Stupid People Abound

When i arrived in New Orleans, I immediately headed to get my luggage then to determine how to get to the hotel. There was no shuttle from the hotel, so that was not a possibility. I was left with three options; rent a car, get a taxi, or take a "hotels" shuttle. Renting a car was not in my travel authorization, so it was either a taxi or this shuttle. According to the hotel the cost of a cab is $33 to the hotel. The shuttle is $20. In fact, I later find out that the first two people in a cab is still only $33. So why not double up? Stupidity according to the rather irate taxi driver I had taken from the Lois Armstrong International Airport to my hotel.

At the outset of my trip to downtown, my taxi driver is yelling at me in some foreign tongue of how stupid the travelers are. I guess I'm just a sucker because I didn't look for someone else to ride with, but I was not about to take the "shuttle" because the shuttle takes people to a number of different hotels. So instead of waiting up to an hour to get to my hotel, I went by taxi.

On my way into the city, I saw the superdome, and all sorts of rather seedy places. When I arrived at my hotel, I checked in, requested my refrigerator that was part of my reservation, went to my room and unpacked and got ready to go to the convention center. According to my taxi driver the convention center was only 6 or 7 blocks away, so I considered walking until the hotel staff told me that there were special buses to the center. So I waited.

While waiting at the hotel, I noticed something rather odd. In the center of Canal street there are trolley car tracks, on solid concrete and metal tracks. On these tracks were walking two older people, a couple I think, with canes! They were walking along a rail line, more like hobbling along it, with canes. The first thought in my mind was these people were either trying to commit suicide, or they were just plain stupid. The more I thought about it, I think it's the latter.

Another rather interesting and stupid situation that continues to defy imagination, is the U-turns our buses make in the center of the streets to take us to the convention center. It is something to see. Tonight, our driver actually stood up in her seat to ensure she did not hit a parked car on the side of the road. All the other drivers simply backed up to make sure they missed the cars. They move these buses like they are small cars, agile. As a rider, it's scarier than riding in a taxi. It's just good to know that stupidity abounds in the human race, and Darwin's principles of evolution continue.