Dec. 31st: It's a baby - not a gumbo pot!

Yet another fantastic day in New Orleans.  Oddly enough it started out with a city tour which probably would have made more sense to do at the beginning of the trip, but we lacked the forethought to plan that far ahead.  Even so, it was a fantastic tour and extremely educational.  New Orleans has so much history and even touched on some of its more recent history with Katrina.  It was a little weird and upsetting to be in a tour bus going through the residential areas that were affected by Katrina (hello voyeurism).  At the same time, it was really interesting to see how much devastation still existed 6 years later.  My favourite part of the tour was seeing and learning about the tombs.  The whole process and reason for them is fascinating and I was even able to figure out where the phrase "getting the shaft" came from.

After the tour we spent some time in the French Quarter, again, filling up on some more beignets and cruising the French Market for a bit before heading right back down to that area to begin the New Years Eve festivities.

I don't know how many people know this, but apparently it was a long running tradition in New Orleans to have a "Baby Drop" at midnight to celebrate the New Year.  To clarify - no one was literally dropping any babies.  It was essentially like the New York ball drop - except it was in the shape of a baby.  Anyway, apparently people found it offensive and so instead of having the "Baby Drop" they now have the "Fleur-de-Lis Drop".  But for the sake of reminding everyone of the good times with the Baby, they still have the New Years Baby on top of Jackson Brewery, right next to where the Fleur-de-Lis gets dropped.

Well apparently there was some debate at dinner over whether they actually had the Baby Drop, or if it was something else entirely.  Apparently after doing a Google search, someone at the table had 'confirmed' that it wasn't a baby, but in fact a gumbo pot that just happened to look like a baby.  Well - having actually seen the baby at the top of the Brewery - we made sure to quash that confirmation and assure that it was in fact a baby.  Here's a picture of the object in question!

I know it's kind of small and far away, but if you click on it then you can see it a little closer up.  And I have to say - if that's a Gumbo Pot, then I don't think I can ever have gumbo again!

Other Awesome Things from the last day of 2012:

• Having chronically late friends actually show up early for waiting for the bus, but in the process of waiting still ended up being late for bus once it arrived
• Learning about the history of all of the places we had already explored on our own
• Finding and purchasing souvenirs from the trip
• Delicious wood-fired pizza and MORE bloody marys
• Wearing sparkly things (what I lacked in Sequins I tried to make up for in glitter, bedazzling, and hair beads)
• The drum sphere and the screaming girl who claimed to be a musician
• The all-female brass band called THE ORIGINAL PINETTES (best music experience of the trip)
• A delightful stop-off at the French Market outdoor cafe for a last little bite before the Fleur-de-Lis drop
• Overhearing a conversation between some very horny nerdy virgins (self-admitted) and their attractive and intoxicated female friend (also a virgin and avid lover of Christ) ... perhaps this was more awkward than awesome
• The anti-climactic Fleur-de-Lis drop, followed by Fireworks on the Mississippi River
• And just generally ... getting to end 2011 with the same group of people who helped to ring it in!