Hey, where did my Monday go? Sydney bound.

I am sitting in the New Orleans airport waiting on my flight. This is going to be a very long day. My flight leaves NO at 2PM. A short time later I arrive at Dallas where I get to spend about 4 hours at their airport. Then it is a much longer flight to LA. When I arrive at LA I get to spend about 2 hours at LAX. Finally I get to board my flight to Sydney. I will be on the flight for the next 18 hours. I am not a big aviation geek but I did specifically book my flight so that I would get to fly on the Airbus A380. The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine airliner. It is the largest passenger airliner in the world. In addition, there are 3 self-serve snack bars! This might present a problem since I am a nervous eater – and I am especially nervous when I travel.

Snack Bar

We went and lined the streets to watch the New Orleans Halloween Parade last night. As far as parades go it was pretty good – nothing spectacular. There are about 10 very large floats that were decorated very well. However, there was a very mechanical aspect to them. I seemed to prefer the more dynamic parade elements. There was a group of about 10 people dressed in some kind of voodoo straw outfit – maybe African witch doctor. And they were 10 feet tall (on stilts). These guys were extremely talented and they were jumping into the crowd and hopping around. They were showman! It was pretty incredible.

The other group that was exciting was the devils, witches, skeletons on horseback.  Their costumes were very dramatic.  I wish I would have had a camera with me.  We called it an early night in New Orleans although we could hear the parting well into the night – I mean day.  I went to the lobby to get some coffee at around 6AM and two guys stumbled onto the elevator.  They were both clutching 12 packs of beer.  One 12 pack was intact while the other had obviously been dropped several times.  This guy held the beer close to his chest as he rested against the elevator wall.  After a moment or two he spoke, looking to his friend he said, “How did I F@#$# that up?”  To which his friend replied, “She played you.”  This is an everyday occurrence in New Orleans.