Loads of Hispanic people, I hadn't thought about Houston being so close to Mexico and South America. Many signs are in English and Spanish and heaps of Mexican restaurants.
People are friendly and enjoy a laugh. Even airport customs and security. Customer service in retail is pretty bad, but in hospitality staff are awesome (tips wanted). On the whole Houston is nice, but there is nothing to see.
NOLA
The flight to New Orleans was uneventful. Checkin was great, they just whipped people through and on to the train to our terminal. The plane was overfull and they had to ask for a volunteer to wait for a later flight and they would get a $300 united airlines voucher. Fortunately someone volunteered and off we went, they also hadn't allocated seats so we ended up sitting separately for the short flight.
Our cab driver Jean Baptiste was a maniac driver, clocking 90 miles per hour, that's 144 kph! And my seat belt didn't work! I was very happy to arrive at the Royal St Charles Hotel. A much smaller hotel and with a small room and a small bed, but adequate. The location was perfect, close to Bourban St but far enough away to miss the noise. We went for a stroll to Bourbon St whilst they prepared our room. I think we are going to enjoy our evening stroll down here each night, very colourful with bands, bars, clubs and food and a tad sleazy. We had some lunch at Olde 'Nawlins Cookery, Lance had a selection of gumbos and I had blackened chicken. Sorry in advance for the food descriptions, but this is my travel diary and I like to remember the food. I promise not to post food pictures unless it is worthy of sharing. Lance managed to knock a large sign over and it spilt red sauce all over the table of an older lady and maybe even knocked her a bit. We stopped and apologised profusely and scadadled out of there fast (they sue here you know).
We had a quick trip home to sort our luggage and a short rest and then a cab ride down to the Mississippi to hop on board the Natchez Paddle Steamer. Hailing the cab we were lucky and had the best driver. He was an old guy who obviously loved his city and told us all sorts of stuff on our short ride. We had to stop at one point as the Poe-leese (police) came flying by on bikes with flashing lights and sirens blaring. They were making way for the college football team who were on their way to practise in four big tour buses. They have a big game on the first of Jan.
We boarded the paddle steamer and felt very old worldy. It was a beautiful night 15 degrees and best of all they had NZ wine! (I know that I should be drinking local wine but it is just not nice in my opinion). We had a wait of an hour and a half to sit onboard on the outer balconies until dinner. Lance got me two glasses of wine and I have to tell you that they were real RSA pours (if you don't know what that means, it means they filled it to the top). By the time we went for dinner I was very merry. We sat on the outer deck watching the evening scenery, what a huge river, the third largest in the world. We passed container ships and watched Nawlins slide by. Dinner was okay and we met a nice couple who live in Oklahoma, no idea what their names were but by then I was on to my third barrel of wine. I did manage to knock a lady's water all over her, but it wasn't my fault! One of the waitresses had such a large booty (butt) that she backed into me and I went flying! All In all the Natchez paddle steamer was a great thing to do.
We were tossing up wether to try and walk our way back to the hotel when Lance spotted some tuk tuk/cyclo things. We climbed aboard and when we said that we had just arrived in NOLA the guy asked if we would like him to show us around. We must have been with him for 45 minutes. He took us through all sorts of streets, residential with beautiful and quaint homes and through bawdy bar areas where marijuana was thick in the air. It was a beautiful clear evening and we loved every minute of it.
Now we are tucked up in bed and a "Back to the Future" trilogy is on TV. Lance thinks they put them on because it is his birthday, as they are some of his favourite movies.
Nighty night💤
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