We had a walking tour of the French Quarter and Cemetery booked for today at 1 pm.
Cafe du Monde was in the same general area so we just kind of made our way over there.
Some of these pictures are ones that My Honey captured.
I always looking at his pictures when we get home because I notices things that I often don't.
Wonder if it is the original House of Blues?
So many awesome light fixtures every where.
More of the sights we saw on our walk to Cafe du Monde.
They very much love the green, gold and purple here.
Made it to our destination.
The place was packed.
There is a very limited menu.
The prices are reasonable.
We of course had beignets and cafe du lait.
The beignets were good, basically just reminded me of the fried bread dough mom made for us when we were young just completely doused with icing sugar.
Hard to eat without getting icing sugar all over the place.
We gave it a valiant effort though.
It just started pouring while we were sitting there - thankfully it waited until we got here to start.
We hung out for a bit hoping the rain would subside but it didn't so we headed to a little shop next door to get cover ups or something.
They had some neat stuff.
I got Miss H a pair of earrings that looked just like this.
I really like these day of the dead masks.
This made me laugh.
I ended up getting a charm for my pandora bracelet too while we were here.
I like that it is so colorful.
We browsed around a few little shops but eventually we had to step out into the rain.
It was just coming down in buckets.
My Honey noticed these drain spouts - they are so awesome!
We found the meeting spot for the walking tour and checked to see if it was still on in spite of all the rain - it was.
We still had some time to kill so we were going to do a little more shopping.
Then I spotted this.....
Central Grocery.
This is one of the spots My Honey wanted to check out while we were here.
He had heard about how great their Muffuletta's were.
We had some time and so we stopped in.
It's basically a little store with a deli of sorts and a few tables in the back like a bar.
They are constantly making the sandwiches so they always have some ready.
You don't get to pick your toppings, they are all made the same way.
They are huge!
Someone is excited!
It was cut into 4 pieces, I could only eat a quarter and I was full.
The olive taste was a little stronger than I like but it was a really delicious sandwich - very filling.
As we were sitting in Central Grocery enjoying the Muffelleta, an announcement came over the loud speaker saying flash flooding expected in the area.
I was a little freaked out but nobody else seemed to even pay attention.
I figured the walking tour would surely be cancelled now so we walked back over there to check and it was still on.
Apparently they get these warnings so much that they don't really pay attention.
The tour guide showed up and he had brought bananas for everyone - that was really kind of him.
Thankfully we had picked up rain ponchos because it was still just a pouring out there.
I didn't want to have my phone out in the weather so most of the pictures from today are ones that My Honey took.
The tour got started right at 1pm, and the first thing we passed was Joanie on the Pony, so you know we had to get another picture!
There is a huge catholic population here in New Orleans and this was a convent.
There we all go with our umbrellas and ponchos.
There were 3 girls from London, a couple from Spain and their sister in law from Paris all on the tour.
That was kind of cool seeing as New Orleans back in the beginning passed back and forth between the Spanish and the French.
The rain just wasn't letting up.
This is our tour guide - Stephen.
He is fairly new at what he does but he did a great job.
He was kind of a funny guy.
He was born and raised here in New Orleans and you can tell that he really loves his hometown and he loves people too.
Just a random wooden Burt Reynolds portrait.
My Honey snapped this shot of our tour group.
The rain sure cleared the place out.
On a sunny day, this place was just packed with people.
Great license plate.
Love the floor to ceiling windows - they all open up like doors.
The house is raised up then those two black circles are like vents to allow the air to flow through.
Just a talking parrot we passed by and said "hi" too.
Lots of towns paint these electrical boxes - it's a great idea, they go from a big blank eyesore to a piece of art.
We walked all through the French Quarter and learned some of the history of it then eventually ended up here - Saint Louis Cemetery Number One.
This particular cemetery is no longer open to the public and the only way to see it is on a tour like the one we are doing today.
They have all these above ground tombs which are really amazing but sadly they are in terrible condition.
Just look at them all.
This is the statue that was featured in Easy Rider.
Peter Fonda climbed up on it and snuggled the statue when he was on LSD and the actors did some other stuff that was very disrespectful and the church wasn't very happy about.
It was the reason that movies are no longer able to be filmed there and it is closed to the general public.
People are not allowed to buy plots or tombs in this cemetery but I guess that rule gets waived if you are rich.
Nicholas Cage purchased a plot and built this pyramid shaped tomb here for himself.
Not sure if this statue has fallen into disrepair or if it was meant to have no arm?
People do seem to still be leaving things for loved ones here which is nice.
This one seems to have remained in quite good condition.
It looks like someone was just recently buried here.
It really is a cool thing to see if you ever get the chance.
Someone recently did some painting on this one - maybe their loved one enjoyed color?
The voodoo queen - Marie Leveau - is believed to be buried here in this cemetery - no one is absolutely certain where.
They do believe she is in one of three different tombs and this is one of them.
People still come and ask for her assistance with things, they mark these three x's and leave her little favors.
It's quite interesting how these tombs work.
The deceased are inside the coffins, which are put into these tombs then sealed.
They must stay there for 1 year and 1 day.
At that time, it can be reopened and is ready for another person.
Because the summers are so hot, it basically cremates the bodies and so hundreds of bodies can be buried in the same tomb.
If a family member passes away before the tomb is ready to be opened, they can go into these mass tombs which kind of act like waiting rooms.
Or folks that don't have family tombs can go in here as well.
Catholics only recently started to allow cremation so up until that time, it was a good way to get around that.
There was a little section at the back of the cemetery for non-catholics to be buried.
That's me - oh so very wet and soggy by this point.
Oh and apparently we had a celebrity of sorts in our midst.
Turns out the spanish fellow that was on our tour with us is a film director.
He never actually mentioned it himself but the tour guide Stephen was making a little bit of a fuss over him at the end, getting his picture taken with him and he told us.
Told us to watch for his new movie The Maus.
So My Honey googled it when we got home and sure enough, there it was.
I thought that was kind of neat.
After the tour, the English girls and us headed back to the tour headquarters with the tour guide Stephen.
He took us through churches
through the back alley of churches
There was this little place beside the church where you could light a candle.
Growing up catholic I have seen this before and I really liked the little room they had it set up in.
As usual there were lots of tributes to Mary.
The girls ended up leaving us so it was down to My Honey & I and Stephen.
We kind of just hung out with him for a while.
He was an interesting fellow that is for sure.
He would be talking to us then see a piece of garbage that he would pick up and deposit into a proper garbage can without even missing a beat in what he was saying.
He righted traffic cones that had fallen over and just generally noticed little things like that along the way and fixed them if he could.
He encouraged us to look down alleys to peoples back yards, through construction site fences and also to just go into restaurants and hotels to check them out.
We did just that at this one restaurant, Antoine's.
It looked like kind of a fancy place but the host invited us in and gave us a tour of the place.
Mardi Gras has a king every year that they call Rex and the green room pictured above is called the Rex Room.
Every year they host a dinner for Rex.
It is a very swanky to do.
There were all kinds of different little rooms in the place.
They have a gigantic wine cellar.
They did have some really old bottles but lost them to Katrina.
I think this was called the escargot room.
Another room, the walls here were covered with pictures of celebrities that have eaten here in the past.
They called it the Dungeon because it was in fact a prison cell at one time.
The Mystery Room.
It aquired this name during prohibition - folks would take their mugs of "coffee" with them through the ladies room into the mystery room where they would top up their "coffee" with alcohol.
All in all this place had 15 different themed dining rooms which are all open to the public.
Pretty cool place and it was super nice of the host to take us on the tour.
Next we came upon the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum which Stephen highly recommended.
He told us that his grandfather was acutally a pharmacist and had donated a lot of his personal collection to the museum.
We did try to make it back later but it was closed.
Saw this through the window and it was intriguing so we popped our heads in to the little shop.
They knew Stephen personally in there, he has popped in there lots before.
He really likes to get to know the people in his community which is super cool.
There were lots of kitties in there.
It was like a kitty sanctuary.
They had a big weaving loom in there and that is what they did in there.
This kitty was especially playful with My Honey.
She had taken photos of her cats and made them into cards so we picked out one as a souvenir.
Stephen walked over to the French Market with us (which was closing up) and he recommended this Crepe Cart to us so we stopped to check it out.
My Honey got us one that had bananas, coconut and I think almonds.
It could have used some creamy sauce but other than that it was really delicious.
Stephen joined us for a snack - he got one of his own.
After this we parted ways but we really enjoyed our day with him.
He was an interesting fellow and genuinely good & kind.
He looked him up on Facebook as soon as I got back to the hotel and added him as a friend which is not something that I do all that often.
We had passed a restaurant on the way the Stephen had recommended to us so we tried to go back there for supper.
Thankfully the rain had stopped by this point because we had quite the time trying to find it.
I had to turn my phone on and google directions.
Luckily My Honey is really good at remembering names so he knew what the name of the restaurant was otherwise we wouldn't have had a chance.
Found it!
The building is so old - I really like the look of it.
The Napolean Room
I like how the sign is in the shape of Napolean's hat.
Just as we arrived there, a marching band went by so My Honey followed them down the street to take a few pictures.
It's just normal around here for a parade like this to randomly pass by.
There were a bunch of people following them.
They look like they are having fun!
I opted to wait inside for him as my feet were feeling a little lot sore!
The inside was just as old looking as the outside
My Honey made it back to join me.
I orderd the bruschetta for an appetizer for us.
It perked my interest because it had pistachio pesto on it.
It looked unusual but was really tasty.
My Honey had a po boy.
I had a grilled chicken sandwich that had slices of apple and brie on it.
I think since we had our Pearisian burger out at the golf course that I prefer the pear over the apple with brie.
It was still good though
We just had to try their version of bread pudding.
It was a bit dry, could have used some sauce but it was ok.
All in all the meal was good and very reasonably priced.
I would go back there again.
After we finished eating we called it a night and headed back to the hotel room.
Got lots of steps in again today.
When we got back to the hotel, I charged my phone.
I think I may need a new battery as it doesn't seem to be holding a charge for very long.
Once it was charged back up a little I had a look at Facebook.
I love when these memories pop up.
Usually if I post something on Facebook it's something that I've enjoyed so in most cases, they are fun to look at and remember.
This was October of 2015.
We were heading to London and I was SO EXCITED.
I had just went to the bank and purchased some English Pounds.
They have nice colorful money just like us.
Also picked up a converter - can't live without my blow dryer!
Then this was just a post I saw from a store in Edmonton.
The Barn Owl.
They have lots of home decor items that I love.
I want to try to make one of these.
Thought this might be a good Christmas gift idea for the girls for their lake lots.
More ideas on things I could possibly make.
The little picket fence caught my eye.
Like the Welcome Sign.
I have a thing for bird houses.
This might be a Christmas Gift option too.
I like the saying.
Like this idea.
I am really into this folk artsy stuff.
Like this saying even better!
Like the chick.
Love the flower.
Like both of these.
Thought this would be cute and easy to make.
I love crafting - I feel so accomplished when I get something completed.
I want to get back into it and plan to do so this winter.
Well, that's all for today folks.
Until next time, be happy!
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