Carl's Blog

Walked down Canal street to the river front. I thought about taking a street car, but after yesterday’s attempt and a notice on the official app, I decided walking would be faster.

I tried to get a beignet from Cafe Du Mont again, but it wasn’t open at 8:45 AM. So, I went to church again, but this time with my DLSR camera to get better pictures and I knew the doors opened at 9 AM.

I thought about getting another coffee at Cafe Beignet near the meeting point for the New Orleans tour, but decided I’d already had enough at breakfast so just decided to take some pictures of the steam boat and train station nearby.

I’m now sitting on the tour bus waiting for the tour to start.

Stop 1: Cemetery 3  Hear are some facts about New Orleans funeral practices.

You cannot open a grave for a year and a day. So, if some dies before the time frame, you have to rent a tomb or find a friend who will loan you one for the time. These above ground tombs get up to 400 degrees in the summer speeding up the decomposition process. The boneman will come back later and place the remains in a bag and reseal them in the tomb. These bags now, because of Hurricane Katrina, are non biodegradable with markers and identifiers of the deceased. The flood waters destroyed and damaged many of the tombs and remains were moved around with the waters.

Interesting story behind this tomb below. Skelly spent all her money on the tomb to spite her daughter who is not legally allowed to be laid to rest inside. Obviously, this was not a good mother/daughter relationship.

Some more facts… Families take care of tombs and reuse them for family members. The ones that are falling apart are family lines that have ended.

Now on to the Garden District… The Garden District was created from an old plantation that was subdivided. The further away from river for wealthy closer to river for working class, industry smell. Lessons are architecture

2nd most haunted house in New Orleans – yellow fever victims – Nicholas Cage owned it before going bankrupt.

After the tour ended I had to find a Lucky Dog Vendor on my nieces recommendation.

Kate, the tour guide said I should try a Sazerac.

So here we go…

I went to the Ritz to buy my sister one of their signature candles. Check out the decorations in the lobby.

Then it’s time for a short rest.

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It’s only 5 PM, and I’m not going to just sit in my room. So off to Bourbon Street..

I’m hungry. Let’s go eat at a vampire restaurant.

The place is called Vampire Apothecary Restaurant and Bar. Check the linked website to learn more. I highly recommend a visit. The portions are small, but the taste is amazing.

There is a magic show later, so I’m eating and drinking slowly.

The Sazerac here was so much better. It had to be the handcrafted absinthe and bitters.

Time for tea and cake.

I’m going to call it an end to this post. Maybe I will tell you about the magic show in tomorrow’s post, but maybe not.