Sadly, I must go

My time in New Orleans was much too short. Two and a half months is not nearly long enough to get to know a city, although I feel like I came close with New Orleans. My first impression was…unexpected. I must admit, that when I first got to New Orleans, I didn’t really like it. It seemed dirty, disorganized, chaotic, and dangerous. But the longer I stayed the more it grew on me, and the less these observations became true. Fact: New Orleans is disorganized and chaotic, but once you get used to it, that doesn’t seem to matter any more. Another fact: New Orleans may seem dirty, but it is nothing compared to St. Charles street after Mardi Gras. The character of New Orleans is so strong that all of the blemishes seemed to disappear, or at least become insignificant while I was there, and I slowly fell in love with it.

The Big Easy wasn’t like any other city in the US I had been to, and really confused me at first. One part typical American but also one part different. It was really hard to put my finger on it when I first got here, and I don’t even think I’ve managed to do it yet. But now that I’m not there, I’m nostalgic for it. For the potholes, for getting lost after taking a wrong turn on the one-way streets. When I got to New Orleans, I didn’t think that I would say it, but I miss the place. I miss the laissez-faire feeling of the Garden District and the chaos of the Quarter, the hipsters in Marigny and Bywater (and the amazingly colored houses!). I miss the giant trees of Audubon Park. I miss the glorious houses that line St. Charles, and dare I say it, I might even miss Decatur and Bourbon streets.

Yes, New Orleans has its trials and tribulations, but it has a resilience that you can’t find anywhere else. In what other city do total strangers greet each other on the streets? And where else can you find second lines or people dressed up as the “Chilean Winers” on Mardi Gras day? The answer is nowhere. The is nowhere else like New Orleans. As I often heard while I was there, “In New Orleans, we don’t need a slogan like “Keep New Orleans Weird.” We don’t have to try, that’s just the way we are!” And that is why I love New Orleans.

The Making of a King Cake

For those of you who don't know, the King Cake is, besides beads, the lifeblood of Mardi Gras. It is the fuel that feeds the fire, so to speak, of the revelers. No parade party is complete without a King Cake, and no Mardi Gras is complete without having devoured the equivalent of a whole King Cake all to yourself. The idea of a king cake takes many different forms, and isn't specifically from New Orleans, pre se, and is popular in France and many other countries with a strong Catholic heritage.

King Cake, however, is different than king cake. King cakes (notice the capitalization) are far inferior to King Cakes in just about every way. King Cake is that sinfully sweet, moist, delicious bread-pastry concoction, that only sweet-obsessed Americans could have created, that appears between the days of January 12 and Mardi Gras (whatever day that is). This is strictly enforced, especially days preceding January 12 (although, according to wikipedia, they've started using King Cakes at other holidays as well, so I'll amend this to say that King Cakes with green, purple, and gold frosting are off limits before or after Mardi Gras season). This year, since Mardi Gras was super late, King Cake season lasted even longer than normal. That means that for the better part of two months every time we went to the grocery store, we had to pass the hundreds (literally) of King Cakes stacked high at the entrance.

So, you ask, what's the point of a King Cake? Well, King Cakes are an excuse for people to eat sweets. As my mother would probably say, "it's a sugar delivery system." Like pie at Christmas, or jelly beans at Easter. An important part of every King Cake is the baby stuffed inside. The baby acts as a unique form of social obligation: if you get it, you are responsible for the next King Cake. This ensures, at least to those who enforce that rule, that there will never be a King Cake-less party.

Most of the time people buy their King Cakes from the store. These King Cakes are good, but I decided that I wanted to try my hand at making my own King Cake. My friend responded by saying "Make a King Cake?! Nobody makes King Cakes!" That is false, because I made not one, but two, King Cakes, and they were both GLORIOUS.

The recipe I used was from Emeril. I recommend it, because they both turned out very yummy (if I do say so myself). The first time I made it, I realized that I only had whole wheat flower (the healthy alternative!!), so I made it anyway. If you do that, you may want to put more sugar in to counter-act the more bitter whole wheat flower. You also need to add more milk to the mixture after you've kneaded the dough, because there will be extra flower floating around in the bottom of the bowl. I also left out the candied citron and lemon rind. That's just good old Ems being pretentious.

Now we come to the major flaw in Ems' recipe: there's no filling. A crime against humanity, if you ask me, because the filling is the best part. I decided to get creative with this, and I made up my own filling, which everybody seemed to like, so here it is. I mixed together cinnamon, regular sugar, powdered sugar, and one stick unsalted butter. I never actually measured the sugar, but I did it to taste. In the end, it probably ended up being this:

2 cups regular sugar

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons cinnamon (this is my favorite spice of all time, so I like a lot of it. Add or subtract depending on your own taste).

1 stick unsalted butter (melted).

After I had rolled out the dough into a giant rectangle, I spread this mixture over the whole surface of it, and starting with the long side, I rolled the dough up and formed it into an oval-esque shape and put it in a greased baking pan.

Now we come to the question of the baby. When I made my first cake, we didn't have a baby, so I used a penny. I don't recommend that because some people thought that was unsanitary (even after I reassured them that I had washed it before putting it in). You can pretty much use anything you want. The second time I used an almond, and that worked pretty well. I suggest that you role it up with the filling, that way it's baked inside (they don't do that anymore with the store-bought King Cakes because of the choking hazard and potential lawsuits).

For frosting, I recommend not using Emeril's recipe (sorry Ems!), and instead using my own recipe: half a stick soft butter, milk, and a lot of powdered sugar. I always do this by sight and taste, so once you get it to your desired consistency, you're done. I like my to be slightly thicker than syrup, and not overtly sugary (if that means more butter, BRING IT ON. Paula Deen would be proud). I don't do the whole sprinkle thing, but that's just me. Instead I like to put food coloring into my frosting to make yellow, green, and purple colors. Wait until the King Cake is cold to the touch (several hours) after taking it out of the oven to put the frosting on, otherwise it will just melt and slide off the top.

Next step: enjoy. Try not to think about your arteries in the process.

Morning Run

Every morning (actually, like every other morning/week) I go on a run. My chosen path follows Royal St. all the way down to Franklin St., where I turn and run two blocks to Burgundy, where I turn and run back to St. Philip's St. I end up running in a giant rectangle that spans the Quarter and Marigny. The first time I went running on it, I was so out of breath/shape that I couldn't pay any attention to my surroundings. The second time, however, I managed to catch a couple glimpses of my environment.

Since I've been here, I've always thought that Marigny was the relatively small area between Esplanade (the street that demarcates the separation between the Quarter and Marigny) and Elysian Fields, another broad boulevard. I had only crossed Elysian Fields once, on the segway tour, and didn't really think much of it. Turns out, however, that Marigny is actually much larger than I had assumed. The area beyond Elysian Fields is significantly bigger than the area after Esplanade. My first run I was a little bit nervous. I don't really like venturing into unknown neighborhoods in unfamiliar cities by myself, but I figured that since I was running, nobody would bother me.

I was pleasantly surprised. Marigny is a really cute place. I actually think I might like it better than the Quarter. I love the Quarter, but it's crawling with tourists. Asides from Royal and Chartres, both of which have tourist elements, most of the streets are either very touristy, or residential. All of the residential buildings are house-type buildings, and many of them are very brightly colored, which you can't find in the Quarter because of the strict policies of the Vieux Carré Commission. There are cafes and small businesses all over the place, that pop up in between houses. In general, Marigny seems more relaxed. This is where the Caribbean influence really shows through.

The other day, after my run, Carolyn and I decided to walk around in the Bywater, which I hadn't really been to. The Bywater is the neighborhood in between Marigny and the 9th Ward. Bywater is a lot like Marigny, but even more Caribbean and relaxed feeling. It's really tempting to think that Bywater is rundown, but in my opinion, that adds to the feel. We didn't spend all that much time there, but it was enough to get a feel for the place. We stopped at the fascinating bargain store, so full of stuff that it was verging on overwhelming. The only way I can describe it, is if a hoarder just decided to open a thrift store and sell all of the things that they had hoarded over the years. There were so many weird and bizarre things in there, like the punch-bowl set that my mom has, plus a set of china made by the same company as some of my mom's china, old beds, porcelain dolls, voodoo dolls, and "Aztec" pottery jars. While we were in the store, a fresh produce vendor drove by in his truck shouting out the names of the fruits and veggies that he was selling that day.

I'm putting in some pictures, which I've stolen from Carolyn (because my computer is in the shop).

Christian Brandt: Movie Star

Welcome to the blog post where I egregiously inflate my already inflated ego. Enjoy!

You are now looking at a newly minted, fresh from the set, certifiable movie star...extra. An extra in the tv show Tremé, which is all about New Orleans post-Katrina (it starts three months after Katrina hit). Let's be clear, being an extra is not as easy as it sounds. I literally sat in a tent in the freezing cold for 3 hours in order to do this one scene from the show. It was grueling, and I didn't even get a hotel room, or wine (there was breakfast, though!). Being an extra, however, isn't as anonymous as it may seem. Au contraire, ye of little faith, I walked past the cameras at least 50 times, which obviously means that I'm going to be featured prominently. Who knows, maybe they liked my impassioned shouting so much that they'll ask me back for a more permanent role. That's how people make it in this business. It's a dog eat dog world out there.

Speaking of impassioned shouting, let me elaborate on the whole point of this. In January, 2007, two people were murdered in New Orleans when they opened their doors to robbers. The city had been suffering from extremely heightened crime rates post-Katrina, and these two, seemingly random, acts of violence sparked an impassioned response from New Orleans' embattled citizens. Basically, the episode that I was working on was a recreation of this march.

In preparation for my acting debut, I watched the first episode/pilot, and I really, really enjoyed it. The acting was superb and the plot was interesting, which means that it's probably worth watching. It definitely set up the rest of the season, which I haven't watched (and, let's be real, probably won't. Laziness dies hard). I arrived (read: walked, no limos for me. This job is so. hard.) at 9 AM with Kat and Carolyn. This is when the sitting-in-the-tent-forever ordeal happened. We were there with all of the other volunteers. No, I wasn't paid for this. I did it to advance my acting career. And for the publicity, because any press is good press. I was initially unsure of what we were going to be doing because the producers didn't tell us anything. What we ended up doing as marching, complete with signs (Kat had a "WE ARE WATCHING YOU NOPD" sign, complete with creepy eye), in three different locations. The first location was just north of downtown, and was supposedly where "everybody came together," basically the joining of the neighborhoods of New Orleans. The next two scenes were pretty much the same thing, just in a different place.

BUT, at the second scene, something interesting happened. We were supposed to be marching down Canal St. along the street car tracks. 90 percent of this scene was spent dodging the street cars, which sounds fun, I suppose, but gets old REALLY quickly. What I thought was interesting about this scene, however, was the fact that the directors separated the extras by race. The white extras were marching down Canal St., and were supposed to join with the black extras, who were walking down a side street. They billed it as "black and white coming together," but Carolyn and I both thought it was racist. Kat agreed with us, and also pointed out that their racial segregation (which was ostensibly to be by neighborhood) was incorrect. The city of New Orleans is a lot more racially integrated than the producers were showing (head here to see what it looks like). I mean, I understand why they did what they did. Who doesn't like a great story about races joining together to fight some social evil, but come on, talk about beating a dead horse. Kat, who is a local, was extremely bothered by that, and I can't blame her. New Orleans is ALWAYS misrepresented in the media, especially post-Katrina. And for a show that bills itself as a show about post-Katrina New Orleans, doing something like this seems to be irreverent. When one of the crew members told us that we were going to be separated by race, everybody around us (who I am assuming were mostly New Orleanians) were confused, and it was super awkward. The mood was lightened by one of the extras, who was black, who said "Well, I guess I'm going to the black side of town," to many laughs. But what do I care, I was getting my acting debut (which is far more important that petty race issues).

I have to say though, I'm not sure I'll ever sign up to be an extra again. I'm so over it. Even if (read: when) my face is shown prominently on television, the amount of pain and suffering (and work) that had to go into those few seconds of fame was totally not worth it. I'm so over being an extra. I'm so over staying in a freezing cold tent for three hours. I don't even think that's legal under the Geneva Convention! I certainly am over being a volunteer. Enough of that, I say. My face/time/(facetime?)/money/acting ability are worth more than nothing! I didn't even get severance benefits. Or health care! Anyway, I'm sure the directors of Tremé were in awe of my amazing performance (Emmy-worthy, if I do say so myself). I mean, that's what I would do if I were them.

Segway

I don't like tourists, and I think I can safely say that my relationship lies somewhere towards the hate side of the love-hate continuum. But it's still a tub-of-war. Let's be clear, there are some tourists who are totally fine. Those are the adventurous, curious-but-respectful, un-assuming type of tourists. They don't mind having to talk through two languages and they don't mind cultural idiosyncrasies like differences in tipping and transportation. But then there are the loud, obnoxious, and bossy tourists who can't handle anything that doesn't seem to go their way. By sight it's hard to tell the two different, but more often than not (in my opinion), the bad tourists are the most obvious tourists. For that reason I try to not look like a tourist when I travel. I wear normal clothes (read: no fannypacks), try not to do touristy thing (read: no tour groups), etc. Here's where the catch-22 comes in. Tourism is one of the driving industries of New Orleans, and most of the Quarter thrives on business from tourists. Even though I love to hate tourists, I acknowledge that the location of tourism in the economic atmosphere of New Orleans is, and has been, crucial to its survival after Katrina. Still, I think tourists "suck." Maybe I'm being irrational, but I've never been able to shake my distaste for looking like a tourist.

That said, let me relate my recent foray into the dreaded world of tourism. Today, Carolyn and I took a segway tour of downtown New Orleans. This is probably the most touristy thing I have ever done in my life. Before we got there I was so excited. I've always wanted to go on a segway, but I've never had the chance (or the money!). So when Renée, my boss, told us that NolaVie would pay for a segway tour, Carolyn and I jumped on it. I've always thought that a segway would be AWESOME. For people who have watched Arrested Development (I am a fanatic), you can't think of segways without thinking of GOB, who would climb up mounds of dirt (and pretty much anything else too) on his segway. You definitely CANNOT do that on a segway. We even asked our guide if it was possible, and she said no, unless you had a special off-road segway (which may or may not even exist). Regardless, you can't even ride over a curb without throwing off the balance, so driving over mounds of dirt would be impossible.

Our tour was at 2:00 and we were the only ones on it, which I suppose was nice, but is made it a little awkward too. Our tour guide Dawn started by teaching us how to ride a segway. Dawn is originally from Louisville, Kentucky, but moved to New Orleans after having visited it consistently for more than 10 years. She was one of the best tour guides for anything that I have ever had, and she made learning to ride the segway super easy. It seems really hard at first, but once you get used to it, it's pretty easy. The segway is powered by a gyroscope, which reacts to your body movements, which is sooooo zen (kidding). Riding the segway was super fun, sort of like riding a roller coaster, actually. It's really hard to explain what it feels like, but the same feeling you get when you step on the ground after skiing or rollerblading also happens after riding a segway. I was a little bit nervous at first to actually ride it because the roads in New Orleans are littered with potholes. I'm not kidding when I say that riding a bike in New Orleans would be comparable to riding a bike in Rome, and that is something I NEVER want to do. Also, the drivers in New Orleans are on crack, which made it that much more interesting.

What I didn't like about the segway were the looks we got from passer-bys. Most of them were friendly or curious, but some of them were disdainful. I even heard somebody that "That's so fucking stupid." I suppose that that is a similar attitude that I would have had upon seeing tourists on a segway, but it was embarrassing when it happened to me, because I felt that we were being obnoxious. The tour was also only sort of interesting as well. Dawn did her absolute best to make it not boring (and she did succeed), but Carolyn and I had seen all of the neighborhoods we went to already, and the history part of it was only so interesting. There were some interesting ghost stories and New Orleans history included, but for the large part it was basically segways with a side of history.

I do have to say though, that I would have preferred to be on a bicycle tour. We would have seen the same things with less touristy embarrassment, and we would be getting our daily exercise. In the end, I suppose I'm still a little conflicted about whether or not I enjoyed it. The segway was a blast. Looking like a tourist? Not so much.

The Streets

The streets in New Orleans are some of the most interesting streets I've ever been on. Asides from being riddled with holes and cracks (which somehow is becoming endearing...), they have a lot of character. The streets readily reflect the atmosphere and attitude of the people who live on them. Each street seems to have it's own history and culture. Some streets are shrouded in the antique and some streets are sparkly and new. The streetis where people go to socialize. It's much like Copenhagen in that, during warm and sunny days, the streets are filled with people. Cafés open their doors to the outside and the patios of restaurants are crowded with people. It's almost odd to walk down the street and not see people walking around, or see the doors to shops hanging open. One thing that I think embodies this is the fact that neighborhoods will often have block parties on their street. Of course, the level of this differs between neighborhood (the newer neighborhoods tend to be less street-oriented, in my opinion, while places like Marigny, Magazine, and the Quarter are very street-oriented).

I especially love the street names. The streets in the Quarter are all named for French or Spanish people or places. Toulouse, Bienville, Iberville, Bourbon, etc are some of the French inspired names, with Bienville and Iberville named after the two founders of New Orleans. Each of these streets also has a little plaque that tells you whattheir names where under the Spanish rule, for example Royal St. used to be Calle Real.

The Quarter and Marigny are full of streets named after saints (St. Anne, St. Philip, St. Peters, etc.), which is due to the Catholic influence in New Orleans. One of the more (lets be real, only) interesting facts that we learned on our segway tour, is that the street names change at Canal Street. Canal Street is the divider between the Quarter and the Central Business District, also known as the American Sector. When New Orleans was being populated, the French and the Americans did not get along, so the Americans decided to change the street names once they got into their section. Thus Bourbon becomes Carondelet and Royal becomes St. Charles. The "American Sector" is also home to the Muses: Thalia, Eurterpe, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, and Polymnia. Something else very New Orleans is the pronunciation of these streets. Chartres St. is pronounced like "Charter," and Burgundy St. is pronounced "burGUHndy."

The organization of the streets in New Orleans also sets the city apart. Almost all of the streets in the "sliver by the river," that is, The Garden District, the CBD, the Quarter, Marigny (if you don't know where these are, look them up on my maps page!) are one -way, even if they are large enough to be two-way. Originally this developed because the streets were not wide enough to be two-way (this is true in the Quarter and Marigny). I've been fascinated by this since I've been here. I can't think of another city that is like this. Sure, there are one-way streets, but the older parts New Orleans are literally all one-way. New Orleans is the oldest city in the country, but places likeNew York and Boston were built long before cars ever became popular and they don't have such a prevalence of one-way streets. Places like New Orleans East, Gentilly, Metairie, and the Lake Districts are primarily two-way, which makes sense because they were built later than the rest of the city. But still.

Finally, since I live in the Quarter, I'm going to use it as an example, but this is also true for Magazine and the CBD. Music seems to be the life-blood of these streets. It's hard to go outside and not hear music coming from somewhere. During the day it's the street musicians, and during the night it's the jazz clubs and dance halls. Street musicians are everywhere, but in my opinion the best are on Royal St. And by best I mean that they're really, really, really good. Unfortunately they tend to congregate where there are tourists, because tourists are the people who give them the most money. Some of my favorite (and memorable) street musicians are on Royal St., though, and even though there are street musicians by Canal St., Royal St. attracts the best. The music that they play gives a welcoming feel to the streets. New Orleans is famous for its Jazz culture, but I think the Street Music culture deserves just as much publicity. jazz musicians sometimes play on the streets, but the best place to find them is in Jazz clubs (of which there are many, all over the city). The streets are the only place that you cansee some of these musicians.

A unique category of Street Music, which more or less only exists in Louisiana, are the jazz funerals and second lines. Many of the funerals in New Orleans are followed by a brass band parading through the streets. The second line is the group of non-music-playing people who follow the parade. I remember when I was in elementary school reading an article in National Geographic about jazz funerals and how they celebrate the life of the deceased instead of mourning their passing. This articlehas always stuck with me, and I only realized the other day that the second line was what the article was talking about. Witnessing a second line is a once in a lifetime event even though they happen frequently in New Orleans. There is really no way to know when and where a second line will happen. Like street musicians, you have to hear them to find them. The second line will often parade behind the band waving or twirling white flags in the air (Coincidentally, I also saw a wedding that was like that, so maybe second lines happen at wedding too?). It really was interesting to watch, and I liked it a lot more than some of the "regular" funerals I've been too. I've attached a video I took of a second line for a wedding.

Pub Trivia: How I Learned That I Was Actually Stupid

So Kat is writing the official pub trivia post (her blog is www.nolafsp.blogspot.com), but I thought I would write one as well for friends and family. Over the weekend we decided to do a story on pub trivia in New Orleans. For those of you who don't know, pub trivia is where many, many people get together on teams and compete in a competition that is similar to trivial pursuit. Each pub does trivia differently, and some are harder than others. There are almost always prizes involved for those who win, AND for the last place team.

The first pub we went to was Finn McCools. Finn McCools is an Irish pub that is supposed to have the hardest pub trivia in town. Since this was the first pub trivia we had done, we didn't really know what to expect. The bar was insanely crowded. Like INSANELY crowded. There were over 20 teams and not even enough room to stand (several teams were writing on the wall). The bar itself is really cool inside. It was very Irish, and several of the bartenders were actually Irish, which I liked, because I've been in Irish pubs that didn't serve Guinness (and that blows). There was all sorts of memorabilia on the wall too, but not in the fake Applebees kind of way. One of my favorite items was the hand decorated sign that read "Fuck Thierry Henry" (for anybody who doesn't know, in the last world cup, Thierry Henry scored a goal against Ireland off of a handball, which kept Ireland from advancing to the world cup). Finn McCools also serves typical pub food like fish and chips and other beer-battered things. I wish that we had actually gotten a chance to try the food, but we had all just had dinner, so we were too full to merit buying the food.

The bar quickly filled up with people, even though it was already packed by the time we got there, which was about 15 minutes from the start of the game. Each team had to come up with a team name in order to play. We chose "The Team Who Shall Not Be Named," but some of the other names were hilarious, like "Vaginasaurus Rex," "We Teach Your Kids," and "Condoms and Rattlesnakes." My personal favorite was "North Koreans For Sarah Palin 2012." Each team was then given a sheet on which they would write the answers. This ended up making it take a really long time, because we needed to have the sheets given back to us at the end of the round, and with over 20 teams in a tiny space, you can imagine the gridlock that ensued.

There were five rounds of ten questions each, one of which was a picture round. The best 5 teams got prizes of varying value according to their superiority. The last place team got a sack of potatoes, hilarious considering that we're in an Irish pub. I'll spare you a description of the different rounds, but let's just say that they were REALLY HARD. Seriously. We averaged 3/10 on each round. My brain was in some serious pain by the time we were done. In the end we got 17 points (the winning team got 50), which thank god wasn't last place. I'm pretty sure we got second to last though. The only team that "beat" us was called the "Delgado Dropouts." Delgado is the local community college. Sigh.

We left potato-less, which for us was a major accomplishment, because for a while there we were worried that we'd have too many potatoes for our own good. I'm not kidding, these questions were so hard. Not only did they require knowledge that we didn't possess, but they were also word games. Our crux was probably that they had so many questions about things in the 70s (game shows, bands, etc.). Obviously this presented a problem. The whole time Carolyn and I were thinking that our dad would have OWNED at this game. He and I both collect random facts, but he's 30 years older than me, thus his fact knowledge is 5:2 against mine (I hope I did that right...). You do the math, because I sure as hell can't.

Since then we've been to two other pub trivias. I won't describe them in detail, since that's boring, but I can safely say that they were significantly easier than Finn McCools. Both of them catered to a younger crowd, AND they didn't involve tricky word-play questions. At the Bridge Lounge, which is on tuesday nights, we probably ended up in the middle. I liked this trivia much more than Finn McCools. It was more chill, more relaxed, and in general more fun (because, you know, we could like, answer things). I did have two beef though. 1) Their geography section was not really geography, and they also had two wrong answers. One question asked for the biggest city in the Prime Meridian. This is obviously London, but their answer was Greenwich. Not only is that wrong, since Greenwich is a part of London, but Greenwich isn't even a city. Another question asked for one thing that Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania had in common. We answered that they all shared a bored with West Virginia (which is true). The correct answer was that they were all commonwealth states. This is also true, but it's not the only answer. Maybe I'm being nitpicky. Maybe the people who wrote the questions are stupid. Who knows. 2) They had a music section where you had to finish the lyrics of a song. Oh. My. God. It was impossible. Like actually. I think we only ended up getting two points out of 15. That's a 13 percent. Carolyn and I also got a question about The Princess Bride wrong. I'm so ashamed to admit that, because I've probably seen that move like 20 times. Other than that, I really liked this one. it was quick, fun, and the questions were super interesting.

The third pub we went to was Half Moon. I think I liked their pub trivia the best. Their's was the easiest by far, and their atmosphere was the most fun. It was a lot of twenty-somethings and the host was super relaxed. I also like this one because they had quirky prizes worked into the middle of the game. The team with the best team name got a prize (My favorite was "The Kids Are All Gay, but that didn't win, unfortunately), and in the second round after the 5th question, your teem could buy shots for points. Anyway, I'll stop pontificating, but if you're ever in New Orleans, you should definitely hit these places up.

I'd also like to note that it seems that pubs like these three MUST be in sketchy neighborhoods. Not that that should deter you (it obviously didn't deter us), but I'm just saying.

Finn McCools: http://finnmccools.com/

The Bridge Lounge: http://bridgeloungenola.com/

Half Moon: http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/57/1495439/restaurant/Lower-Garden-District/Half-Moon-Bar-Grill-New-Orleans