We arrived at our hotel and Susan had me down in the foyer in time for the grand opening party at 4pm for drinks and canapé.  Whilst we were quite a bit underdressed in trainers and shorts we quickly relaxed once the champagne flowed.  When Susan misplaced her champagne coupe the ‘wine waiter’ brought her a plastic tumbler. Each filI saved him three trips and Susan is never classy when there’s free stuff on the go!

After having appropriated some free goodie bags and t shirts we settled down in another room and it kind of went downhill from there.  Firstly, there were free oysters and for twenty minutes I tested how fast an oyster shucker could shuck whilst his colleague poured champagne in a continuous flow into my never ending glass.  If you don’t do free oysters and champagne to an absolute excess you need a life coach 🙂

Incidentally, these oysters were from Murder Point. Apparently, in 1927 there was a dispute about a sliver of land in Alabama between the Lawson and Copeland families over an oyster lease. A Copeland beat a Lawson with a baseball bat, set him in a rocking chair (every porch here has at least one rocking chair) and then shot him on his front porch. It’s been called Murder Point ever since.  The company even inappropriately says ‘oysters worth killing for’.

We finished off the evening with more free food, beer, champagne.  The Henry Cooper knockout punch (for the information of American readers he is a legendary British boxer) came when we started on the absinthe cocktails.  New Orleans and absinthe are legendary partners arising from the French influences in the city.  Sun, cycling and absinthe meant it was time for bed and zzzzzz.  New Orleans proper would have to wait until tomorrow.

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