Long time no... er... read?

*Goes to write blog*

*Shakes head*

*Blows 6 inch thick pile of dust off of blog*

WOW

It has been a while since I blogged...... A long while...

My blog pretty much looked like this when  came back to it

It's been something like two weeks? Ah well, details aren't important, what matters is that I'm sorry for the long wait and that I'M BACK!

Also, Man Utd drew 1-1 with Bayern Munich (i.e. didn't receive a major butt pounding)- that's pretty important.


So yeah..... 
I'm assuming, seeing as you're reading this, that you have some mild level of interest in what I've gotten up to these past two weeks.
The answer is a lot.
Cos I'm in Louisiana.
And Louisiana is awesome.

Like, for real, Louisiana is amazing. When I found out I would be coming here, I was taken aback a tad. I thought: "Louisiana? That's WAY down there! I thought I'd be going somewhere like California or Colorado! Where everyone my age drives ridiculously expensive, brand new cars and only ever says OMG INSTAGRAM!!"
Well as it turns out, teens do that down here too.

But that's besides the point....
The point is that I AM SO HAPPY TO HAVE COME TO LOUISIANA. I've said before that Southern Hospitality is very true, and I mean it. The people here are SOO wholesome and friendly. It's never "Hello" with them when greeting a stranger, it's "Hey! How are you! Great to meet you!" and it's never "Yes" or "No" to a senior, but "Yes sir" or "No ma'am"- I get a true sense of respect being here. Now, it's true that people are somewhat conservative down here- Guns 'n' Jesus are both very, very popular. But there's nothing really wrong with that. People back home rave about how Americans should be stripped of their guns because they're causing far too much violent crime... But if you take Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York out of the statistics, America has a lower violent crime rate than Britain!!
Yes, people love their guns down here, and have A LOT of them, but holy moly are they responsible with them (most of them anyway). The amount of times I've heard "Don't point a gun at someone unless your, or someone else's life is in danger" is ridiculous.
But anyway, I'm trailing away from my point once again. People here are great, food here is great (I've gained like 5 pounds since being here), the weather here (when it's warm and sunny) is great, and I'm feeling great.

So in my last blog I said I'd be working at a daycare centre in the coming week. And I did indeed work at a daycare over that week. Now, just to clarify, by daycare I mean young children, not old people. I'd take working with kids over working with the elderly any day, I mean both groups have problems with controlling their bowls, but it's less gross with one of them. The children were aged 7-11 (older than usual because it was spring break) and they were so friendly and accepting! A new adult? Who cares! How's it going, Mr James!!
The kids there all seemed to be big fans of these things called Rainbow Bracelets, which are brightly coloured bracelets (or rings or necklaces) made by weaving together small, elastic bands. A small girl called Riley showed me how to make one and even made me one. Imma keep it as souvenir fo' sho' 

One thing I found quite amusing while I was working there was snack time. As far as I can gleam, the children get snacks provided for them by the daycare twice a day, on top of their packed lunches. What was amusing was the snacks they gave them. They had large bags of Lucky Charms cereal from which they would take scoops using cups, and then give these to the children. The whole time they were doing this the only thing I could think of was taking scoops of rabbit food and putting it in bowls for the rabbits to eat at my volunteering on Sundays. So this was like a kind of "Child feed"! I found very hard to stop myself laughing out loud.

On the Thursday of that week, a family friend of the Piraino's, Alfonso, (who was my age and I'd been in some phone contact with him attempting to set something up) came to the daycare centre to "borrow me" for a little while. On the way out he told me that him and his friend were actually running from the cops because they had stolen some goats. I was like "Oh yeah, sure  you stole some goats".

But then I got in his car.

And looked in his back seat.

And there were some bloody goats sitting there bleeting at me.

Taken aback as I was, I retained my cool and merely said "Well, you're clearly doing a good job of running from the police, as I don't see any cop cars".
BOOM.
Alfonso then admitted to pulling my leg and to make up for it, bought me some chicken.
Good deal.
As we were driving to our destination (which I didn't know until we got there), Alfonso kept making up different reason why he had these goats and where we were going with them ranging from: "We're taking them to Mexico to help boost their economy", to "We're going to sacrifice them to Satan". The actual reason was just as bizarre, if I'm honest- we were returning them to where Alfonso bought them (some redneck's house) as they were too much hassle, Alfonso bought them in the first place as a way to ask his date to prom with him, claiming that he chose to spend $180 to do this because "She likes goats".

On Friday, we did something awesome. We left for New Orleans.
Now, getting in a car for a five and a half hour journey may not seem very exciting at all, but I was pumped. After all,
WE WERE GOING TO NEW ORLEANS
I don't know what comes to y'alls minds when you think of New Orleans: Jazz? Hurricanes?
Whatever comes to mind, I'll tell you what should come to mind:
Alcohol.
And lots of it.
We visited Bourbon Street (the party central of New Orleans) at least twice while we were there and, well.... The only way I think to describe it is.....
If Camben Lock and Ibiza had a retarded baby and got it high on crack...
That's Bourbon Street.

Drunks outnumbering the sober.

Vomit and condoms painting the streets.

Strippers outside of clubs just to lure you in.

Girls flashing guys on balconies just to get some stupid plastic beeds.

It was pretty damn awesome. 

There was one guy who was so out of it, that he was just dancing non- stop outside of a Jazz club. It was pretty remarkable... So I took a selfie with him.

(he didn't mind/ couldn't comprehend what was going on so it was all good)


We ate at a restaurant called Oceania on Saturday night, which is a classic Louisiana/ New Orleans seafood place. Unfortunately, much to the dismay of Krista, I ordered the Cheeseburger. Now, I do regret doing this, as it wasn't that great, and the Oysters looked tempting. But I did, in my defense, order the Blackened Gator bites as a starter. It is what is sounds like, Alligator nuggets.
They tasted like chicken.
So, I mean, that's pretty N'awlins right? You can't eat Alligator just anywhere! It's pretty unique!
Ah well.
Earlier that day in the French Market I saw possibly the most unappetising sounding food ever. It was called "Alligator Shrimp Sausage Cheesecake".













I'd like to meet the person who sees that and says "Hot damn! That looks good!!".
...
Actually, thinking about it, I probably don't want to meet that person, as I probably wouldn't survive the encounter.

On Sunday we took a walk round Tulane University, which is where Avery is attending (oh, I forgot to mention, Avery is the Piraino's daughter, and visiting her was one of the reasons we went to New Orelans). For a long time I considered going to an American uni, but walking around the campus, I'm kinda glad I didn't. It's a beautiful campus and everything, but the dorms weren't really... as nice as many English Uni's dorms. But don't get me wrong, the university was very nice- I'm just glad I'm going to university back home.

But yeah, seriously guys, if you don't have New Orleans on your ''cities I need to visit'' list, add it. And if you don't have such a list, you should make one! It's a great way to indulge one's imagination. My list, if you're interested, is currently comprised of LA, Chicago, Paris, Sydney, and Tokyo (I use Tokyo to represent everywhere in Japan, because I want to see every inch of that country).

After New Orleans, nothing really happened until Ross had his Eagle Scout ceremony on Saturday. I spent a couple of days doing work experience at the Bossier Chamber of Commerce, which was great, and it in turn got me another placement at a bank, which I start tomorrow.

Ross achieving Eagle is really something remarkable. Apparently, only about 5 or 6% of boys who start Scouting NATIONALLY reach Eagle, so it's really impressive that he's done this. Congratulations to him!

So that's pretty much me up to date! It's been a great two weeks, just like the rest of the time I've been here.
Oh! Before I forget, my friend Jenny has started a blog about her accidental gap year! It's a great read with some interesting insights into a side of uni life you may not hear a lot about. Check it out http://my-accidental-gap-year.blogspot.co.uk/

So, back to weekly blogs now, apologies once again for the long wait- I'm sure you felt thoroughly deprived of my mildly entertaining stream of stupidity, but fret no more! It has returned!!
Thanks for reading you guys!

Jya ne 

James x