The Big Easy

Finally we drive into New Orleans, which is amazing! Even though I'm in pretty bad shape we go downtown to Mother's to eat Cajun food for lunch. Alex had a Po Boy sandwich and I had some Jumbalaya. It is SO good but my appetite is gone and I can't eat much more than a few bites. After that we decide to wander into the French Quarter to have a few drinks before we go back to the motel. On every block in the Quarter there are at least three houses for sale. Most of the stores that aren't on Bourbon Street are closed down. We did get to go into the Voodoo Store and Museum while we were there and we got a drink at LaFite's Blacksmith Shop, a blacksmith shop that was turned into a bar in the 1700's and where vampires have been known to drink.

The next day we wake up and plan our day. We're going to get doughnuts at Cafe Du Monde, then walk to St Louis I Cemetery and see the Voodoo Queen's grave, then go to the Garden District to see its layout and houses, then go to Bourbon Street for drinks, then go on the Vampire Tour, then go get more drinks on Bourbon Street.

When we get to Jackson Square it is filled with people reading Tarot cards. There is even an older man and lady playing music. The Cafe has a line around the block for doughnuts and Alex doesn't want to wait in the line so we start walking toward the cemetery. On the way we find Community Coffee House where we both get coffees to go and I get a bagel to eat because I'm hungry. While eating I see a nightlife magazine and pick it up because it has a list of all the best bars in town.

Coffees in hand, we walk to the cemetery. It is falling apart. Even the graves that have been restored are just plastered over with stucco. I felt strange as I walked through all the above ground tombs, brick piles falling apart. At one time while I was in the protestant section I heard a woman screaming to her boyfriend in an apartment not 200 feet from the edge of the cemetery. There was rap music playing. I thought, what a contrast. Nevertheless I was excited to find out that the architect of the Capitol building in Washington DC was buried there with his son. And Plessy of Plessy v. Furgeson was buried there too. He was the man who in about 1900 defied the separate but equal laws on the trains and sat in the white section only to be imprisoned. At the time the supreme court upheld the laws but reversed it in Brown v. The Board of Education.

After the cemetary we walk down to Bourbon street and get drinks at the Olde Absinthe Bar. After this we check out the Garden District only to find that not much is going on. The houses are beautiful to see though and there are so many trees! When we return to Bourbon Street we go back to the Absinthe Bar and have a few beers, spending the rest of our cash. After the beers we go back to the hotel and make some dinner only to return in an hour for our Vampire tour.

When we get to the tour there are probably 75 people waiting, so they split us up into three groups. Our guide's name is Louis and he's a fourth generation New Orleanser. He tells us great stories about vampires in the French Quarter and I love walking through those streets at night. There are gas lanterns still glowing outside of houses and you can see inside the huge windows into the parlors of the old houses. The yellow light reflects off flowers and vines growing on black fences, and drunken people stumble down the street singing songs. At the end of the tour Alex has written down some things for us to look up online and we're both feeling better and happy to have come to New Orleans at last.