Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Wednesday Night (Natchez Cruise)

I was definitely excited about tonight. I absolutely love riverboat cruises and I wonder why I don't do it back home. Of course I also heard from people that went last year that the food is amazing. I definitely believed them, I was getting hooked on Naw'lins cookin'!

Again we started our night out at the hotel bar, had a few drinks and then headed out to the river walk to make our way down to our boat! The evening promised to be a great one as I'd heard wonderful things about the cruise from years past. Food, a brass band, drinks, and everyone from the trip on one boat, as well as some of our FABC friends, cruising the Mississippi.

The river walk was actually a pretty cool place to walk through. They had a lot of shops and things to do. I loved the art shops and wished I had time to walk around in them see if there was anything that looked authentic. I very much wanted a piece of artwork to hang in my living room; anything to bring me back to how I felt on this trip was a must. I was hoping to have enough time on our last day here to come back and look for longer.

Adria and I

We found our Natchez river boat and made our way on board; I fell in love some more! Right away I saw Ms. Sonya and some other's that I photographed at FABC and I was greeted with warm smiles and hugs. Go group 24 found a seat on the side of the boat where chairs lined the railing so we could relax and enjoy the Mississippi river breeze. We talked, laughed and enjoyed drinks while waiting to be seated for dinner. As the boat left the dock our Captain told us a lot of the city's history and explained different landmarks as we passed them.

Soon after we took off it was dinner time so we raced to the dining room to make it to the buffet line. We had to split up our group since we couldn't all fit at one table. Half our group got to eat first while the other's watched. The picture below is Jessica showing off her food while we starved. Maria is upset about it, lol.
Mmmm I got my food. Chicken, Pork, rice, corn, pasta, salad, bread pudding and a brownie!!

Look ma I ate all of it!



After dinner we walked around on the boat some more and looked around on the lower decks to see how everything ran. Pretty cool stuff.

Most of the group went off to a couple bars after the cruise but Stevie and I walked around on the river walk. We saw Anderson Cooper filming live news so we sat down to see what he was talking about. We sat down next to a guy who was sitting on the grass all by himself watching Anderson. I asked him what he was reporting. He told me that he reports on the riverwalk on the oil spill in the gulf. His name was Deandra (pronounced like Deandre) and he LOVED Anderson Cooper. He found out that we were in New Orleans on a mission trip with a church and he had to admit to me that he was gay. I said "sweetheart, why else would you come to the riverwalk everyday to watch Anderson Cooper? I do not judge." We kept getting in trouble for talking even though Anderson was rarely taping, it was like every 5 minutes he would say a few words, maybe during a commercial break or something.

Stevie, Deandra, and I

I had a really fun night just kinda hanging out and talking, walking around the city with a new good friend.

Tonight I remembered how important it is to just stop and listen. Sometimes people just need a shoulder and I'm good at being just that.

No comments: