Text 15847, 55 rader
Skriven 2011-09-18 11:33:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: 9/11 pt 2 916
=====================
CO 33 IAH MSY 1530 1637 739 3EF

Despite the delay, there was still time to catch up with Lilli
at the club for a couple glasses of wine before our flight. The
wine was bad, the company good. The bartender allowed passengers
to charge their computers and phones on her powerstrip, also good.

Continental's IT is as bad as anyone's, and on this flight 3E and
4B were traveling together, and 3F and 4A were traveling together.
It was not a rocket science switch, and not being rocket scientists,
we switched. A perfectly fine little flight, during which I drank
nothing, on the theory that I would have plenty to drink in New
Orleans. It was too short a flight (40 min in the air) for a proper
service anyway.

We were met by some random guy offering taxi service. He seemed
to be on the up-and-up, and his vehicle had a medallion, so we
got into his taxi. As might be expected, he got us to our
destination speedily, directly, and at the standard price.

I'd found this kind of neat-sounding place on the edge of the
Quarter called the Prince Conti and handed it over to Lilli to
reserve, and she found an executive suite at only $10 more than
a regular room: when we got there, we were pleased to find that
this put my Embassy Suites find to shame: it consisted of (from
front to back) the anteroom, a full kitchen (4-burner glass top,
big fridge, breakfast island seating 3 on each side), meeting/
dining area (seating 10), library with fairly comfy foldout bed,
bedroom, and bath. Oh, yes, a private garden of, oh, 200 square
feet, with plants that looked nice enough to be plastic but were
real, and three walk-in closets. Look up Prince Conti Hotel room
104 on the Internet and be prepared to be amazed. We spent a fair
amount of time inside; if we were just slightly closer and the
weather a little hotter we might have spent all of our time inside.

As it was, we amused ourselves mostly by poking our noses into the
wide variety of dive bars on and off Bourbon Street, where there
are available beverages of varying quality, all (that we could
find) served in plastic disposable go-cups also of varying quality.
For $4 you get a Hurricane that consists of a lot of ice, a lot of
syrupy stuff, little alcohol, in a flimsy cup that threatens to
spill your drink with every step; for $6, there's enough rum to
taste, in sturdy plasticware; for $8 you get real fruit juice,
real rum, and the supposedly canonic 151 float, in a pseudo-glass
proudly emblazoned with the purveyor's name, Pat O'Brien's or
whatever. Note to all: we did not drink at all the dive bars.

Oh, by the way, when giving the Shipps the preview version of
this report, they exclaimed that they had stayed in the Prince
Conti in a suite that was almost as grand as the one we had,
being on the second floor and lacking only the garden.

___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
 * Origin: Since 1991 And Were Still Here! DOCSPLACE.TZO.COM (1:123/140)