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We managed to make our bus trip second time around, thanks to our alarm, a hotel wake up call and Dad calling us! We checked into a hotel after a 10 hour bus journey from Memphis.
We decided to stay in the French Quarter and as we drove through the city it was quite sad to see many of the businesses had closed down, there was still quite a lot of construction work going on, but on the whole, apart from how quiet it was, there was very little evidence of Hurricaine Katrina. Many of the businesses have not reopened or haven't returned to the area, mainly due to lack of workers, as many were evacuated and haven't returned.
We headed straight out for dinner on the famous Bourbon Street (think of a less cultural Amsterdam - without drugs!), the street was filled with bars offering sex shows and shops filled with adult toys, quite seedy and not quite what we were expecting! We managed to find a nice bar though, with a live Jazz band playing, where we enjoyed a famous 'hurricaine' cocktail (around before Katrina!). The next day we walked around the French Quarter, which was really pretty, the buildings were 'old' with lots of fancy ironwork and balconies. We went to the French Market, but there were very few stalls around, so we headed to the Louisiana State Museum which is situated in Jackson Square, in the heart of the French Quarter. There we learnt about colonial America, the Civil War, Slave Market, the Civil Rights movement and Mardi Gras. After we walked to the Misssissippi River and took a tram to Downtown (or Ghost town!) we tried the famous and very healthy Fried Beignets (French square doughnuts) which were covered with about 5" of Sugar! Very messy and naughty, but very nice!
That night we took a Haunted Tour through the French Quarter. Our eccentric guide told us about a French doctor and his wife who tortured and experimented on their slaves in a secret attic (he went into great and gruesome detail!) who finally fled to France without being punished. The police that guarded the house from the mobs, who wanted revenge, reported hearing moans and cries for help, but were unable to find any people hidden even though they removed walls to find where the noises were coming from. When the new owners renovated the building they found scratches under the wooden floors and remains of a number of human bodies! He also told us about the stories behind Vampires in New Orleans, which were started by the Nuns, to get people to go to the church for protection. There was a recent vampire story, where a group of women lured a man back to his hotel and a woman slit his throat and drank his blood. She was sentenced in 2003 with 5 years in prison (her Dad was rich and well known in New Orleans!). We also heard about Pere Antoine, a priest who nursed the sick and never caught a disease himself, this was said to be a miracle and some say you can still hear him singing by the church! The last story was of a woman who stole from the dead at a mortuary that she worked at, apparently she is still seen in the building, which is now a bar! Surprisingly we didn't see any ghosts ourselves, but it was a really good night! For dinner we tried local dishes from the South; Jambalaya (rice dish), Red Beans and Gumbo (seafood stew/soup) and of course a Pecan Pie - mmmmmm!
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