Floridians know best how annoying it can be to have tourists left and right, obnoxiously slow and always lost. We all know and see them with their over-sized backpacks and cameras waving left and right. But, what happens when two Floridians become the tourists? Cue in my fraternity formal to New Orleans, La.
Formal season is a stressful time where you select someone of interest or someone with whom you have hopes of a romantic future to join you on a three day weekend off to have the wildest time of your lives. On the off chance you do not have someone in mind, usually you can ask one of your brothers to set you up with a random. A random is usually a friend of a friend's date who clearly wants to go to the same pristine destination and will go with whomever to get there. These dates can range from high risk high reward to high risk high maintenance. If you're lucky you'll have made a friend by the end of your three day two nights together. If not, well there's always next year.
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So my date, upon meeting her for the first time, nonchalantly mentions that she's never been to New Orleans, and whips out a list of everything she wants to do while we are there. Ironically, I also have a list of touristy things that I want to do. The whole bus ride there we talk about what we do and when we arrive we are all caught up in the glorious lights that welcome us.
People understand that you don't take anything valuable during the night in fear of pickpockets, so my high quality camera was out of the picture for the nights, but we still managed to go into every club, shop, and restaurant on Bourbon Street. We did all the embarrassing things people do when they go out for nightlife. We got swindled into taking shots at a bar, we ate gumbo at five different places, we sang karaoke at a place that clearly did not do karaoke, and spent the night collecting interesting colored beads. All in all the night was well spent, for both my wallet and at every business.
Bright and early the next day, despite the terrible hangover, we took to the streets and explored New Orleans through in through til 6 p.m. Thus, continued more cheesiness. Again, the store hopping and taking pictures at every corner. Equipped with my oversized camera and my giant map of New Orleans that I got at the hotel, we continued the journey of classic touristy things to do. Visiting street performers, seeing the Mississippi River, and eating more New Orleans dishes. The locals probably despised us, considering I got in the way of maybe three or four carriages, a couple cars, and accidentally singlehandedly became a roadblock because I couldn't find the perfect angle to take a shot of the chapel.
All in all, anyone who goes to formal and doesn't already have someone they'd like to bring along should take the risk of a randomly set up formal date. My experience of course was one of the better ones where my date just so happened to be okay with the overly stereotypical touristy side of me. Bring lots of money, a good attitude, maybe an oversized backpack, and camera, too.
