New Orleans

We arrived in New Orleans at mid afternoon and were instantly taken by the city. We drove through small streets lined with beautifull and colourfull houses with intricate metals railings and balconies. The shops along the streets were predominantly bespoke shops and restaurants or bars, as far as i can remember i didn't see a single subway or Macdonalds which was very refreshing! As we drove we wound down the windows and live Jazz music filled the car from the streets, it was incredible. We saw lots of people who we determined were 'New Orleansy' the general consensus of what was 'New Orleansy' was people dressed quite exotically, a lot with dyed blue hair and colourful clothes, sort of a hippie look.

We were driving to our couch surfer hosts house, for those of you who don't know the concept of couchsurfing i'll explain; it is a website in which people can advertise their couch as available for travellers to sleep on for free. Doing this means that travellers can meet other travellers and swap stories and tips, the local 'host' normally shows their couchsurfers round the city and gives them inside knowledge into the best places top see and go. The website has the option of a host becoming verified, which costs money, and people who have surfed their couch before can review them. We opted for a guy called Dylan, his profile seemed very interesting and it looked like he had a really good outlook on life, he also had some very positive reviews and was verified so we decided it was probably a good bet. We also felt safer as we would be staying in our van not sleeping on a strangers couch.

We arrived at Dylan's house and instantly felt comfortable, he was a great guy! He had to go training so after meeting us for about 15 minuites he left us the keys to his flat so that we could shower and cook and he left. It was absolutely bizarre that i was holding the keys to a persons house that i had just met but such is the travelling community i guess, trusting and believers in Karma!

That evening we chilled at Dylan's and he gave us some tips on where was best to go the next day, we retired to the van and got up early for a day of sightseeing. After travelling for a while we needed to do some washing, Dylan pointed us towards the most bizarre but ingenious laundromat ever. The laundry machines were towards the back of a bar, this meant that while you waiting for your washing to be done you could have a few pints, grab a burger and play a game of pool, it was excellent and a very clever idea as washing takes a couple of hours and is thirsty work!

Washing complete we headed to the french quarter of New Orleans, the area was beautiful with more of the brightly coloured houses and balconies, have a look at the photos attached and see for yourself! We also stopped by a cafe that only sells coffee and french donuts. We decided to give them a try as they were supposedly award winning. Well i can definitely see why, they were hands down the best donuts i have ever eaten in my life, i can't even put into words how good they were but if you are ever in New Orleans PLEASE do yourself a favour and go to Cafe Du Monde.

As we are on a budget we stayed in again and had a few beers with Dylan. The next day we went to the famed World War 2 museum. It was extremely interesting and we were there the day before D Day so there were some celebrations and honourary speeches going on as well. We spent quite a few hours in the museum as there is so much information. Unfortunately there is so much information crammed into a small space that it is slightly overwhelming but very interesting none the less. The museum seemed to have it's aircon on Antartic level as we were shivering for the second half of it, for once getting outside to the heat and sun was a relief instead of it being the other way round!

We ventured over to some parks that we found in Lonely planet, here we saw a snippet of why New Orleans gets it's reputation for not being very safe, the parks were full of homeless people and just strange people, we got some very strange comments, saw a man punch his girlfriend in the stomache in front of their child (she then laid down on a bench with him acting happy families?!)and we left pretty sharpish after that!

In the evening Dylan took us to a restaurant called Dat Dog which is a hot dog bar in which you can get some very interesting hot dogs. Aligators are very loved in New Orleans so we both opted for an Aligator hot dog, it was delicious! Probably one of the best hot dogs i've ever had.

We then headed to a bar with Dylan which is where things got slightly bad. Dylan's ex girlfriend was also in the bar, she seemed fine if not a little bit b****y but we all chatted a bit and left after a couple of drinks. We had some drinks back at Dylans and then we headed to sleep in the van as we had to leave at 8am. Now is when things took a bit of a turn.... I was woken up by banging on the window of the van, i peered out the window and saw Dylan stood there. When i had fully woken up and opened the door to the van i gathered that his ex girlfriend had turned up to his house and knocked on his door. He thought it was one of us that needed the toilet or something so opened the door and his ex stormed in basically accusing him of sleeping with us. The fact that we weren't even in his house didn't seem to calm her at all. She proceeded to attack Dylan who was left covered in really deep viscious scratch marks. Luckily he had the sense to seperate his gun from his amo (everyone has guns in America) as it turns out she has mental health issues. He asked us to be a witness to the fact that he was not hitting her as he believed she would accuse him of this. I grabbed some shoes and went out to help. It's a long story what happened next but basically after seeing the state his ex was in, she was very drunk and trying to drive her car (Dylan got the keys off her luckily), i told him to call the police, which he did. She then started accusing me of sleeping with Dylan which i calmly tried to explain was really not true. She then went absolutely crazy and started attacking Dylan again, with the police on the way we both attmepted to restrain her but she was that crazed that we couldn't keep her down, in the struggle she managed to hit me in the face and give me a couple of nasty scratch marks on my chest and arms.

A policecar arrived very swiftly with one policeman in, he got her on the floor and tried to handcuff her, she then proceeded to attack the police officer. The policeman had to call for back up and it took two huge policemen to arrest her. All the while she was screaming like i had never heard before. She was obviously very unstable and was already being seen by a therapist. I felt kind of bad for her as she was definitely not all there!

The officer informed me that i could press charges for battery but i would need to be available to go to court etc. I do not have the money or time for that so i decided not to but they took a statement to go towards Dylan's case.

Izzy, incredibly, managed to sleep through the entire thing until i had to get my passport for the police, despite all this noise and commotion happening about 2 metres from our van!

So that was that, it wasn't really what i was hoping for as an experience whilst travelling but frankly, s*** happens wherever you may be in the world, i was just glad i could help a bit! Now it was on to Austin, Texas!