Quote: DaButt @ May 4 2011, 3:08 PM BST
But parts of New Orleans are like The Wire and that whole gangsta lifestyle is prevalent. Drunk tourists who wander away from the safe, touristy bit of the Quarter are at risk of being robbed and possibly killed at the hands of an opportunistic gangster.
I love the city and will continue to visit but I'm always wary outside of the relative safety of the Quarter.
On my second visit to New Orleans I somehow ended up at a frat party and decided to drink the best part of a bottle of Absolut before taking a badly judged dive into a swimming pool. I managed to split my forehead open then have a navigational argument with my friend that ended with me deciding, as I knew the way back to the hotel perfectly well, that I'd head in the wrong direction for something like six hours. I loped through the scuzziest neighbourhoods until the sun came up and people started leaving their houses to go to church to see me ambling past them with blood pissing out of my head. At about the point I thought I was going to dehydrate completely (I must have staggered a marathon at least) and actually said out loud, "I want my mum", I miraculously found the hotel and drank five pints of water back to back. My friend (who had made it home in about five minutes) said as I arrived that he was scant moments away from alerting my parents, the police and the British Embassy to the news that I was most likely dead.
And you know what, I never felt like I needed a gun. A compass, a mobile phone, maybe the slightest f**king bit of common sense, but never a gun.
