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Published: October 11th 2011
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It wasn’t until my second day into the trip when I remembered about the gulf’s oil spill and that I should be scared of the seafood. My trip to New Orleans for the first time ever left me embracing their food and instead scared of other things!
We had driven through the night when we arrived to N’awlins Thursday morning. The trip took us around 8 hours from our midnight departure in Atlanta. It was a fun weekend trip for me, my childhood friend Heather, her mom (Sharon), and friend (Donna). We had incredible luck when we arrived to the W hotel and were able to check into our room that early! The hotel location was great, and ensured exercise. It was around a mile walk to the French quarter and with the beautiful weather (85 degree highs and 72 degree lows) it was perfect for walking!
I had never been to New Orleans before, but saw no evidence of any Katrina remnants where I visited Bourbon Street, the French Quarter, or in the Garden District along the trolley line. I found the people to be incredibly friendly. From what I had described to me, the numbers of tourists
are down. The city by no means felt vacant, but I get the feeling there should have been more people on Bourbon Street. (If anything, the advantage is to the current travelers with greater odds of catching beads!)
One of the things we did while we were there was a ghost tour. I knew the city was one of the most haunted in the world, but I had no idea it had the history it did. Katrina wasn’t the first time the city saw mass destruction. Fires had played a large role in the history of the city too.
We took a tour though haunted history after paying a deposit through a storefront earlier that day. (We’d later learned we’d been ripped off. There are no deposits. Incredibly a company was able to operate and scam people from an actual storefront… not just a cart or hut.) Our group of around 20 people then proceeded to walk through the city. It didn’t take long before we reached place after place of hauntings.
Much of our tour took us along Royal Street. Most notably was the Lalaurie Mansion. It’s history was of a successful family which would
later be discovered to have hidden horrible secrets of mutilation behind its walls. (Heather and myself had to step away from the group as the tour guide was explaining what had happened. I felt very ill.) I’d never thought about it before but it was interesting to realize that the reason most people think of hauntings at night is because there are fewer distractions so they realize more of what is around them. Needless to say, I didn’t feel anything “scary” on the tour but did get an interesting picture with a mist in it.
We had two celebrity sitings on our trip. Donna swears we passed Bill Murray walking on the street and the other was staying in our hotel. I was at the rooftop pool with Heather when 50 cent walked by to use the gym. I snapped a picture when he came out with my iPhone, but it's too blurry to prove it was him.
Other highlights of the trip include Bourbon Street, the Easter Parade (Beads!!), and a better understanding of a city very rich in culture and history!
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