New Orleans (II)

The pub is crowded and the music not even good. The signs above stage are advertising "Budweiser Jazz" and "Lite Jazz" which is pretty much what we're getting.
There is a large sign prohibiting people to smoke cigars, pipes and cloves. Another sign prohibits any video recording. Yet another one reminds people that there is a minimum of one drink per set. A tourist trap.

The smell of rotten garbage is everywhere in the city. It is there on the walk to the restaurant, there on the walk to the hotel, there when we sit down in the pub. I ask people around to see if I am not the victim of an olfactif hallucination. Do you smell that smell? Yes, they do. One Italian colleague tells me that this is the smell of American cities. That I only smell it here more because it is hotter. I refuse to believe her but she may be right. The smell of rotten garbage.

On Bourbon street, the successions of seedy places advertising hot and sexy women are everywhere, tucked between the "Jello shots" and the "T-shirt of New Orleans. Only $19.99 for 4 T-shirts. " One store shows the shadow of a woman dancing, another advertises "bottomless and topless" dancers, which makes me wonder of what's left. Nail polish and hairdo?
We are all walking back to the hotel, everybody in various stages of alcohol-induced cloudiness. We meet people in the streets and laugh with them. Everybody is supposed to be having a great time. All feels a bit staged, unreal even. A Disneyworld for frustrated adults.