I’m back from my mini-vacation. It seems like every time I leave Austin, I realize just how good I have it here. Austin really is the best city to live in, and the most beautiful.
Saturday morning we woke up at 7, got ready, and headed to the airport. Everything went fine at check-in and security and we just went to sit and wait at the gate for our flight.
As we were waiting, there was this extremely ghetto woman right behind me, LOUD talking on her cell phone. It was kind of funny though. This is the snippet of conversation I paid attention to:
“You didn’t get no honey biscuits? What do you mean you got chicken and no honey biscuits? You can’t have chicken without honey biscuits! You ain’t never had no honey biscuits? You ain’t never had no Church’s honey biscuits? Girl, sometimes I go to Church’s and I don’t even get chicken, I JUST get the honey biscuits!”
And every time she said biscuits, she dragged out the first vowel in biscuits to sound like “biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiscuits”. It would have been funnier if she hadn’t been right up in my ear.
I’m not a big fan of Southwest Airlines and their “no assigned seating”. That is just dumb to make me people rush to get in line and fight for good seats. DUMB. Although I did start picking up on the tricks and managed to get decent seats on the way to Houston.
In Houston we had a THREE hour layover! THREE HOURS! So we made use of the time by working on some business cards for Paco’s mom, and then setting her up with a website and email. She’s going to start her own maid service.
On the way from Houston to Jacksonville MS I managed to get us seats in the second row, so I was pretty happy about that. I was super annoyed though at all of the old people in wheelchairs that got to board the flight first. Why? Because these people supposedly needed assistance getting on the plane (as in being pushed in a wheel chair) but as soon as the plane landed they sure did jump up and run off just fine on their own.
Kristi and her mom met us in Jacksonville and drove us back to Hattiesburg, where she lives. It’s about an hour drive, maybe a bit more. We didn’t get to her house until around 5ish, I think. We got settled in and then went to meet her friend for dinner. OH! And she gave me some belated birthday presents. I got a bunch of really cute shirts… and I’m actually wearing one right now.
Dinner was fun, but Paco and I were extremely tired. I wanted to sleep so bad. Kristi’s friend Joy met us and she had brought my birthday cake. It was so pretty and delicious.
After dinner we went back to her place and crashed out. The next day we woke up at 8. We all had breakfast together and then Paco and I explored around in Kristi’s massive backyard while her and her mother got ready. Kristi has 26 acres and a nice lake in her backyard.
After we got ready, we went to Southern Mississippi University to look at the Rose Garden. They have roses of all types, colors, kinds, smells, and everything. I took a bunch of pictures there, but they aren’t all worth looking at.
We went to lunch afterwards at a nice little Mexican restaurant in town, it’s actually Kristi and her mom’s favorite. Lunch was delicious, but we all ate too much. We were all miserable full afterward. We headed over to Biloxi MS to stay at the Beau Rivage. We stopped at this little Pecan store on the side of the road to shop and rest. I took a few pics there.
We had tickets to see Cirque Jungle Dreams at the Imperial Palace that night, but chose to stay at the Beau Rivage instead because it’s SO much nicer. It’s actually almost exactly like the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Of course on the drive there we got to see a lot of the damage from Katrina and Rita. It’s amazing how bad it still looks down there. I imagine that it will takes years to go back to looking normal. So much is obviously missing and damaged down there and there. It’s amazing how many places are still closed because they can’t find employees to work. Kristi was telling me how the McDonald’s and Burger Kings are/were offering huge thousand dollar sign on bonuses because they can’t find employees. So many people moved away, and so many of them are still collecting FEMA money, so they just don’t want to work.
We went over to the Imperial Palace hotel early and spent some time gambling and wandering around. I wasn’t lucky at the gambling this time, but Paco, Kristi, and her mom were. The Cirque Jungle Dreams show was great. We had thought it was a smaller production of Cirque du Soliel, but it wasn’t. It’s an almost identical production by another company. The show started off the same way even! Two clowns came out and went into the audience to get people to drag up on stage and embarrass.
The clown on our side was heading towards us and I knew he was going to stop in front of us. He was obviously gay and I we were the only men in the area. He walked right over in front of Paco and I and stopped. I turned my head and ignored him, pretending like I didn’t see him. So he grabbed Paco instead! Poor PACO! Kristi and I were laughing and laughing and then I got worried. “I hope they don’t try to have a conversation with him, or ask him any questions!” I got it all on video and it was hilarious. They made him act like a fool and scream out sounds. I took two pics, but they didn’t come out so well because I was laughing so hard.
After the show, we went back to our hotel ate dinner and went to bed. We were tired again from driving and running around all day. The hotel was really nice, but the bed was too soft and I felt like I was sinking into it. I didn’t sleep very well.
We got up early again and went to breakfast at the hotel, then headed out to New Orleans. Again, we got to see a lot of the hurricane damage and it was pretty sad looking. So many people still have their roofs of their houses covered with tarps to keep the rain out. We went to downtown NO and walked around and shopped. It’s so filthy down there. There was trash all over the streets, and some corners literally had trash bags pilled up on the corners. It was disgusting and smelly. I know you can blame some of the filth in the city on the hurricane, but there’s no excuse for all the litter that is still out there. I just don’t understand how people can little everywhere? I wasn’t impressed with Bourbon Street either. It’s gross. New Orleans will be like Vegas to me; I’ve seen it once and I don’t need to ever see it again.
Paco was disappointed that I hadn’t been taking pictures. He said that nobody was going to believe he was in New Orleans or Biloxi. So I started taking a bunch of pictures of him in New Orleans. I tried to get him to pose in front of damaged buildings, but he didn’t want to. He only wanted to pose in front of nice building. I got him posing in front of the Harrah Casino, and then moved a bit so I could get him in front of a damaged building. You can see him laughing in the pic because he didn’t want me to take it, and I got it anyway.
We also went to the River Center Mall and shopped for a bit, but most of the good stores were closed. We took some pics outside the mall first.
It started raining hard as we were leaving the mall, and it kept getting worse and worse. So it took us a little longer than expected to get to the airport. We got to the airport with two hours to kill, which was fine because we wanted to relax and get something to eat. I scored us great seats on our flight from to Houston and to Austin. We were in the first row of the plane. It was nice to be able to get on and off first.
By the time we got home to our apartment, it was after 10 and we were exhausted. Last night I wanted to hang out at home and relax, and that’s exactly what I did. I unpacked, cleaned up a bit, and then just watched TV. Paco came home early and we hung out watching Dancing with the Stars.
Tonight I want to go to the gym, hopefully I can force myself to do it. I have a sore throat and my allergies are bad right now. I may be too sick to workout tonight.
There are more pics of our trip here: http://www.tomithey.com/gallery/20061104
Most of the pics are horrible, and I didn’t take many because the weather was gross and cloudy for most of the trip.
