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May242007
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Evening Out |
I went to work as usual and generally did usual work this afternoon. I left work early today to meet some friends downtown. At about three, I left the office for the day and took the streetcar and headed down to the quarter. Bianca was in town for a week or so. Toni, whom I haven’t seen in quite some time, recently graduated from Northwestern and is back home in New Orleans.I got off the streetcar in front of Canal Place. We previously agreed to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and I went to buy tickets in advance on the off chance the pre-release screening would sell out. Eventually, I met Bianca and Toni in front of the mall. We found a parking spot on Chartres Street. We walked down to the gem and lapidary shop that Bianca is so fond of. She visits the place whenever she has the chance. We were in the shop for about a half hour before Bianca made her selection. I was actually expecting it to take longer. After leaving the shop we walked through the French Market, as we had some time to spare before dinner.I made 5:00 reservations for Tujague’s Restaurant. After we got there and seated, I felt rather silly going to the trouble to make and confirm reservations. The place was empty. This wasn’t very worrying as I already knew this was a very nice establishment, and we arrived right when the place opened. Our waiter said things pick up around seven. I got a call from Andrey as we were starting the beef brisket course. I invited him to join us for the rest of dinner and the movie later and he accepted. He arrived in time for the entre.As for the food, it was quite good. Tujague’s menu is fixed so the offerings are somewhat widely known. You only choose the entre. Toni and I had the shrimp pasta and Bianca and Andrey had the filet mignon. Overall, it was a nice experience, inspite of the cost. I would have been better had the dining room been populated though.After dinner, we all walked down to canal place. We had plenty of time before the movie so we just wandered a while, eventually walking outside to the riverfront. Toni recognized a fellow Karr student that I didn’t know. After speaking with her for a bit, we walked back to Canal Place.We took our seats in the theater a few minutes before the movie started. Although this was technically a pre-release screening of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, the show did not sell out. To be honest, I did not much care for this movie at all. Although it certainly had some entertaining moments, they were few and far between the nearly three hour movie. For such a long movie, it was confusing and rather short on plot. I really didn’t like it at all and it was a chore to watch at least I saw it in good company, which made it a lot better.After the movie, we walked across the quarter, down Frenchman St. a bit and then back to our respective cars and then home.