So by Friday afternoon, as I packed up my last few work bits and pieces I was beyond excited to head to Ottawa airport to be reunited with my favourite man. Alas, United Airways struck again. Let me complain for a brief moment. Airlines in the US are the WORST. Seriously the worst. They are expensive, flight attendants are rude, your luggage gets lost with unacceptable regularity and flights get cancelled all the time. Not to mention dealing with security at US airports and the CUSTOMS process. Argh! Its miserable. There are things that we love about the US, don’t get me wrong, this just isn’t one of them.
And, United Airways is by far the worst of them all. I really hate flying with United and avoid it at all costs. Alas it was a must for this trip. So I arrived at Ottawa airport on time for my flight, cleared customs with a very nice man who gave me restaurant tips about NOLA and awaited my boarding call. During this time I was also in constant phone contact with Joep. His flight to NOLA with United Airways had been cancelled / delayed until the following morning. It was very upsetting and Joep was less than impressed. Just as it was getting time for me to board though, Joep called to say that he had found a seat on a Delta flight that would get him to NOLA that evening as planned. Yippee!!
My ecstasy wore off very quickly though because as I hung up the phone I heard the announcement that MY flight was cancelled. What?! Yes. Welcome to flying with United. To add insult to injury, as we were all taken out of the boarding lounge and back upstairs to checkin, I was informed that there were no more flights out that evening because the weather in Washington DC was bad. This confused me because my connection was in Chicago. The United Airways gal didn’t care. In fact she then went on to say that the earliest I could get out of Ottawa was the following morning at 6am. I was pretty upset but held it together and asked for my hotel details. She responded by … wait for it … shrugging her shoulders! Imagine my consternation. I asked what that meant, the shoulder shrug and she informed me that because it was a cancellation due to weather they didn’t have to give me a hotel for the night. Seriously?! What?! I was inconsolable. Thank goodness for good friends, I called Katie who collected me from the airport, arranged icecream to lift my spirits and let me stay in her spare room for the night. I love Canadians – And I love Katie. Seriously.
The only upside to all of this was that the flights I was on the next day were operated by Air Canada! The BEST airline in North America (along with Porter air which is also stellar). The checkin staff and flight attendants are super helpful and friendly and they are reliable to be on time. Heaven.
But the drama wasn’t over yet. Even though I had cleared US customs the night before, I was required to re-clear customs but this time in Toronto. I hate clearing customs in Toronto. The guys in Ottawa are way nicer. I had a 3 hour layover and it’s a good thing I did because getting through customs was a nightmare. I was properly interrogated and had to print out all kinds of information including a page of our wedding website (true story!) to prove that I wasn’t planning on staying in the USA. Lord. It was awful. And the customs officers were so rude and mean! The final guy I dealt with was the only nice person there. He spoke to me like I was a real person and didn’t feel the need to shout or degrade me in any way. In fact, he took one look at the printouts, stamped my passport and sent me on my way. Bless him. I hate clearing customs into the USA.

By the time I boarded my connecting flight to NOLA (which I only just made thanks to the interrogation) I was a hot mess. Poor Joep had received numerous hysterical calls from me and was waiting with baited breath to see if I would make it to NOLA that day.
I made it! And boy was I happy to see Joep at the airport. Whew! We collected our rental car and headed to the Crowne Plaza Hotel where we had a beautiful room for the weekend. Time for the celebrations to begin!
Upon arrival at the hotel we headed up to the room where Joep surprised me with champagne and strawberries – Delish! Funny though because Joep ordered 2 bottles of champagne so the hotel delivered 4 glasses assuming that 4 people would be drinking 2 bottles. Wrong! Only 2 of us were needed to polish of 2 bottles. I’m not sure this is something to be proud of but I am proud.
We couldn’t get started on the champagne straight away though because we had 1 very important activity to get done. Joep had done all the research and so off we went for a 1.5 hour drive to Slidell Municipal Airport where I was going to throw myself out of a plane at 10,000 feet. Yes. I was going SKY DIVING!!
On the drive out I was pretty quiet. In fact, I didn’t have much to say at all which, for some reason, irritated Joep until I pointed out to him that I was feeling a little nervous about the jump. He only kind of understood. You see, Joep was not jumping. It is not because he didn’t want to (sure Joep), he really really wanted to (mmmhmmm …) but there are weight restrictions. Lets not forget that Joep is very tall and therefore, very heavy. So he was too heavy to jump. He was ‘very disappointed’ (riiiiiiight …) … it wasn’t going to stop me though! I was all set to go.
The next hour was spent signing forms to say that if I died I couldn’t sue anyone (yikes) and watching a couple of people before me jump which was very exciting and made me feel way better about my jump. I was then given a brief training course on what to do when we left the plane (ARCH!) before I was kitted out in my sexified purple jump suit. By this stage I was feeling very excited and very nervous. As I got strapped up the excitement gave way to just nerves and a little bit of fear. But I was committed to doing this. Seriously.
By the time I was saying good bye to Joep and heading for the plane I was feeling a smidge weak in the knees. The plane was teeeeeeeny. Seriously small. There was enough room in there for the pilot, my tandem jump instructor and 1 other man. So small! And it was also a bit rusty and shaky. I was properly afraid that I would ironically die in a plane crash whilst planning on jumping for the exact plane that killed me. True story. My imagination really got the better of me.
As we rose in altitude I started to feel a bit better surprisingly. I think it is because the guys in the plane with me were so calm. Just as I was thinking that we were about to jump, the guy sitting opposite me looked at his altitude reader thingo (technical term) and leaned in to tell me that we were half way up … HALF WAY! I looked out the window, swallowed hard and willed myself not to cry. Again, the fact that the guys were so chilled out made me feel better. Plus the views up there were AMAZING!!
After a bit more climbing I was informed that we had reached 10,000 feet. Eeeeeek!! I followed instructions and moved in front of Hippi (yes, I was getting strapped to a man called Hippi … you’d be surprised by how relaxed I was about this. In hindsight I probably should asked to see some credentials before throwing myself out of a plane with him.). I was then strapped tightly to the front of Hippi (I was also having visions of the clips coming loose and me plummeting to my death as Hippi pulled the cord and gently floated to earth) and given my pep talk. It was all going to be fine. It was going to be lots of fun. When the door opened I was to put my left foot out onto the rudder of the plane, then my right foot. I then had to cross my arms over my chest and Hippi would do the rest. That is, Hippi would throw us out of the plane … eeeeek!!
So there we were, 10,000 feet above earth in a dodgy teeny little rust bucket of a plane about to throw ourselves out. I thought I held it together pretty well. When I received the video I was corrected. It is hilarious. I look like I’m about 4 years old and I’ve lost my mum at the supermarket … petrified. Without further ado, the hatch door on the plane opened and it was all action. Left foot out (onto a plane rudder that it 10,000 feet in the air … it took some effort to force my foot out!) … right foot out. Cross arms. One, two and …. We were out! We did a couple of flips at the start of the free fall before falling straight towards earth. It. Was. INCREDIBLE! I’m getting excited as I type this. Seriously it was out of this world. Literally falling at a crazy speed towards earth. Its noisy and windy and EXHILARATING! I loved every second of the 45 second free fall. Then Hippi yelled ‘ARCH!’ and I arched and he pulled the cord and the parachute opened (**insert sigh of relief**) and we floated to earth. It was seriously incredible. Words do not do this justice.
It is one of the coolest things I have ever done in my life! The float down to earth was pretty awesome and the views were amazing. Plus you are still going relatively fast and zipping around in circles and stuff.
We came in to land and Joep had befriended the crew (naturally) so they let him come all the way out to the landing field so he was waiting for me when my feet hit the ground.
I was over the moon!! It was incredible!! The guys we jumped with were SO professional and the whole experience was just amazing. Everyone should do this before they die. It cannot be beat. I am grinning as I type this just from the memories!!
After getting out of my sky diving attire Joep & I hit the road to head back to New Orleans. The drive home was significantly louder than the drive there. I couldn’t stop talking about how awesome it was. I still can’t! It was seriously awesome.
Back at the hotel we freshened up and kicked off the birthday celebrations with a couple of bottles of champagne in our hotel! Joep had made reservations at a restaurant with live jazz music nearby so after pre-dinner drinks we headed out for a night on the town.
Bourbon Street is super famous but it is also super tacky. And STINKY!! As you all probably know, New Orleans is hot. Like hot hot, temperatures you can hardly imagine. This doesn’t help the stinkiness on Bourbon Street. Still we battled the stink and made it down to our restaurant. The live music was awesome, the food was good but the service was … speedy!! We were half way through our entrees when our mains arrived. Joep, being the good Dutchman that he is, was quick to point out to the serving staff that things needed to slow down a notch. Good man! It allowed us to enjoy our meal in a more leisurely fashion. After our meal we hit the streets of New Orleans to enjoy the nightlife.
And what a nightlife there is!! Yowsers! The streets were packed with party goers and it was a lot of fun just to be mingling. Before too long we came across a great jazz bar so we set ourselves up at the bar with cocktails and enjoyed some great music, some wonderful chats and lots of laughs. It was a truly wonderful evening!!
The following morning we were up bright and early (this is a recurring theme for us … we are not good at sleeping in these days. Its annoying.) and we hit the streets to do a walking tour of New Orleans. Once you get away from Bourbon Street the city is just amazing. You don’t feel like you’re in the USA at all. The city has such a different feel to other US cities we’ve visited. We had an amazing day walking the streets and enjoying the markets. We bought a bit of NOLA artwork from local artists at Jackson Square and we enjoyed more creole deliciousness. Late in the afternoon we made our way back to the hotel for cocktail hour (yes, again). This time we headed to the rooftop pool to soak up some vitamin D and to make some decisions about where to eat that evening. It was an important evening because midnight marked the end of my 20’s!! End of an era!
We decided on an oyster bar that came highly recommended called Acme. It was seriously good. We took seats at the bar and proceeded to pig out on oysters and crabs and Louisana specialties like gumbo and jambalaya and hush puppies … when I had to ask what hush puppies are I was met with belly laughs and guffaws of disbelief. When I answered the question ‘Where are you from?’ with ‘Australia’ I was forgiven. They are delicious by the way. Its basically deep fried corn bread. Mmmmm deep fried goodness.
I’m not sure whether the clock struck midnight while we were in the bar or on the walk home but I do know that by the time we got back to the hotel I was 30!
The following morning we awoke feeling much better than we deserved to feel and headed out for brunch at Stanley’s on Jackson Square. Best eggs benedict ever! Seriously. I still crave them. The food was amaaaaaazing. Alas we couldn’t linger too long as Joep had booked us on a swamp tour of the Mississippi.
So after packing and collecting our car we drove out to the tour area. Upon boarding our airboat which Joep said was waaaay better than the normal undercover boats we looked to the horizon and saw big black clouds. There were only 9 of us in the boat and a few of them also looked concerned by the weather. Joep was pretty confident that we would be fine. As the boat pulled out of the dock the heavens opened. Like seriously opened. I’ve never experienced rain like it! But our driver didn’t turn back. He was loving it!
30 minutes later we were sitting in the boat in the pouring rain in a small canal area because we couldn’t go out to open water because the lightening was too dangerous! Yes. There we were sitting in a giant metal box in water while fork lightening bolts struck all around us. Needless to say, I did not feel safe. I also did not look good. I had donned a cute little white summer dress for the occasion. By this point my dress was completely see through and I regretted choosing polka dot ret knickers as my undergarments for the day. Thankfully everyone else on the boat was too busy trying to cover their faces from the rain to notice.
Eventually our captain made the executive decision to turn the boat around and take us back. We made it back without being struck by lightening and dashed into the main building. My favourite part was watching everyone try no to step in puddles on the way to the building … we were already soaking wet! Why would stepping in a puddle be a problem?!
Thankfully Joep & I had our cases with us so we were able to get changed into dry clothes. While I was changing Joep befriended a lovely irish couple that had been on the boat with us. They had a 2 hour wait for their bus ahead of them and they didn’t have any dry clothes. Joep offered them a lift back to New Orleans which they gratefully accepted. In the car ride back we became fast friends and after drying off at their hotel, we headed out for a few drinks and a bite to eat and ended up spending the rest of the day together! I love chance meetings like that!
Surprisingly there were no delays on our flights back home (shocking I know!) and we made it back in record time. It was a WONDERFUL weekend! Turning 30 is the most fun ever and I plan on doing it again and again and again … it’s my ideal age.
Oh and sky diving was awesome!!! True story. Now lets see how my life of housewifery will go!