a little voodoo in the big easy

Over Christmas break, my bestie Lynley came home from Logan, where she is getting her masters. We hung out a bunch. One day we went to one of our favorite cities... New Orleans! We shopped, ate beignets, had lunch at Port of Call, went on a voodoo/grave yard tour (she is taking a folk tale class this semester so it was research for that class). It was not worth the money. Our tour guide took us to the oldest or second oldest grave yard in the Quarter. We saw Marie Laveau's grave, some guy that gambled away his millions from the 1800's, and Plessy's grave (from Plessy vs Ferguson).Oh she also showed us this grave that the front came off and we could see a rotting corpse - gross. I felt it a bit disrespectful and probably should have called the grave yard keeper or whoever, but I didn't. After that she took us by Armstrong park, which was across the street from this Voodoo Priestest's temple we were supposed to go to. Our tour guide told us about people being murdered in the park and then pointed to the building we needed to go to, then she left us standing there in not the best part of the city...great. Our little group crossed the street to the voodoo temple and it was locked. We could see someone in there but nothing. We all stood around for about 20 minutes and Lynley and I decided to leave and go get a burger at Port of Call. Which by the way was 100 times more enjoyable than that tour. We were both disappointed. I suggested next time we go to the voodoo temple and tell them we are with the tour group, just so we can complete the tour. We'll see. After lunch we wandered the Quarter some more. It was close to Christmas and random people were belting Christmas carols through the streets. Oh I love that city! We left when it started getting dark and went Uptown to the Creole Creamery for icecream. Then we went to Lakeside Mall for some shopping/more beignets/people watching. It was a great day.
River boat on the mighty Mississippi River
Breakfast at Cafe Du Monde
Jackson Square
Shopping at the French Market
Street art
Makeshift jazz band singin the tunes of Christmas
famed water meter cover
St Louis Cemetery Number One

Marie Laveau's grave (well at least they are pretty sure it is...there are two in this cemetery-they think the other is her daughter)

Best burger and potato at Port of Call
Creole Creamery - I had the sampler of lavander honey, cookie dough, creole cream cheese and mint dark chocolate - I really really liked the lavander honey
Lynley having an Ice cream fudge sundae

The heading on a paper at the Creamery...now they are saying Drew Brees for Mayor...Who Dat!