Today was a fun day in New Orleans. I was with my cousin and some good friends, and we got to eat and see a few good spots in New Orleans. We started at Cafe du Monde, where we had some beignets and I had hot chocolate. We then continued to an oysters place… where I got buffalo wings. We headed to the airport to drop off Josh and pick up Michael, who will be joining me on the trip for the next week.
We then went to jazz fest, and got the one extra ticket we needed from a woman right outside the festival. What a crazy event. This is one of the two big times to be in New Orleans (the other being Mardi Gras), and I have accidentally ended up at both of those this year. I thought jazz fest would be a small event with mostly jazz…but it was a major music festival. We saw a number of bands, including Dave Matthews Band, B.B. King, the Honey Island Swamp Band, and the Treme Brass Band.
There was one important detail about our trip to the jazz fest: The weather started out great, but after we had been watching the Honey Island Swamp Band for a bit, it started to rain. And then it started to pour. Many people had ponchos and raincoats, but I just had my camera and got drenched. It let up a bit, and we continued to walk around…but then it just started pouring like crazy again. The grass turned to mostly mud, and everyone was splashing around. Prepared festival-goers wore boots, or maybe sandals, or were often barefoot. But if you had no rain gear, and just shoes like me, you got soaked.