NOLA Trip: First impressions of New Orleans and the town of Metairie
Previously, on the New Orleans trip log, I wrote about how I managed to make it to New Orleans on time, in spite of persistent delays throughout the trip. Which brings us to the City of New Orleans' final destination - the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal.
Inside the station
The station was built in 1954, at the time when New Orleans was still a a major passenger train hub. It was envisioned a slick, modern facility, so it looks more utilitarian and streamlined than older portions of Chicago Union Station and Washington Union Station. Though it does have some pretty cool murals.
The station doesn't see nearly as many trains as it used to. Aside from the City of New Orleans, there are only two others. The Crescent runs to New York, while Sunset Limited travels to San Antonio three times a week, where it joins up with Texas Eagle and continues toward Los Angeles. Until Hurricane Katrina, Sunset Limited kept going east, traveling along the Gulf Coast down to Florida, but now... it's a bit of a political mess.
There is a proposal to create state-supported Amtrak service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, with stops in the two cities' suburbs and some intermediate points. Current state governor Bobby Jindal wasn't too keen on the proposal, but he's not going to be governor next year, so...
For now, the Union Terminal timetable stands a sad reminder of what the station once was - and a hopeful sign of what it may someday become.
Back in the late 1970s, two of the station's platforms were removed to make room for Greyhound buses as the company moved its New Orleans station into the building. Which is actually kind of convenient if you want to transfer. Greyhound buses go to several destinations in Louisiana and nearby Alabama that Amtrak trains don't reach.
Compared to Chicago and Washington Union Stations, the New Orleans Union Terminal doesn't really have much in a way of amenities. There is a Subway restaurant (not pictured), a souvenir shop.
A games and vending machines room
Some newspaper boxes (where I got the very last copy of March 20 New Orleans Times-Picayune, because you know I would)
Payphones
Restrooms
A directory of local hotels
And last, but not least, the Magnolia Room. The concept is similar to Metropolitan Lounges at Chicago and Los Angeles union stations - it's a private space for Business Class and Sleeping Car Amtrak passengers (and regular passengers who managed to save up a lot of Amtrak Rewards points). Unfortunately, there was no way to look inside - the door was locked. And quite reflective.
At this point, phoenix_anew and jaklocke still hadn't arrived. Now, I could've waited for them inside the station, but if you think that I would do it when I got a whole new city to check out... Welcome to my blog.
I wish I had a good "first look at New Orleans" photo, but it seems that I neglected to take one. So I'll just have to describe it. The first thing I saw were the towering skyscrapers of the New Orleans' central business district. It's one of the other things I like about train travel - it puts you right in the heart of the city.
Now, it wasn't quite like getting out at New York Penn Station and feeling awestruck by the sheer size and density of it all, or seeing US Congress building looming in the distance outside Washington Union Station. But there were enough interestingly shaped buildings to make me intrigued. Whether it's the newer office tower
Or an older church peeking from behind a highway
Also -notice the freaking palm trees in the above picture. I didn't expect freaking palm trees in freaking New Orleans! It was the first time I've actually seen actual palm trees outside a garden or a greenhouse, just planted on the street all casual-like. When I would later tell Angie and Jack about it, they would just shrug because, again, they grew up with this, but for me, it was freaking exciting and freaking new.
It was around the time I took this picture that it started to sink in. New Orleans wasn't just warm the way Jackson was - it was hot. Like, Chicago summer hot. Like any Chicagoan during spring, I was dressed in layers, wearing a t-shirt under a long-sleeved shirt. For a minute, I considered keeping it on and taking it off when Angie and Jak arrived (just for dramatic effect). But then, I realized that it would be silly, and I would probably be drenched in sweat by the time they got there, and why the hell would I do that to myself?
No wonder Connie got rid of all her layers while she was still on the train. At least that way, the transition wouldn't have been so jarring. Definitely something I would have to keep in mind if I ever visit during spring.
Because I am who am I, I decided to take a closer look at something I saw near the Greyhound side of the Union Terminal building - bus shelters.
New Orleans has a fairly extensive bus system, and it was only natural that at least some of them would feed into the terminal. Putting the stop near the Greyhound entrance also made sense - from what I've gathered, the Greyhound side tends to be busier than the Amtrak side.
I knew that the Loyola Avenue streetcar stopped at the terminal, so I wasn't surprised to see a streetcar stop a little past the bus stop.
Complete with a map and a ticket machine.
This is the final stop of Loyola Avenue, with two tracks dead-ending not far from the Greyhound entrance - though the way they are set up, New Orleans RTA could, theoretically, extend it further west. There's no way to turn the streetcars around, but the way the streetcars that use this route are designed, the engineer can just walk to the other end and go the opposite direction (kind of like Chicago 'L' cars)
I didn't know how often the streetcars came around, so I figured I would just walk a bit and try to get a good shot of the New Orleans Union Terminal
But then, I heard the distinct ringing of a streetcar bell.
And sure enough, there it was
At this point, I was definitely glad that I decided not to wait inside.
But after that, I decided to head inside anyway. I didn't want to get too far from the Union Terminal, and I felt that I already saw all there was to see. After putting some stuff away in my luggage bag, I contemplated simply staying in the Amtrak waiting area. But then, I realized it would make more sense for me to stay in the middle of the station, where I was visible from all three entrances.
As it turned out, I didn't have to wait long at all.
Going to Metairie
"We were going to call you," Angie said. "but we figured the station wasn't that big."
"You look good," Jak said, in that 'I'm glad you recovered from cancer' way I've heard more times than I can count. "Let me get your bag."
All this time, I wondered what on Earth was so important that Angie and Jak had to turn the car around and go back and get it. Turned out it was Angie's parking pass. It may have been obvious to a driver, but because I never had to care about such things, it never would've occurred to me.
Angie parked in the garage where she usually parks for work. When we got there,I thought back at the idea that set this whole thing in motion, and I realized that I wouldn't have even needed to take streetcar to her workplace - I could've just walked.
Angie and Jak live in Metairie, a suburb right outside New Orleans' western city limits. During Failcon, Angie mentioned that her town was unincorporated. In Chicagoland, that carries certain connotations - unincorporated towns don't get good services, they have more crime and vacant properties. When I explained it to Angie, she was puzzled, explaining that in New Orleans metropolitan areas, it's kind of the opposite - unincorporated towns are the nice places. Which I got to see first-hand.
But first, we had to get there. And Angie and Jak decided to take a more scenic route, driving past public housing projects and artist lofts, warehouses and middle-class homes. I didn't have the presence of mind to photograph any of this, but it was pretty interesting.
They also explained a bit of the local social geography. The suburbs south of Lake Pontchartrain were divided based on what side of the Mississippi River they were on. Metairie was on the East Bank (which is actually the north shore of the river), which were the nice middle-class suburbs. West Bank (which is actually the south shore of the river), where Jak was originally from, is the wrong side of the tracks. Kind of like Chicago's north suburbs vs south suburbs.
(As far as I can tell, the banks are called what they are because of the way Mississippi River twists across the crescent-like piece of land most of the New Orleans metropolitan area is located on. And to the Chicagoans who wonder why they don't call it "north bank" or "south bank" - I just want to point out that North Shore is not actually on the north shore of Lake Michigan)
As we drove into Metairie I noticed something interesting - channels running in the middle of the streets.
"Oh, we call them 'canals'," Angie said, explaining that they ensure rain/flood water goes into Mississippi.
"What's pretty cool," I said.
And that's when a lightbulb went off in Jak's head.
"You know, they don't have anything like that anywhere else, do they?"
"They don't," Angie agreed.
"You see it all the time, and you don't think about it, until someone points it out."
And that pretty much became the theme of my entire visit.
I'm going to get more into what Metairie is like in a later post. For now, I'll just say that, right off the bat, I was intrigued by the houses. It's not that they were completely strange, but you just won't find houses like this not just in Chicagoland, but anywhere in Illinois or Indiana. Or New York. Because of the area's history as a French and Spanish colony, they developed an architectural style that was sets it apart from the rest of the country.
Angie and Jak's house turned out to be... Neat. Angie may roll her eyes at this since, if her Twitter is anything to go buy, she was cleaning up furiously before I arrived. But, given her complaints about all the stuff she was trying to sell off/get rid of, I was honestly expecting something more cluttered, and it just wasn't.
There were lots of toys arranged on the shelves (including not one, but two Rocket Racoon action figures), some geeky posters and a decent comic book collection. I actually quite liked their office/exercise room. And a cat tree similar to the one in alliancesjr and tweelore's apartment.
(Angie has two cats - the more outgoing Logan and shy Remy. And yes, they were named after X-Men characters. Logan seems to ahve accepted y presence rather quickly, but Remy kept running and hiding as soon as I got near).
We exchanged presents. Jak got me a poster of Targeted, a movie he's been working on for the past few years, as well as a copy of my tiny contribution to it - a mock-up of the Chicago Times newspaper (a major newspaper in mid-late 19th century Chicago that has absolutely nothing to do with Chicago Sun-Times). Jak went all out with that bit of proppery, writing every single front page column, filling in with actual content, jokes, meta references and, when that got boring, random nonsense. He previously sent me a digital copy of it, but it was nice to have it in a form I could hold. And put on the wall. A form that won't vanish when my laptop (literally and figuratively) crashes.
Me, I gave them a bag of sushki - Russian treats that are kind of like tiny dry bagels but aren't. I'll get into what they thought of that later.
After I dropped off my luggage and changed into shoes that were lighter than winter boots, Angie and Jak took me to Lafreniere Park, a major local park. To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but I was impressed. It really was a lovely park.
Filled with animals that were a bit exotic, or at least uncommon, by Chicago standards. Like Black swan
And turtles (notice the ones under water)
I was able to get some great shots of seagulls in flight
And a shot of a squirrel, just for mick_vav :)
When Angie and I were planning my visit, I said early on that I was hoping to sample as much New Orleans food as possible. So after the park, Angie and Jak took me to Copeland's, a local restaurant chain that specializes in region's seafood and other specialties.
Notice the metal structure behind it? Angie told me that these were still-active freight train tracks. Seeing something that looked like your typical 'L' tracks, only higher, was definitely... odd. And definitely something I didn't expect to see in New Orleans area.
It was Friday evening, so of course we had to wait 40 minutes to get a table. But the end results were worth it. I knew going in that whatever I picked would be a bit spicier than I was used to, and honestly, a little extra spiciness didn't bother me at all. I ordered something called Catfish Acadiana, which featured some delectible catfish and a bit of shrimp.
But that wasn't the end of the evening.
Back when we were making plans and I was doing some research, I came across Lakeside Newsstand. From what I was able to find online, it was similar to Chicago's iconic City Newsstand, a treasure trove of newspapers and magazines from near and far. I thought about asking Angie if we could stop by, but I quickly decided against it. I figured she and Jak would be bored there.
So, when we were driving to Metairie and Angie said that she wanted to take me to a place I'd like, a place full of old magazines, I was honestly pretty touched.
Turned out that it was a lot like City Newsstand. A little smaller, but I would've been shocked if it wasn't. I admit that I was originally thrown off, because, on some subconscious level, I expected it to be organized exactly like City Newsstand. And another big difference as that the porn section was curtained off (at City Newsstand, the porn magazines have their own section further in the back, but it's not partitioned off in any way).
I wound up buying a copy of New Orleans Advocate newspaper - something I wanted to get for years because, as I've written before, the New Orleans newspaper war fascinates me. After agonizing over which New Orleans magazine to buy, I bought a writing magazine because I was worried that, if I kept agonizing over it, we'd be stuck there forever.
Jak would up buying some kind of a rock magazine that he later eviscerated as pretentious piece of crap. He ranted about it for quite a while, and it was a hell of a lot more entertaining than the magazine.
On the way back to Angie and Jak's place, we made a detour to sample another New Orleans specialty. As we approached Lakeside Newsstand, Jak saw that the local branch of the Morning Call, an iconic New Orleans coffee shop, was opened. Even thought it was, apparently, supposed to be closed for good. So they decided to introduce me to another New Orleans staple - beignets. And French-style coffee. The beignets were tasty, though I quickly realized why Jak encouraged me to slather it with sugar. And coffee... Well, it's coffee. My mind hasn't really been changed - though having so much milk definitely made for a fascinating change of pace, as far as coffee goes.
We ended the day by watching the Amphibian Man, a classic Soviet 1962 science fiction film. It was one of the DVDs I brought with me (and the only one we actually got to watch). I was curious to see what the movie would be like for someone who would come in cold, without any background whatsoever. And, to be honest, I was curious to see it myself, since I haven't seen it since elementary school.
Jak only watched parts of it. Angie's response boiled down to "well, it's not bad, but it reminded me of a whole bunch of other movies. And Bioshock." As for me... I couldn't really deny some of the weaknesses Angie and Jak pointed out, or that it didn't look as original to me now as it did when I was a kid. And I can't help but wonder what noelct would've thought of it.
By that point, it was getting late, and we all went to sleep. Angie was planning to show me the French Quarter on Saturday morning, so we had to get up early-ish.
But, as you'll see in the next trip log post, things didn't quite turn out that way.
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Inside the station
The station was built in 1954, at the time when New Orleans was still a a major passenger train hub. It was envisioned a slick, modern facility, so it looks more utilitarian and streamlined than older portions of Chicago Union Station and Washington Union Station. Though it does have some pretty cool murals.
The station doesn't see nearly as many trains as it used to. Aside from the City of New Orleans, there are only two others. The Crescent runs to New York, while Sunset Limited travels to San Antonio three times a week, where it joins up with Texas Eagle and continues toward Los Angeles. Until Hurricane Katrina, Sunset Limited kept going east, traveling along the Gulf Coast down to Florida, but now... it's a bit of a political mess.
There is a proposal to create state-supported Amtrak service between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, with stops in the two cities' suburbs and some intermediate points. Current state governor Bobby Jindal wasn't too keen on the proposal, but he's not going to be governor next year, so...
For now, the Union Terminal timetable stands a sad reminder of what the station once was - and a hopeful sign of what it may someday become.
Back in the late 1970s, two of the station's platforms were removed to make room for Greyhound buses as the company moved its New Orleans station into the building. Which is actually kind of convenient if you want to transfer. Greyhound buses go to several destinations in Louisiana and nearby Alabama that Amtrak trains don't reach.
Compared to Chicago and Washington Union Stations, the New Orleans Union Terminal doesn't really have much in a way of amenities. There is a Subway restaurant (not pictured), a souvenir shop.
A games and vending machines room
Some newspaper boxes (where I got the very last copy of March 20 New Orleans Times-Picayune, because you know I would)
Payphones
Restrooms
A directory of local hotels
And last, but not least, the Magnolia Room. The concept is similar to Metropolitan Lounges at Chicago and Los Angeles union stations - it's a private space for Business Class and Sleeping Car Amtrak passengers (and regular passengers who managed to save up a lot of Amtrak Rewards points). Unfortunately, there was no way to look inside - the door was locked. And quite reflective.
At this point, phoenix_anew and jaklocke still hadn't arrived. Now, I could've waited for them inside the station, but if you think that I would do it when I got a whole new city to check out... Welcome to my blog.
I wish I had a good "first look at New Orleans" photo, but it seems that I neglected to take one. So I'll just have to describe it. The first thing I saw were the towering skyscrapers of the New Orleans' central business district. It's one of the other things I like about train travel - it puts you right in the heart of the city.
Now, it wasn't quite like getting out at New York Penn Station and feeling awestruck by the sheer size and density of it all, or seeing US Congress building looming in the distance outside Washington Union Station. But there were enough interestingly shaped buildings to make me intrigued. Whether it's the newer office tower
Or an older church peeking from behind a highway
Also -notice the freaking palm trees in the above picture. I didn't expect freaking palm trees in freaking New Orleans! It was the first time I've actually seen actual palm trees outside a garden or a greenhouse, just planted on the street all casual-like. When I would later tell Angie and Jack about it, they would just shrug because, again, they grew up with this, but for me, it was freaking exciting and freaking new.
It was around the time I took this picture that it started to sink in. New Orleans wasn't just warm the way Jackson was - it was hot. Like, Chicago summer hot. Like any Chicagoan during spring, I was dressed in layers, wearing a t-shirt under a long-sleeved shirt. For a minute, I considered keeping it on and taking it off when Angie and Jak arrived (just for dramatic effect). But then, I realized that it would be silly, and I would probably be drenched in sweat by the time they got there, and why the hell would I do that to myself?
No wonder Connie got rid of all her layers while she was still on the train. At least that way, the transition wouldn't have been so jarring. Definitely something I would have to keep in mind if I ever visit during spring.
Because I am who am I, I decided to take a closer look at something I saw near the Greyhound side of the Union Terminal building - bus shelters.
New Orleans has a fairly extensive bus system, and it was only natural that at least some of them would feed into the terminal. Putting the stop near the Greyhound entrance also made sense - from what I've gathered, the Greyhound side tends to be busier than the Amtrak side.
I knew that the Loyola Avenue streetcar stopped at the terminal, so I wasn't surprised to see a streetcar stop a little past the bus stop.
Complete with a map and a ticket machine.
This is the final stop of Loyola Avenue, with two tracks dead-ending not far from the Greyhound entrance - though the way they are set up, New Orleans RTA could, theoretically, extend it further west. There's no way to turn the streetcars around, but the way the streetcars that use this route are designed, the engineer can just walk to the other end and go the opposite direction (kind of like Chicago 'L' cars)
I didn't know how often the streetcars came around, so I figured I would just walk a bit and try to get a good shot of the New Orleans Union Terminal
But then, I heard the distinct ringing of a streetcar bell.
And sure enough, there it was
At this point, I was definitely glad that I decided not to wait inside.
But after that, I decided to head inside anyway. I didn't want to get too far from the Union Terminal, and I felt that I already saw all there was to see. After putting some stuff away in my luggage bag, I contemplated simply staying in the Amtrak waiting area. But then, I realized it would make more sense for me to stay in the middle of the station, where I was visible from all three entrances.
As it turned out, I didn't have to wait long at all.
Going to Metairie
"We were going to call you," Angie said. "but we figured the station wasn't that big."
"You look good," Jak said, in that 'I'm glad you recovered from cancer' way I've heard more times than I can count. "Let me get your bag."
All this time, I wondered what on Earth was so important that Angie and Jak had to turn the car around and go back and get it. Turned out it was Angie's parking pass. It may have been obvious to a driver, but because I never had to care about such things, it never would've occurred to me.
Angie parked in the garage where she usually parks for work. When we got there,I thought back at the idea that set this whole thing in motion, and I realized that I wouldn't have even needed to take streetcar to her workplace - I could've just walked.
Angie and Jak live in Metairie, a suburb right outside New Orleans' western city limits. During Failcon, Angie mentioned that her town was unincorporated. In Chicagoland, that carries certain connotations - unincorporated towns don't get good services, they have more crime and vacant properties. When I explained it to Angie, she was puzzled, explaining that in New Orleans metropolitan areas, it's kind of the opposite - unincorporated towns are the nice places. Which I got to see first-hand.
But first, we had to get there. And Angie and Jak decided to take a more scenic route, driving past public housing projects and artist lofts, warehouses and middle-class homes. I didn't have the presence of mind to photograph any of this, but it was pretty interesting.
They also explained a bit of the local social geography. The suburbs south of Lake Pontchartrain were divided based on what side of the Mississippi River they were on. Metairie was on the East Bank (which is actually the north shore of the river), which were the nice middle-class suburbs. West Bank (which is actually the south shore of the river), where Jak was originally from, is the wrong side of the tracks. Kind of like Chicago's north suburbs vs south suburbs.
(As far as I can tell, the banks are called what they are because of the way Mississippi River twists across the crescent-like piece of land most of the New Orleans metropolitan area is located on. And to the Chicagoans who wonder why they don't call it "north bank" or "south bank" - I just want to point out that North Shore is not actually on the north shore of Lake Michigan)
As we drove into Metairie I noticed something interesting - channels running in the middle of the streets.
"Oh, we call them 'canals'," Angie said, explaining that they ensure rain/flood water goes into Mississippi.
"What's pretty cool," I said.
And that's when a lightbulb went off in Jak's head.
"You know, they don't have anything like that anywhere else, do they?"
"They don't," Angie agreed.
"You see it all the time, and you don't think about it, until someone points it out."
And that pretty much became the theme of my entire visit.
I'm going to get more into what Metairie is like in a later post. For now, I'll just say that, right off the bat, I was intrigued by the houses. It's not that they were completely strange, but you just won't find houses like this not just in Chicagoland, but anywhere in Illinois or Indiana. Or New York. Because of the area's history as a French and Spanish colony, they developed an architectural style that was sets it apart from the rest of the country.
Angie and Jak's house turned out to be... Neat. Angie may roll her eyes at this since, if her Twitter is anything to go buy, she was cleaning up furiously before I arrived. But, given her complaints about all the stuff she was trying to sell off/get rid of, I was honestly expecting something more cluttered, and it just wasn't.
There were lots of toys arranged on the shelves (including not one, but two Rocket Racoon action figures), some geeky posters and a decent comic book collection. I actually quite liked their office/exercise room. And a cat tree similar to the one in alliancesjr and tweelore's apartment.
(Angie has two cats - the more outgoing Logan and shy Remy. And yes, they were named after X-Men characters. Logan seems to ahve accepted y presence rather quickly, but Remy kept running and hiding as soon as I got near).
We exchanged presents. Jak got me a poster of Targeted, a movie he's been working on for the past few years, as well as a copy of my tiny contribution to it - a mock-up of the Chicago Times newspaper (a major newspaper in mid-late 19th century Chicago that has absolutely nothing to do with Chicago Sun-Times). Jak went all out with that bit of proppery, writing every single front page column, filling in with actual content, jokes, meta references and, when that got boring, random nonsense. He previously sent me a digital copy of it, but it was nice to have it in a form I could hold. And put on the wall. A form that won't vanish when my laptop (literally and figuratively) crashes.
Me, I gave them a bag of sushki - Russian treats that are kind of like tiny dry bagels but aren't. I'll get into what they thought of that later.
After I dropped off my luggage and changed into shoes that were lighter than winter boots, Angie and Jak took me to Lafreniere Park, a major local park. To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but I was impressed. It really was a lovely park.
Filled with animals that were a bit exotic, or at least uncommon, by Chicago standards. Like Black swan
And turtles (notice the ones under water)
I was able to get some great shots of seagulls in flight
And a shot of a squirrel, just for mick_vav :)
When Angie and I were planning my visit, I said early on that I was hoping to sample as much New Orleans food as possible. So after the park, Angie and Jak took me to Copeland's, a local restaurant chain that specializes in region's seafood and other specialties.
Notice the metal structure behind it? Angie told me that these were still-active freight train tracks. Seeing something that looked like your typical 'L' tracks, only higher, was definitely... odd. And definitely something I didn't expect to see in New Orleans area.
It was Friday evening, so of course we had to wait 40 minutes to get a table. But the end results were worth it. I knew going in that whatever I picked would be a bit spicier than I was used to, and honestly, a little extra spiciness didn't bother me at all. I ordered something called Catfish Acadiana, which featured some delectible catfish and a bit of shrimp.
But that wasn't the end of the evening.
Back when we were making plans and I was doing some research, I came across Lakeside Newsstand. From what I was able to find online, it was similar to Chicago's iconic City Newsstand, a treasure trove of newspapers and magazines from near and far. I thought about asking Angie if we could stop by, but I quickly decided against it. I figured she and Jak would be bored there.
So, when we were driving to Metairie and Angie said that she wanted to take me to a place I'd like, a place full of old magazines, I was honestly pretty touched.
Turned out that it was a lot like City Newsstand. A little smaller, but I would've been shocked if it wasn't. I admit that I was originally thrown off, because, on some subconscious level, I expected it to be organized exactly like City Newsstand. And another big difference as that the porn section was curtained off (at City Newsstand, the porn magazines have their own section further in the back, but it's not partitioned off in any way).
I wound up buying a copy of New Orleans Advocate newspaper - something I wanted to get for years because, as I've written before, the New Orleans newspaper war fascinates me. After agonizing over which New Orleans magazine to buy, I bought a writing magazine because I was worried that, if I kept agonizing over it, we'd be stuck there forever.
Jak would up buying some kind of a rock magazine that he later eviscerated as pretentious piece of crap. He ranted about it for quite a while, and it was a hell of a lot more entertaining than the magazine.
On the way back to Angie and Jak's place, we made a detour to sample another New Orleans specialty. As we approached Lakeside Newsstand, Jak saw that the local branch of the Morning Call, an iconic New Orleans coffee shop, was opened. Even thought it was, apparently, supposed to be closed for good. So they decided to introduce me to another New Orleans staple - beignets. And French-style coffee. The beignets were tasty, though I quickly realized why Jak encouraged me to slather it with sugar. And coffee... Well, it's coffee. My mind hasn't really been changed - though having so much milk definitely made for a fascinating change of pace, as far as coffee goes.
We ended the day by watching the Amphibian Man, a classic Soviet 1962 science fiction film. It was one of the DVDs I brought with me (and the only one we actually got to watch). I was curious to see what the movie would be like for someone who would come in cold, without any background whatsoever. And, to be honest, I was curious to see it myself, since I haven't seen it since elementary school.
Jak only watched parts of it. Angie's response boiled down to "well, it's not bad, but it reminded me of a whole bunch of other movies. And Bioshock." As for me... I couldn't really deny some of the weaknesses Angie and Jak pointed out, or that it didn't look as original to me now as it did when I was a kid. And I can't help but wonder what noelct would've thought of it.
By that point, it was getting late, and we all went to sleep. Angie was planning to show me the French Quarter on Saturday morning, so we had to get up early-ish.
But, as you'll see in the next trip log post, things didn't quite turn out that way.
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