Day 21: Oh, Omar.

Ah, Beale Street. I was very excited to return for round 2, especially since A: I did not have to drive, B: I did not have to get up early the next day, and C: I knew what to expect, and so was even more excited to go get crazy. We met up with Nick and Aimee, and headed out to the liquor store across the street called 3 Habits (beer, cigarettes and porn), and the store next to it called The 4th Habit, which sold liquor. Walking in, the bottles were on shelves along the wall, encased in glass. It was like going into a booze zoo, where you got your brown bag passed to you through a drawer. Awesome. We decided to have the front desk call us a cab, and we waited for a white van, driven by someone named Omar. ( I think he was dating the front desk girl so we got tons of information about him which I found humorous.) He arrived, and we were instantly charmed by him, and chatted non stop from the hotel to Beale. I took his number, and we promised to call him when we were ready to head back to the hotel. Had a great dinner, and started the drinking. First stop: the shack that sold 32 oz beers for $4. $4!! Went back to Coyote Ugly, dedicated to getting Aimee up on the bar, and after 2 beers, a couple swigs from my flask of Jack, I got my wish. We danced like rockstars, and were then stuck up there for 20 minutes, because there were girls on either sides of us doing body shots.  From there it was a marathon of drinking, dancing, and drunk dialing. Just wonderful wonderful wonderful. 

Long story short, we eventually could drink no more, and called Omar for our ride. We were hanging out on the corner waiting for our big white van to show up, so when we were finally saw it we jumped in hugging and high fiving Omar, chatting on and on about I don't even know what. The entire time we were driving home I found it strange that Omar's cell kept calling me, but I was really not caring. But by the time we pulled into the paring lot it clicked. This was not Omar. This was not our big white van. We had just made total asses of ourselves to some random cab driver, and confirmed the drunk tourist theory: drunk tourists are dumb. 

The rest of the night, not so fun, nor was the morning. So finally crawling out of bed at 2pm, I think I was still a bit drunk, but at least I felt slightly human. Pretty low key day today, went to the Rock and Soul Museum, which was amazing and beautiful and very moving. I learned that Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13 year old cousin, and find that very funny. I also learned that the Mississippi river looks the same down here as it does back home, but it was neat to see the ferry boats carting all the drunk middle aged people around because they couldn't hack it on Beale. The boys wanted to do Beale again, but both Aimee and I were all worn out, in need of some R and R, more specifically alone R and R. 

Driving to Mississippi tomorrow, though I love Memphis, I am looking forward to seeing some more of the south.