As indicated by the title, the USA adventure is split into more edible chunks - North and South.
Do note that the reason for the blog post split has nothing to do with an American civil war thing (or the "recent unpleasantness" as it is kindly described), it's simply the case that this country generates enough content for two posts at the very least.
Let me start off by saying how non-confrontive and relaxed the border control interrogation is upon entering the USA, where everyone is assumed to be a terrorist or free loader until proven innocent. However, once you pass this and the hand scan / retina scan / controlled substance scan (controlled substances apparently being Vegemite, Cuban cigars and Kinder Suprises) it's smooth sailing into the land of the free. A land dedicated to liberty, equality, justice and the pursuit of happiness. A nation filled with quirks a plenty and countless miracles of deep frying. A place where justice is ruled like a baseball game - three strikes and you're outta there. A country united with Burma and Liberia to the defence of the world against the perils of the metric system.
The first night was spent at a hotel nestled in the most romantic crossroads of the 17th, 26th and 44th West conduits and 31st and 32nd arterial roads outside JFK airport coming to grips with the daunting beast lying ahead whilst trying to work out the filter coffee machine with which Americans have an unbridled fascination. The next day began with some type of dessert for breakfast and a flight south to New Orleans - a city where the sun shines, people are more relaxed, bodies don't stay buried and the water is so soft y'all be washing the shampoo out of your hair 'til the cows come home.
Americans as a whole love to talk yet don't often mince words. It is a land of obvious extremes. In general, EVERYTHING is louder, bigger, higher, longer, wider, faster and generally doesn't get many miles to the gallon. The south is a particularly great example of the latter where it is your god given right to drive an SUV verging on a monster truck - and thanks to the fact Louisiana is the only state to use Napoleonic code as law, the pedestrian does NOT have the right of way here. This essentially means everyone is too scared to walk anywhere, further made feasible as a way of life by their obsession with "drive thru" services. You can get drive thru food of almost any variety, drive thru Daquiris (but you can't drink em in the car, that would be silly!), drive thru cashing in of jewellery and even drive thru ATM's. And yes, believe it or not, the drive thru ATM's actually have braille on the keypads too as blind people "may want to walk through the drive thru to get money out." Do these blind people even know about the Napoleonic street law and the monster trucks?
New Orleans is a fantastic place at it's heart where people party for no apparent reason other than "it's too quiet". There is a huge history of jazz culture and the French Quarter has an incredible old charm to it not becoming of such a big city. It has an amazing atmosphere for a place that is still very much recovering from the ravages of hurricane Katrina and unfortunately now boasts one of the highest crime rates in the country. I guess despite the murder rate, you still feel pretty safe with non other than STEVEN SEAGAL AS A COP ON YOUR BEAT! Even if he is "just a chef"...
The timing of the visit was unfortunately a bit off, the Mardi Gras celebration was set to occurr in the following week, which from my understanding is a sequence of parties interlaced with big parades where you must contend with giant plastic beads and other projectiles constantly being thrown at you from the floats. If you are a woman and you are not rendered unconscious from being smacked in the head by a giant novelty pacifier, it's more or less expected that you show of your "assets" in return as thanks for your near death experience. There is also a quirky tradition of eating King Cakes, which are basically cakes that contain a little plastic baby inside them. If you choke on the plastic toy, and you survive, you are punished by having to bake the next cake. It's like a playing a game of Russian roulette while enjoying a nice cake at the same time.
Despite missing Mardi Gras, another big event was on never-the-less: the New Orleans Saints NFC final vs the Minnesota Vikings. Like many without tickets, our group of friends instead joined in the phenomenom that is "tail gating". Basically, everyone who couldn't get a ticket drives to the stadium anyway and parks beside it and watches the game on a TV in the carpark. You'd of course be naive to think that it would be a small TV on the back of a car. This is AMERICA! We saw camper vans that convert into outdoor electronic, supersonic, non-ergonomic home entertainment centres that put Transformers to shame. The Saints won the match by a field goal in extra time and to say the city partied a little harder than usual is an understatement. The city boulevards became a seething mass of people yelling "WHO DAT!", bands playing street jazz, "pimped up" yellow school buses and a cacophony of car horns rivalling a south east Asian city during peak hour. The Saints then went on to make history and win their very first Superbowl the next week. You could put it down to their skill and hard training, but I prefer to think that random Aussie blow ins bring good luck to any team they choose to root for.
It wasn't all party time of course. There was time out to go visit a swamp and see resident gators. Unfortunately we had no meat to throw at them to liven the place up but they were pretty cool none-the-less. Later that night, gators appeared again, this time on the menu. While they look cool, they really do just taste like chicken. Gators included, New Orleans is a total and utter gastronomic heaven. The jambalaya, the gumbo, the spicy crawfish, the fried shrimp and the beer join forces with a range of Tabasco sauces (that only being home to the Tabasco island can provide) to make anyone's mouth water.
Before this post is wrapped up, here's some USA tidbits ...
- Walmarts are HUGE. I think it possible that tourists could get lost and die in a Walmart due to inadequate preparation.
- Home maintenance becomes easier the closer you get to the Mexican border. Basically you buy your wood, buy your nails, buy your hammer ... and then as you are driving out of the parking lot you stop by the big group of illegal Mexican immigrants that loiter there and take one or two to do the work for you for only a few bucks! ¡Grande!
- The world's longest bridge is very long. It feels even longer in the middle of the night, surrounded by fog, lightning and thunder with nothing but radio Tornado warnings to pass the time.
- If you intend to visit the states any time soon, remember to bring along a massive wad of one dollar bills. Tipping is most certainly NOT a city in China to these folk and you'll be handing those bad boys out left right and centre.
- Only in the USA can strip clubs advertise by naked girls dancing around a pole in the back of a moving truck with glass walls. So much class.
- Medicine ads here are awesome. Essentially they run for at least 45 seconds to a minute, where the first 15 seconds describes the product and the rest is a chilling tale of the side effects, nicely coupled with scenes of people laughing at a picnic, throwing frisbees or other happy B-roll momemts.
- A small drink in the USA is what we call a big drink everywhere else ... and the 711 "big gulp" is really what we call a small bucket everywhere else.
- The USA has some of the best damned steaks in the world, which they promptly ruin by burning the living crap out of.
- Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are awesome! Peanut butter jelly time! Peanut butter jelly time!
- Twinkies are not awesome. Given their list of ingredients, they should not be classed as food period. So if you know someone wanting to try one, PLEASE GOD STOP THEM. Tell them about the twinky ...
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