News from New Orleans

Please bear with me on this super long post as I have a lot to write about...I don't even know where to start !

I'll probably be posting stories and happenings from other days but this particular post is gonna concentrate on my birthday, which was last Saturday August 13th.

Speaking of which, this blog turned 1 year old on that day !

Happy bloggiversay to SoulsJuice and stuffffff !

First up ...we stayed at this hotel International House


Josh and I awoke early and had breakfast in bed, which consisted of juice,coffee, bacon and yummy waffles. Leisurely room service at its best mmmmm.

Then we went downstairs around 9 am, where we got picked up by our tour bus which took us down to Lousianna swampland. This was were the swamp tour we had booked the day before commenced.

While we waited for the tour guides to beckon us to the airboat, we stood in the shaded deck area, which hugged the swamp, and spotted alligators galore. We started to get an understanding of just how hot it was on the swamp so I ran inside the tour office to grab sunscreen and water for Josh and myself.

Then we were led onto the airboat by a cajun dude in his 30's, put on earmuffs to drown out the roar of the engines and away we went. He took us all around the massive swamp, to all different sections of it.

The first time we stopped, the stench of rotten eggs and the heaviest of heat that we've EVER felt enveloped us. As the guide talked, I looked down at the water and thought to myself that the worst water in the world to fall into would be this.

Dirty, muddy, smelly water.... swarming with gators.

Niiiiiiiice.

We all sat there, literally sweating buckets, as we tried to cope with the overpowering heat.

We fed marshmellows to a young gator that approached the boat and were tickled by the fact that gators like eating these sweet items of food. We named this gator 'Cody-Gator', after my nephew, as it looked to be a young one.....not a baby but definitely nowhere near adulthood.



Anyway, we learnt a lot of interesting facts, told by a cajun fella whos family owned the land going back quite a few generations. He had grown up on the swamp and knew it like he knew the back of his hand.
So he knew his stuff....

Afterwards, we dawdled around and I decided I wanted to go for a Monsoon at the Port of Call for an afternoon drink before we went out to dinner. It was only 3 pm and our reservation was for 7 pm so we had time. We were only going to get the drinks to go and make our way back slowly...

Buttttt....we met a cool couple at Port and we stayed back and chatted. I was slowly sippin the Monsoon ( it comes in a milkshake size container). Finally we emerged and started walkin back to our hotel and I sipped and took photos and realized I was tipsy. I kept reassuring Josh that a cool shower would snap me out of my tipsiness, because I knew he was a bit worried. He had put a mammoth amount of planning with this restaurant and I knew he had been looking forward to the night, as was I. Yet with each tiny sip I started getting more giggly and, obviously, drunker. ( I gotta add that I was not even halfway through this one alcoholic drink of the day. So the drunkeness was highly surprising to me as I know my limits ).

At least, I know my limits in my normal circumstances, with my normal drinks.

We got back into the air-con'd hotel room and thats when the world started spinning sickenly fast.For the next hour I was paraletic drunk, not able to stand up without feeling as if I was gonna throw up and pass out.
Yes I was hugging that porcelein throne like it was my best friend.

I was aghast at how easily I had gotten so leglessly drunk on such a small amount of alcohol but it turned out that the reason for it was that I was that dehydrated from the morning spent at the swamp that the tiny amount I had sipped knocked me on my ass well and truly.
I knew how important the dinner was, how much Josh had put into it so I had no intentions of getting drunk at all.
I was mortified to say the least!

Poor Josh showered and got ready, asking with a worried look, if I wanted him to cancel dinner. I told him "No" and that I would pull myself outta this in time for dinner ( an hour away ). Also told him it was fine for him to wait downstairs at the hotel bar.
Then began the massive task of pulling myself out of the throes of alcoholic annihilation.

I had NO idea how I was going to pull this off but I was bloody determined like I've never been before lol !

I sat with my head between my knees in the shower , under cool water, cursing myself for letting this happen on today of all days. Asking for the god's of sobriety to help me out a little here. Made the usual bargains etc.

When I was able to stand up I went to get dressed and Josh came back with two glasses in his hand, telling me to drink them to feel better. The bartender downstairs had made club soda and bitters and told him to get me to drink it to settle my stomach, followed by coke as a chaser. So I sipped it like mad. Which caused me to throw up again......
It was only then that I started to feel human again.
Anyway I got dressed, did my hair and off we went to the restaurant. We were 15 minutes late but it's lucky we made it at all !

The general manager/ sommelier ( Jeff Kundinger) is a friend of Josh's brother, David ( who is also a well known sommelier by most ppl in the industry.)
They're both studying for their Master Sommelier Diploma, which isnt held by many people in the world.
We were treated like ROYALTY at this fantastic place, Cuvee !

It's one of the premier fine dining restaurants in New Orleans and we had the best table in the place so this was awesome.
We were waited on left, right and centre and served a different wine with each of our courses. We had 9 courses in total.



I didnt wanna look at alcohol at that stage but I sipped it anyway...feeling so bad that I couldnt enjoy it like I should've.

It turned out the restaurant had planned 15 courses for us but Josh had organised a horse-drawn carriage for us and it turned up around course 8. So Josh had to tell him to wait whilst we finished dinner.

Then Josh asked for my present to be bought to the table.It arrived in a Sak's Fifth Avenue box and Josh stood behind me while I opened it.Three layers of tissue paper later I arrived at a coffee table book which had a picture of a kite in the sky...that I had photographed at The Beaches in Toronto.

He had arranged for a coffee table book filled with all my 'arty' photographs, pictures of my family and pictures of us and his family ! It was titled ' A Little Book of Us' after the first little notebook I had written for him and sent to him for Valentines Day back in February. The first page had a photo of me as a little girl and him as a little boy, both of us around 2 years of age.

I started crying around the 2nd or 3rd page and tried to compose myself as I turned each page and he whispered descriptions in my ear, what each photo meant etc.

Then I turned to the last page, noticing Josh had knelt down beside me. The page showed a photo of a ring and a message superimposed over it, starting with "Dear Tina...". It was a few paragraphs from him telling me how much he loved me. Ending with..

" Will you marry me ?"

I turned to him and saw that he was on one knee and I whispered " Yes honey" ...I dont remember which order everything happened after that but there was a kiss and embrace, a beautiful solitaire diamond ring slipped on my finger and more whispers from me of " Of course I will marry you " and a whisper from him saying " I told you I'd court you ..."

Am I makin ya sick yet ? Oh theres more to come lol !

We got up to go and Jeff came up beaming and hugged me saying "Congratulations sweety! Welcome to the family ", followed by the other staff and surrounding tables.
After many congrats and smiles and peeks at the ring etc we went outside to the waiting horse drawn carriage and were taken around the French Quarter. I couldnt stop staring at the ring ! It is so beautiful ! Josh started calling all his family and telling them I said yes as we took in the amazing sight of New Orleans on a warm summer night.

After half an hour, we were dropped off at our hotel room. Got a photo taken of us on the carriage....



...and I was led upstairs. Josh reassured me that " there's one more thing ...".

My jaw just kept on dropping.

Sure enough, he opened our hotel room door and I was greeted by the sight of a room lit up by strawberry tealight candles and red rose petals absolutely everywhere. On the bed, the windowsills, the bathroom... not one section of the room was uncovered.
The sight and scent of the room was amazing! A bucket stood on the sidetable, a bottle of champagne in it and two flutes next to it. Jazz music was playing.



My god, this night could NOT get any more romantic and memorable then this !

It turns out everyone that had contact with Josh knew about his plans and loved what he was doing.

I was filled in after this by Josh, about what had gone on 'behind the scenes'.
When we first arrived at our hotel room in New Orleans, on day one, he had left me for an hour to 'do something'. It turns out he went out in search of gift wrapping for my book. He searched everywhere, finally trying Sak's as a last resort. He approached a saleswoman and she said, with regret, that she couldnt gift wrap anything that wasnt purchased at the store. So he told her of his plans. He ended up with 4 or 5 salesgirls around him, looking through the coffee table books and listening to his plans ( a few of them actually had tears ) and the woman told him " Honey, I dont care if I get into trouble, I'm going to help you ! " in her southern drawl and proceeded to wrap the book for him. They made him promise to bring me back the next day.
Which he kept to. We were greeted with hugs and congrats the Sunday following and we spoke to one of the girls for awhile. She told us that our story, and the saleswoman who helped him, would be written about in an article of their Sak's newsletter which is circulated in all the Sak's store across the U.S.
Sunday night we had dinner at the Port Of Call where the bartender we had made friends with asked us if he could buy us a couple of glasses of champagne to celebrate our engagement.
I still couldnt stomach alcohol at this point so we declined.
Then later that night, our hotel manager, Troy, who we had also befriended during our stay ( and who also knew of Josh's plans ) asked if he could buy us drinks at the hotel bar.
Man, all these free drinks when I cant DRINK ! Murphy's Law !

Josh also told me that, when he was sitting at the hotel bar waiting for me to sober up and pull myself together, he was so stressed he started downing doubles. His brother called him and Josh explained his panic and his brother told him...
" Man, first of all, if you get drunk.....this AIIIINNNNNT gonna work ...". The girl tending bar asked him where he was going that night, looking all nice and he explained " I'm meant to be proposing to my girlfriend in approximately two hours and she's upstairs puking her guts up !". The girl took charge, saying " Honey, we're gonna fix this , dont you worry...!" and proceeded to make the club soda and coke that he took up to me.

A funny little bit of info.... I wasnt the only thrower-upper of the night. Josh was so nervous that he went to the bathroom at Cuvee after the third course and threw up also lol !

Josh's brother and sister-in-law were going to help him out by paying for dinner. David had told Jeff to put it all on his credit card. Yet Jeff confessed to Josh that he wasnt going to even charge David for it.
Cuvee comped our whole night there ( $ 400 - 500 worth of food and wine ) !! They declared it was a pleasure to be part of our night and to help make it so memorable.
I just wished that I didnt get so wasted on a quarter of a Monsoon so that I could fully enjoy the food and wine as it should've been enjoyed !

As we later learnt, when Josh asked for my gift to be bought out, the entire staff ( waiters, chef's, head chef's, Jeff etc ) all dropped what they were doing and crammed around the kitchen door to watch him propose. We didnt even notice them !
Also Jeff told Josh that about 6 tables there that night had complained about the fact that we had been given the best table in the establishment over them. Jeff explained to one couple that it was a case of his friends brother was going to propose to his girlfriend this night, hence why we were being so utterly spoiled by them in every facet. The woman of this complaining couple replied " Well how do you know MY husband isnt going to propose to ME ?!

Ummmm......maybe because you're already married ?
Snooty rich people used to getting their way, but not getting it that night lol.

Best......birthday.......EVER !!!

Babe I love you so so much. You make me the happiest I've ever been and I feel like the most loved, luckiest person in the world with you. I cant wait to marry you and it would be an honour to be your wife.

For those I know and who wanna come along to the wedding, it's gonna be on a beach in Hawaii around the end of next year/start of 2007. Start savin the pennies haha!

To see other photos of our night at Cuvee/carriage ride/ hotel room etc...as well as other photos of our stay in New Orleans, clicky here Piccies! !

( More photos will be added soon ).