New Orleans, Day 2

My boss wanted to go to church this morning, so I met up with her for breakfast after the service in the hotel.  I told my boss before I left for this trip that the only goal tha I had was to eat some beignets.  My boss went up to get a light jacket since it was breezy while I asked the hotel consierge this morning about where I could find beignets.  She was like "Gurrrrrl (pulls out a map and proceeds to draw the route on the map), Cafe De Monde."  The two of us set out on our walking excursion in search of this place and when we got there, there was quite a line.  Actually, there were 2 lines and after asking a grumpy looking balloon guy, I learned that one line was for sit in and another was for take out.  Either way, the lines were kinda long, but moving. After about a 30 minute wait in line, I got my 3 beignets and a bottle of water.  My boss got the same thing and we enjoyed our food outside while listening to a guy play on his sax.  The food was amazing, so I can see what all the fuss was about!

The "sit-in" line at Cafe Du Monde.

Success!

Now we had to walk off all the food that we ate so the two of us walked around the French Quarter and then decided to do a bus tour from 1-3 PM so that we could explore the rest of the city without having to walk the whole thing.  The tour was done through VIP City Tours, and I really enjoyed it.  I thought the tour guide named Dino (yes, like the Flintstones' pet dinosaur) was entertaining as well as knowledgeable.

St. Louis Cathedral

Beer steins that were attached to the ceiling of Pat O'Briens Bar.

Notice the X's that were leftover as a reminder of Hurricane Katrina.  The rescuers marked each house to let others know that the house was searched and on what date and if there were any bodies inside.  The Lower 9th Ward doesn't let any tour buses through that area anymore because they didn't want their misfortune to be seen as something to gawk at.  I saw some houses that were in pretty bad shape...I can't imagine what the Lower 9th Ward looked like.

St. Louis Cemetary #3: Notice the above ground tombs.  Families could purchase a family tomb so that the families could be buried together.  Cost: Approximately $50,000.

Families that couldn't afford a tomb could purchase a spot on the wall.  The tour guide mentioned a creepy fact.  Back in the day when yellow fever was a public health concern, some people died, but some people went into a coma.  At the time, you probably couldn't tell the difference between "dead" and "coma", so they buried comatose people without even knowing it...essentially burying people alive!  People would wake up and totally freak out.  To solve this from happening in the future, they tied a bell to the dead person's toe and sealed the wall.  If the bell rang, that was the cemetary keeper's sign to rescue the person in the tomb.  Now, that's a job that I wouldn't want to have!

Some guy in the tour group asked if someone was trying to get out of this tomb.  Har har.  Not funny!

The house where the first Real World: New Orleans season was filmed.

Lake Pontchartrain

After the tour, we grabbed a quick late lunch before getting candy for the exhibit and heading back to the hotel.  We had about an hour break and then it was time to head to the meeting location where we had our exhibit.  The exhibit hall had some food there to entice members: beef on a stick, chicken on a stick, mac and cheese balls, artichoke hearts, etc.  Many of the exhibitors had candy too.  There was a kids section that had hot dogs, mac and cheese and some huge cookies.  I went over to see if I could snag a cookie, but the lady was like "This is for kids only."  I wanted to be like "Look, lady.  We have 30 minutes left.  You want all this food to go to waste" but I decided to be polite and just walk away.  Fine.  I'll go enjoy some adult mac and cheese and some beignets for the second time today!  :D