You’re as sweet as Kool-Aid

Long and awaited, lengthy and sketchy, but alas, a blog update.

So for Amy’s birthday, two weekends ago, Amy’s parents looked after Sebastian for the night for us to throw a little house party. Amy’s sister Brandy and her boyfriend Nick made a fridge-load of jelloshots, and everyone else came bearing birthday messages and intentions to have a bloody good time. After awaiting Mike’s arrival (he was supposed to be there at 8, but came at 10. It was predicted), we all headed to the hookah café for a little while, listening to a bunch of hippies getting ‘in tune’ with the universe, playing psychedelic notes on their worn out guitar. The hookah was strawberry flavoured, and with my hesitation to try it (given my die-hard anti-smoking morals and my previous experience of bronchitus from second-hand smoke), it was actually pretty cool. At first it felt like you was just breathing in air, but then you could feel the taste of strawberry at the back of your tongue, fusing and sending flavours down to the tip. If you toked too hard and cough, with every cough you could feel small burning sensations of strawberry at the back of your throat – I couldn’t tell if I liked it or not.. Afterwards we went back to me and Amy’s apartment to chill and have a few casual drinks. I spent most of the night on the stairs talking about anime, old cartoons and I distinctly remember talking about Titanic (God knows why), until some ungodly hour in the morning. Spent 3 hours cleaning the kitchen when I woke up; it was as if there hadn’t been a party there the night before!
Me and Amy like to think we’re good hosts.

I'm the one dressed all fancy pantsy. I tend to be mistaken for Tuan a lot (guy on far left)

After a grueling week of exams, it was time for the Mardi Gras weekend. With Louisiana having been through rough times, slavery and hurricane seasons to name a few, these guys know just how to party. The theory behind the Mardi Gras weekend is that it’s the weekend before lent, so everyone eats a bunch of meat and party like animals: a time of year where the transvestites fester and the weird really are the wonderful. The state fair stayed for the weekend and we attended before we headed to Baton Rouge.
If you’ve ever seen State Fairs or carnivals on tv shows, it’s exactly like that. Candy apples, adrenaline pumped rides and carnie games. You know, the floating ducks and spraying water into the clowns head; throwing rings at glass bottles, and the epitome of the fair, the hammer and bell, the high striker. They had ones for kids, and ones for women half the size of the men’s one – obviously, all the games are a gip. For carnies’, they have surprisingly good linguistic skills. Well, if you call being a sneaky bugger ‘good’. There as a game where you had to throw darts at balloons. Easy, right? Pop more, get bigger prizes. Simple. They give you 3 free bonus shots, and then give you bonus shots. You have to pay for the bonus shots (but you don’t know that yet). It sounds stupid falling for that, but seriously, at that moment in time it really is convincing. Life lesson learnt: do not trust carnies, even if they’re missing less teeth than the other suspicious looking ones around.
We took the kids to ride all the kiddie rides; you know, the cars on tracks, bumblebees flying up and down, the kiddie caterpillar rollarcoaster, and of course, the big slides. I’ve kinda grown out of all the carnival rides, and enjoy watching the kids indulge in the rides. Me and Amy did have time to go on some of the extreme rides before we were about to leave, but me and Amy weren’t in the mood to feel sick. Instead, we did the cliché couple thing of going on the ferris wheel. That too was a gip – it only went around twice!
After the fair we headed to Baton Rouge, and picked up a ton face paint from Michael’s before he arrived.
The next day we headed to New Orleans for the kids to see the parade, and for me to make a few bucks. As you guys know, jobs for an international students here are a few and far between thanks to 9/11. So, the plan was for me set up a stall for face painting, for all the drunkards and the little kids (what a brilliant combination). I practiced doing fleurs-de-lis all night, thinking a load of people would want it since the Saints won the Superbowl the weekend before.

I painted Jasmine’s and Sebastian’s faces at the parade, with the floats in the background throwing beads, toys and sweets; and yes, very odd looking people were walking around. Not so much ugly, but more oddly extravagent, and you couldn’t really tell who was female and who was male, but as a very neutral comment, everyone looked beautiful! The transvestites weren’t thrashy with lipstick painted all over their faces, and eyeshadow that extended away from their eyelids, but were actually very feminine looking, and can actually passed as female.
To get to Jackson Square for me to facepaint (it’s a very big attraction for tourists), we had to pass Bourbon street – with people flashing their breasts for beads, and very naked people holding hands and skipping. For lunch Amy’s mum had a Lucky Dog, and as the natives of the N-O say, it’s lucky if you survive it.
We arrived in the French Quarter only to find there are a group of old ladies at the busiest corner facepainting with industrial facepaint, and then some crazy guy with a utility belt of paints, with paint all over his body and a mirror stuck to his head. With all this competition, Amy lowered the price for each facepaint to $2 a piece. I was kinda doing it for fun rather than for the money, but I still count it as a get-rich-quick scheme. With it being so cheap, before we knew it we had our first customer, who hasn’t had her facepainted since she was a little girl. The second person’s boy friend (not boyfriend) was from Derby. I wasn’t sure if I missed the midlands accent, it being so.. penetrating. He did remind me of my rekindled love for apple crumble though, and help me try to explain what yorkshire puddings were to the surrounding yanks.
Profit made? $4! Half way doing my second customer, the cops came passed me claiming that I was in the fire lane (even though he didn’t fuss the guy shoeshining next to me). He also said that I needed to show him a permit, which I hadn’t. I had to leave straight away. I would have carried on and you know, move to a different place or stayed there (I mean, what were the chances of them coming back?), but with my visa being so strict, I didn’t want to risk it.
My scheme to get rich failed, and I have all these posters and facepaints left on my table. A reminder of my failure
Though that’s not to say it wasn’t fun, it was a good experience for my first Mardi Gras.
Well, me and Amy are in New Orleans – count it as belated birthday presents, and a well earned rest. Once again, Amy’s parents are looking after Sebastian for the night, so we’re staying at a hotel, sipping champagne that Amy’s mum had bought us.
Trust me, they’ll be a lengthy post sometime in the next week, I’ll include the New Orleans stuff then. Lots to see and lots to do in the Paris of the South, so until then folks, cheerio, and as ever enjoy the little gallery below~

It actually snowed here one morning, but melted almost instantly..

Clients.

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