Travel Diary

THURSDAY

This would be my first time to NOLA. My goddaughter was graduating form the University of Tulane and it was a great chance to go see the city and attend the ceremony. Well, “ceremonies,” as there was more than one.

While NOLA is a big city, the rest of the country does not seem to have a huge need to travel there often aside from college students doing party breaks I guess. I say this because there are no direct flights there from the Bay Area. Therefore, I had to fly to Dallas first and then on over the New Orleans Airport (MSY).

Not a huge issue. Just inconvenient.

But i did go through Alaska Airlines to get the flight, which meant no seat selection as the flight was on American Airlines. Those “partnerships” are sometimes lousy like that. Anyway, point is I had MIDDLE SEATS on both flights. Not ideal. Yet I lived.

I flew from SJC (San Jose) to DFW (Dallas). It might have been my first flight out of San Jose ever. I’d landed there before but never took off. It was also very early. I think I summoned Uber around 5am. Since I was flying out of one airport and back into another one, I had no way to drive myself. Like usual, I checked both Uber and Lyft. At one point, Lyft was showing roughly $150 for the 30-minute drive. Insane how much the prices fluctuate. Pretty insane. I settled on paying $50 for Uber (plus a $12 tip).

At Dallas, I had a layover. One thing I noticed is that the airport is HUGE—in terms of how far the terminal are spaced apart. The connecting train seemed to suggest each terminal is miles apart.

I also discovered they don’t take great care of their bathrooms and upgrades are in dire order. Get it together, DFW!

I had no lounge access. But the layover wasn’t too long. But I did miss the nice escape that is “lounge.”

After another flight (middle seat), I landed in New Orleans. I had to wait for friends, so I found an airport bar and had a beer—or was it two? After some time, I got word that I would need to just Uber on over to the AirBNB as car space was going to be too limited. I got a few quotes on prices and then headed there. This time I used Lyft: $42 for about 45 minutes.

The pad was nice. Many rooms and a central kitchen. we later determined that it must have been business offices converted to an AirBNB. The outside area was almost all business. They did have a pool in the back. Quite small and none of us used it.

In time, the others showed up. We got sorted out and then headed to dinner.

The dinner was the Oyster Bar, though they had no fried oysters, which seemed ironic. But the food was great and I tried oysters for the first time, though they were not raw. I also had a hurricane and discovered it wasn’t really the right drink for me. Live and learn.

After dinner, we toured around the French Quarter for a while, taking in the sights and sounds, getting beignets, and discovering just what makes NOLA NOLA. Certainly a lot of energy at night around there.