Have You Been There?: Ain't no party like a 'Nawlins party

So there I was...

It's my senior year of college, and I attend the University of Cincinnati, home of the Bearcats, back to back Big East football champions.

I've seen this video about 267 times and it still gives me chills
In the state of Ohio, college football has always been defined by the Ohio State University, or as I fondly refer to them, the Overrated State University. The 2009 football season was different. College football in Ohio is now Bearcat football. We remained ranked above OSU for the better part of our season and to top it off, almost made it to a national title game. If only Texas could choke how OSU can... Anyway, we traveled to New Orleans to play the University of Florida Gators in the Sugar Bowl. Now, as all of you know, we lost. The Big East is not stacked like the SEC, and Florida was to say the least a tough competitor.
While I may talk a lot of mess about Ohio State, I still respect them. However, I am from Florida, and even I know NOTHING good ever came out of Gainsville. That city's idea of a seven course dinner is a six-pack and a possum. There is nothing but rednecks and football in Gainsville, so naturally, they are going to have a good football team. Even if there class level is something close to that of a trailer park luncheon. I was raised to hate the Gators. Literally. They have the WORST fans in the history of college football, hands down. So when they went up in flames against Alabama, I was overjoyed, especially since it was the day UC beat Pitt, giving us our second Big East title in a row. That day also gave me an image that I will appreciate for the rest of my life...

Someone call the Wahmbulence.

So now that we can understand how much I really truly hate the Gators, you can understand my excitement upon learning that the Bearcats were given the opportunity to play them in the Sugar Bowl. I was on a date and I literally released my dates hand to do a victory dance. Classy I know. But to add to my excitement was the very fact that the Sugar Bowl was played in the city that could make every college student's dreams come true, New Orleans, Louisiana. Within hours of our bowl announcement, the planning of our New Orleans trip began.

We booked our hotel, the Midtown Hotel, for three nights. We would arrive on December 30th and leave January 2nd. Plenty of playtime for four freshly-turned 21 year-olds and one very eager girl with a fake i.d. The trip included my roommate, Jon, two of my best girl friends, Brittany and Kayleigh, and our friend Kyle. This trip would be our holy grail, an experience of a lifetime and it was nothing short of that.

Day One... On the road and ready for Hurricanes (hopefully not named Katrina...)

We woke up at about 4am, our anticipated departure time being 5 a.m. This time got pushed back as one of our travelers works at a strip club (she just works at the front desk, no, I'm not kidding -- I already told you, my life is weird) and she didn't even get off of work (which was an hour away) until about 4:30am. Everyone in our group was annoyed, except me. She was my friend, who cares if she's late. Anyway, she arrived a little before 6 a.m., and as she got out of her car, followed by her dog who proceeded to run down the main road in front of my apartment. So there we are, in the wee hours of the morning chasing a dog around when all we want to do is get in the car an leave. This was the theme of our trip, chaos. So we catch Fido, hop in the car and we're on our way.

Most of the trip was pretty boring... I mean honestly, nothing exciting happens on a drive through Kentucky. Tennessee was kind of cool because I had never seen Nashville before, so that was neat. Alabama... now that was entertaining. By the time Alabama came around, we were all hungry. But of course, we couldn't get hungry on a convenient stretch of the highway. There was literally a 45 minute span where we drove and saw nothing. Finally we sucummed to our fate of eating crappy gas station food. Luckily, after driving 3 miles off of the highway, we found a gas station that had a Subway in it. Now last I checked, Subway's slogan is "Eat Fresh". That foundation of company excellence was not extended to this particular Subway in Stuckey's Express Mart in Boligee, Alabama. This decrepit and sad excuse for anything that should produce food was complete with all things pickled (pigs feet, eggs etc.) and also featured a wide variety of souvenirs, including Mexican themed ponchos (never mind the fact that the boarder of Mexico was hundreds of miles away) and the classic "Someone went to Boligee and all I got was this stupid hat" hat. If only Gainsville could be this classy. Needless to say our Subway sandwiches were nowhere near fresh and we flew out of that town as fast as possible.

Mississippi wasn't exciting, and regrettably we did not take advantage of the fact that in Mississippi you can have open containers. Oh well.

We arrived in Louisiana somewhere around five and as we finished up the end of our 12 hour journey, insanity set in. I either needed a beer or to be tranquilized. You start to get slap-happy after you have been in the car for that long and that resulted in a fist-pumping good time. We convinced Kyle, my friend that happened to be driving to give us an instructional on how to fist-pump...

Yes, he did just say "IF WE CRASH FIST PUMPING THAT'S HOW WE DIE!"
Thanks to modern technology, we were all checking our Facebooks via our cell phones. Kayleigh took out her blackberry to check out all the New Orleans related status updates, only to come across one from her friend Jason that said "... oh Midtown Hotel, you five star mother f*cker you. Only been here for five minutes and we had to change rooms twice because of puke stains on the bed. Oh well, lets drink!" . Yeah, that is our hotel. Great...
We arrive at the midtown and it is literally in one of the worst parts of New Orleans, however it was only $60 a night and the parking was free. Hepititis and shankings free with a two night stay as well. Luckily the girls and I checked into our room and it wasn't bad at all, sure it wasn't the Ritz but there was no puke in sight and everything worked so I was happy. The boys had a different fate. In their first room, their key didn't work. Their second room had puke on the bed. But the third time was a charm and they got settled in. We all got ready fast and headed on down Tulane street in search of beer. We came across a mini-mart that looked like a set from Boys N The Hood. Our shopping list:
2 Cases of Bud Lightvodka poweradecaptainbig shot colatwo cans of chef boyardee.
First class all the way. We get back to the hotel and start pregaming with our winnings from the mini-mart. We get a little tipsy and head off to diner at the BK lounge (Burger King) adjacent to our fancy hotel. I was the only one drunk at this point, and my asshole friends left me alone at the counter while I waited for my food. I spent most of my time talking to LaQuisha, the girl taking our order. She was asking me all kinds of questions about Ohio, what farms are like etc. Nothing I love more than ignorance. Anyway the next bit of entertainment came out of me when a fellow tourist came up to me while I was waiting for my food. The conversation went like this:
Tourist with fannypack: Hey, can you tell me how to get to the superdome?Me: Oh yeah, we passed it coming in.Tourist: Okay well how do I get thereMe: You know, it's really big, silver, and it is kind of shaped like a dome.Tourist: Oh, okay. Well which highway is it off of?Me: The one the runs directly in front of it.
I'm obviously super helpful. This was the theme of many jokes throughout the trip that aimed to make me look like an ass.
After eating my crown-shaped nuggets, we hoped in the Lexus and headed back to the Midtown for some more pregaming. Then it was time to catch a cab. We headed down to the lobby and waited... for about an hour. We roamed around the hotel for a while taking pictures of random things doing random poses and what not. That looked a little like this...

I was clearly the best cheerleader on the squad in high school
So finally our cab arrives and we head down the the world famous Bourbon Street. All I can say about Bourbon Street is that the rumors are true. Booze everywhere, cops on horseback, a constant pool of people and the stench of tomorrow's hangover lingering in the air. It was beautiful. I don't remember much but i'll tell you what I do remember. The hurricanes were delicious, and the little warning label stating that each one contained 151 was far too small to be acknowledged. Running into someone you used to date on Bourbon Street doesn't end well. Following around anyone that has orange and blue on and loudly stating "Sir, sir! You have shit all over your shirt!" will undoubtably lead to you getting into a fight. Going into a bar that is cowboy themed on Bourbon is far better, and at the very same time far worse, than going to one anywhere else in the world. Especially since they charge you $15 to ride the bull. Not fair. Here are some more pictures from day one;

Just a sober stroll down Bourbon

Group on Bourbon

(from left to right, kyle, kayleigh, me, brittany and jon)

This is a funny story...

We took this photo in the middle of Bourbon, and

just as it was snapped we started high fiving and yelling and

then, four frat guys from UF gave us the quote of the weekend

"Man, why don't you act like you've been here."

No, no I will not.

Bourbon Cowboy. Such a special place.

Yes, there is video footage...

I know, I missed my calling as a singer.
But my favorite part of that night is what happened the next morning....

Day Two... hangovers, fried gator, the mississippi, new years and angry sorority girls.

The next morning, I wake up with last night's eye make-up all over my face. I quickly hopped out of bed, eager to get day two started and to reminisce on the previous night's debauchery. The second my feet hit the ground, I realize that I feel similar to how one must feel after getting into a fight with an UFC fighter who just realized someone stole their affliction t-shirt. Dead to the world. The other girls wake up and we get dressed. About every five minutes I get the overwhelming feeling that my hurricane is about to come back up for round two. Being freshly 21, I know what a hangover feels like. This wasn't a hangover, this was God's direct punishment for my sins. I had to battle through the mess I had caused because it was New Years Eve. No way was I missing out on a beat in NoLa.
We finish getting ready and head up to the boys room. Their room smelled like I felt... like death. Everyone but me decides it's time to eat some cajun food. That's the irony about New Orleans, it makes you incoherently hungover and then tempts you with all kinds of delicious foods that contain every spice known to man. That's just mean. The horrible part though is that we had no idea where to find good food, so we trekked all around the french quarter trying to find somewhere to eat. Another activity that is not conducive to healing a hang over. The lighter side of this is the re-cap of the previous evening. I got the clear title of the most hungover and asked some ridiculous questions like:
Me: I'm impressed I didn't make-out with anyone last night.Others: You did, and it only took you about 15 minutes to find your ex. Me: Fail
Me: Why are my flats ruined?Others: Because you jumped in a pile of hurricane you spilled.Me: Fail
Brittany: I am glad I stuck with beer. I hate 151.Me: Who drank 151?Others: Um, it was in the hurricanes.Me: Oh, no wonder i'm so hungover.
Me: I wish we would have gone into bars instead of staying on the street.Others: Uh, Cassi, we were in like six different bars
You get the point. After about an hour of walking we finally stop in a convenience store on canal street to pick up some waters/pops to re-hydrate. Hungover me is really partial to excedrine migraine and Fiji bottled water. So that was like a $9 pitstop. Oh well. I just didn't want to feel like death anymore. We gave up on our search for cheap food and decided to have our nice meal for the weekend mid-hangover. We headed down to Mulates, the suggested restaurant from our cabby the night before. Mulate's is known to the locals as the original cajun restaurant so we were all excited to eat there. Minus me, I just wanted to puke and get on with my life, sans hangover. We got a table and were greeted by out waiter, Corey. Corey, was as stoned as the day is long. This led to an interesting Q and A between him and Kyle...
Kyle: How much is a mimosa?Corey: uhhhhh, a what?Kyle: A mimosa. Corey: I don't know, isn't it like, on the menu?
Mind you, Mulate's does not sell mimosas. Despite Corey and his lack of enthusiasm for our presence, our meals were delicious. We got an appetizer of fried gator (yes, it does taste like chicken) if you know me at all you know it is impressive that I ate any, let alone while hungover. We all got Po Boys, the classic sandwich on the bayou, they were awesome, and bonus, my hangover disappeared and I was ready to go.

Fried Gator... nom nom nom
After Mulates we spent the day along the Mississippi (note : every time I type that I sing the song we learned in grade school, no, I have no idea how I have such a high GPA) at the river walk mall. That was cool because the malls here don't serve beer, and they do in New Orleans. I was unaware up until this moment that I could combine shopping and drinking, what an excellent combination.

Aw, aren't we cute sober?

We headed back to the hotel, after making a pit stop for beers. The boys went and took a nap (a common theme, boys just can't hang like the girls) while Brittany, Kayleigh and I sat on the balcony, blared Biggie Smalls, drank, and made friends with our new neighbors, frat boys from UF (they were actually nice). We started getting ready and geared up for all that is New Years Eve in New Orleans. We were dressed and ready, and the boys finally joined us are 7 p.m.

We hopped in the cab and were on our way to NYE on Bourbon. We met up with some of our friends down there and just started drinking. Unlike the night before, we steered clear of bars, as the covers were ridiculously high. Instead we focused our efforts on beads. I won't say who did and didn't flash, but it's New Orleans, that's what you're supposed to do there. I said I would all weekend and never ended up flashing anyone. Comforting, because I know no one is running around with a picture of my tots on their Blackberry, but upsetting because I feel like I missed out on something.

Luckily, we knew someone with a hotel room, complete with balcony, right on Bourbon. So we hung out up there for a while. We kept saying what a shit hole it was as a defense mechanism. This hotel was gorgeous and if it was possible made our hotel look even crappier than it did to begin with. There were all sorts of fabulous and classy parties going on but that didn't stop us from being ourselves...

This is why we can't go anywhere nice...

Does this picture look firmiliar?

five-star fist pump

We partied at the Royal Sonesta Hotel for a couple hours. Mostly, we taunted people from the balcony. Afterwards we headed downstairs as it was getting close to midnight.

As soon as we left the hotel, we headed down to the north end of Bourbon street. Midnight came with drinks and lots of kissing. At about 1 a.m. we headed back down to Canal Street to catch a cab. Along the way, Kyle kept getting into arguments with Florida fans, and then becoming their friends (see below photo) afterwards. This activity ended up with him getting lost from the group. No one could get a hold of him so we just left. A lot of his frat brothers were in New Orleans so we knew he would find someone to stay with. Catching a cab home was a challenge but we managed. Unfortunately for Kyle, catching a cab would have been the least of his worries had he come with us.

Kyle ran into his ex and a bunch of her sorority sisters apparently right after we left. One of the girls kept bitching at him, accusing him of cheating on the aforementioned ex. Kyle did nothing of the sort and was getting really mad. In his words "this ugly girl was really annoying me, so I called her ugly and ashed in her beer." In response, the girl took a full hurricane and chucked it at him, burning his eyes and staining his shirt.

Those of us not recieving a hurricane shower headed back to the hotel and passed out. Happy 2010!

The cops in this town mean business.

Kyle and one of his new 'friends'

Cheers to 2010!

what a mess

look at all those beads

Day Three... a different kind of hurricane relief, tailgating, tickets and grumpy old men

Our last day in New Orleans luckily didn't start in a fog for me. I wasn't too hungover and I was ready to get game day started. The girls and I got ready and went to check on Jon and Kyle. Or should I say Jon... Kyle never came back. I was the only one concerned, but whatever. We were all sure he'd pop up eventually. Jon got dressed and we all headed off in search of pancakes. We used Jon's iPhone to search for local pancake houses, but that lead us deep in to the ghetto to "Betty's Pancakes" which was conveniently closed and had bars over the windows. Ihop it was. We headed down to the Canal Street Ihop and had an amazing breakfast. We did a little shopping on Canal hoping Kyle would call and we could take him back with us. We stumbled upon this store called the Hippie Gypsy. They had a "karma jar" where you could put money in return for good karma. I put four quarters in there hoping for a win. We all know how that went. We were all wearing our UC apparel and went into a Foot Locker to look around. While checking out, the cashiers were telling us how excited they were that the Bearcats had an opportunity to play in the sugar bowl. They were in the middle of congratulating our amazing undefeated season when some 50 year-old asshole in orange butted in.

Orange Ass Hat: They don't deserve to be here

Us: Excuse me?

Orange Ass Hat: Ya'll don't stand no chance

Us: Sir, are you from Gainsville?

Orange Ass Hat: Yeah, how could you tell?

Us: Your complete inability to form a coherent sentence.

See what I mean? Worst fans in the world. Mind you while our season wasn't as strong as Florida's, we still remained undefeated. While Tebow was wiping away his tears and the shame of a loss against Alabama, the Bearcats were fresh off of an amazing comeback in the Pitt game. It may be fair to say that our team isn't as strong as some of college football's heavyweights but we deserved to be at that game. To say anything else is completely disrespectful to the senior boys who not only carried us through two amazing seasons, but had to carry the burden of Brian Kelly ABANDONING them weeks before their first major bowl game.

Sorry, I got off track. After the moronic battle with that guy we got in the car and decided to do something productive. We headed down to the Ninth Ward, the area of New Orleans effected the most by Hurricane Katrina. It was amazing that after almost 5 years, the damage o Katrina is still very much present in New Orleans.

sign leading in to the ninth ward

The X' on the doors notified rescue workers of the date

the house was originally searched, number of people

living there and how bad the damage was.

All of the yards were extremely overgrown.

After visiting the Lower Ninth Ward and paying our respects to the survivors of the Hurricane, we headed back into the city. We picked up beers for tailgating and got ready for the game. Kyle had finally called and was going to get food. Us girls were ready to tailgate but of course the boys wanted to take a nap. We got ready and Jon drove us to the stadium. On the way we picked up Kyle, who was still wearing his New Years Eve gear. We got out of the car and roamed around the super dome for a while, checking out the pre-game events and tailgates. We went and picked up our swag bags and headed off down the road in search of a more entertaining tailgate. Our goal was to find Alumni, because no one knows how to party like them. We found a parking lot full of them about a quarter-mile from the stadium and hung out with them. We were talking to some hot UC grad named Brian when a guy in full Allstate Sugar Bowl Apparel walks up to our group. The man asks us if we have tickets and everyone replies yes. He then says this gem...

Allstate Guy: Man, I need to get rid of these tickets, do you know anyone who needs them?

Everyone: No.

Me (smarter than everyone else): Well wait, what section are they in?

Allstate Guy: I'm not sure, the Fox News section, wherever that is.

Me (knowing that is obviously better than the nosebleeds we had): Oh, can I see?

The man pulls the tickets out of an envelope. I looked down and said out loud, "Holy Shit!". The tickets were right on the freaking sideline. My big green eyes and I convinced Mr. Allstate to trade us our tickets for his. He was reluctant but the goal was to fill the stadium and he could still give our shitty tickets away. Let me show you on the seating chart the upgrade I just made:

The second row of blue directly behind the end zone was our

original seciton, and we were moved to the red on the sidelines

As a bonus, we got five tickets even though we only traded in three after I explained to the man that part of our group was naping. The boys were able to sell their tickets for $40 each, giving us an extra $80 in gas money for our ride home. Perfect.

We headed back to the stadium to meet the guys. We got in line, super excited to go to the game. Our seats were amazing, they were right behind the football players, and adjacent to Nick Lachey. Yes, the guy from 98 degrees. I have at least 6 creepy pictures to prove it. Unfortunately we were seated around seven of the dumbest people I have ever encountered.

Man Number One aka Florida Fatty. He was seated two rows ahead of us and had a mouth that would make a sailor blush. He was wearing a visor and his head had more rolls on it than a danish platter at an obesity seminar. He did things like call Brittany fat (she weighs all of 115 pounds and is about 5'5), try to fight Kyle (who was easily 30 years younger than him) and demolish a hot dog in a way that would make Takeru Kobayash look bad.

Man Number Two aka SEC coattailer. This dude sat right in front of me. He was from LSU, dressed head to toe in Tiger gear. His reasoning for being at the game was to root for the SEC. Excuse me sir, but the SEC isn't in this bowl game nor is LSU. He never cheered for the Gator's, but every time there was an SEC chant this guy would hop out of his seat so fast your head would spin. Look around jackass, your school isn't in a major BCS game, step off.

Man Number Three aka Florida Geezer. Okay, this guy was dressed like a nerd and was irritating but I sort of felt bad for him. I mean he was there alone and had to listen to all of us swear all night. He was still an ass though.

Men Numbers Four - Seven. These morons were Florida Alumni. They were some of the most disrespectful people I have ever encountered. Minus the wanna-be Rico Suave that kept trying to hit on me, he was just plain pathetic. Never in my life would I expect a grown man to get in a small girls face and push her to tears. I am only 21, I am female, and I am not big at all. This guy could have seriously hurt me, but he still felt it necessary to jump up and down on my chair and get in my face in an argument (yet again) about how UC didn't deserve to be there. Wake up idiots, WE ARE IN THE SAME BOWL GAME!

This didn't get any better. The boys put up a fight but could withstand Te-Blow or the rest of Florida's stacked senior class. At the end of the day though, I am still so proud to be a Bearcat. We had one hell of a season and deserved every but of recognition we recieved. The game was a blast and our seats were amazing. The trip overall is one I will never forget, and I am so thankful that my Bearcats brought me to the Bayou for the best three days in the history of college football. For this girl anyway!