jewelry, luggage, more purses, more Mardi Gras beads, more t-shirts ... But it was close to 6 pm by now, and most of the vendors were packing up for the day.

We slowly wandered back towards our hotel. In the lobby we found a group of twins gathering together to head out for the special New Orleans style meal that Steve and Jeff had arranged (from which we had opted out.) We stood and chatted with them for a while, and then once they left we went up to our room to relax for a little while.

After an hour or so we headed back out, to Bourbon St. We wandered around for a while, going back into some of the tourist trap gifty stores we'd been in the night before, and picking up a few postcards and souveniers.
One bar that we'd walked past several times had a guy out front whose job it is to lure people in, as does pretty much every other bar along there. Each time we'd gone past he'd tried to get us into his bar, but we weren't interested. The third time we went past he ran over and gave us a couple of t-shirts with "laissez les bon temps roule" on the front, just "because we were so pretty". But we still didn't go in the bar, heh.

Along one stretch of the street there were police blockades on the street keeping everyone to the sidewalks (the street is usually closed to cars and opened to pedestrians at night.) There was a crowd gathered along the sidewalks, and we could see film equipment, but we didn't think twice about it. We'd already come across a documentary film crew talking to the street musicians in Jackson Sq, so this didn't seem like a big deal. More an annoyance to be pushed through.
But, in a voodoo shop further down the street, the clerk struck up a conversation with us and in the course of it asked if we could verify that it was Hugh Jackman filming down the street. Uh .... no we hadn't heard that!
She told us that sereral of her friends had told her that he was there filming a scene for the new Xmen movie. She was a film student, and seemed far more interested to hear how much equipment they had than if we'd seen anyone famous, heh.
We left the shop, and I told Sara that we'd better head back down to the film site, because a few of my friends here at LJ are HUGE Hugh Jackman fans, and they'd never forgive me if I missed it.

We joined the crowd on the sidewalks and peered over their heads to see what was going on. A flunky kept walking up and down the cleared street announcing that no cameras were allowed, but I snapped a photo with my phone anyhow. I'm just a rebel like that.





A guy standing near us asked if we knew what was going on, so we told him the intel we'd gotten. He decided to stick around and watch, too. Then he noticed we were twins, and there began one of the funniest "I can't believe you're twins" conversations we've ever had! It's usually pretty lame and old, the same ol same ol, and we smile and answer the questions, and then politely excuse ourselves. But this guy was just intelligent enough, and just drunk enough that he managed to be pretty funny, complimentary, and completely blown away by the fact that we were dressed alike as adults, so we stuck it out. AND it turns out, he's from Ypsilanti, MI! That's where David lives, and is only 20 minutes from my home. He was thrilled we were from MI, and immediately invited us to a party he was attending soon, back home. He's a pilot for ... I can't remember what airline, heh, but it was some work related party, out a Willow Run Airport. Around then his brother showed up, and in his excitement to introduce us he never did share the details of the party. Ah well, it's not like we would have gone anyhow, but he really was a nice guy, far above the usual "twin groupie".

Around then people began to lose interest in the filming, as nothing seemed to be happening in our area, and most of the crowd dispersed, including this guy and his brother.

Sara and I decided to stick it out a little while longer, and were we glad we did!
Once the crowd had mostly left, another flunky came around and asked some of the people from the remaining clusters to be extras. *woot*
Down the street, out of our view, was where most of the action seemed to be going on. But as each take was filmed, two guys on motorcycles would come riding down the street past us. They were Hugh's stuntman and ... the other guy's stuntman. Since we couldn't see up the street I have no idea who the other guy was! I'm sure we'll find out when the movie comes out.
Anyhow, as they rode past we were all told to casually chat, or cross the street behind them. We were not under any circumstances to look at the riders. Heh.

After about 10 takes we got bored and wandered away. If they weren't gonna let me get a picture of Hugh for my friends then fie on them.

We spent a few more hours wandering Bourbon St, Canal St, and the surrounding French Quarter, then went to the same little hole-in-the-wall bar as last night for more yummy fried pickles and other food, then finally, around 1 am, called it a night.


Mmmmm pickles!



We have an early start tomorrow!

Current Mood: pleased