Ghosts of New Orleans

Happy Monday, folks!  Let's kick it off with more NOLA talk, before moving on through the biggest, hottest, and most boringest of states next week (*cough* TEXAS)...shall we? 

I'd like to give my honest opinion of The Big Easy.  It was a little creepy.  I felt an unwelcome now and then that was subtle, inexplicable, and dark.  At the same time it has an indisputable draw to it.  Come, stay longer, make a place here, you know you want to... 

It was weird, this undercurrent.  The people are generally more hospitable, and my friend (originally from The Big Apple) is a case in point:

This is The Vagina Tree.  

It's best explained in an example, I guess.  On the ghost tour - a long and expensive one that B's awesome friend got us into at a discount - I felt a little bit of that sense from our gorgeous tour guides.  There was no reason, except that I was a poorly coordinated Yankee (see above), but I thought I got some cold shoulder from the voodoo priestesses.  I naturally assumed it's because I'm from New York.  We're kind of jerks, you know.

Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop - oldest bar in the U.S. (haunted)

The tour was amazing, though.  We went through a ton of cemeteries (please go here and read my formal review on Trip Advisor), heard local history and ghost legends, saw a voodoo ceremony, and received tips on ghost hunting/photography.  Of course, Mary told me I should have brought a real camera, cell phones won't pick up on anything (figures):

Face in bottom-left?

The creepiest takeaways are as follows:

1.  The Dualing Tree.  Brought here by van, we encircled this tree, put our hands on it, and were asked for our impressions.  Mine was an immediate knot in my solar plexus, which I did not take seriously, until it turned into a terrible stomach ache that lasted 4 hours.  I almost passed out at Port of Call later over my baked potato.  We were told afterwards that many people died here, and even the tour guides get sick the first couple months of visiting.  

Another terrible picture - you're welcome

2.  The Mansion of Madame LaLaurie.  This was our last stop, outside of a private residence in the Quarter.  This is a very haunted (and famous) home, apparently owned by Nicholas Cage for a year, in which he experienced the worst financial ruin of his life, and had some problems with the law.  The story of Madame LaLaurie is pretty damn disturbing, it kept Beth up all night in fact, and I don't want to talk about slave torture this early, so just read here.  Man, this blog gets lazier and lazier huh?

3. Beth Singing.  (Ok, it wasn't "creepy") ...I don't remember why, but here's one last crappy ghost tour pic for the road: Beth singing "When the Saints Go Marching In" in the middle of a cemetery.  Sorry, couldn't get my video to work at the time, friends-of-Beth.

There's nothing quite like walking around cemeteries at night in NOLA, we can tell you that.

Enjoy your day!

~A