New Orleans Trip!

For my sister Tessa's 17th Birthday, Drea and I decided to take Tessa to see New Orleans! It was really fun! I have been there once many years ago so I was excited to see more of it and the history of the city. The first night we were there, we did a walking tour of the French Quarter and our tour guide had great stories of things that had happened in the town that gave rise to rumors of vampires. It was very cool and I learned a lot.

We also walked along Jackson Square and took some pictures together.

Love this cute baby bib!

In case you don't get the reference, it is traditional to hide a plastic baby in a king's cake, a dessert had around Mardi Gras. The baby is for good luck through the year but also means the finder is to purchase the next cake! 

 I just loved this name and the French-style spelling!

Check out some gorgeous architecture!

We started out our second day at the WWII museum, very powerful experience. We rushed over to the aquarium and really only spent 20 minutes there because we were in a hurry for our steamboat cruise.

I think one of my favorite things for the trip was lunch on the Steamboat Natchez. It was such a fun riverboat cruise! And the food was amazing! and not spicy!

Passed some large ships!

And then we took some time in this garden while waiting to eat dinner.

Check out these crazy shoes in one of the clothing shops in the French Quarter

This is our scary hotel room we got. Yeah, no number. Pretty special there.

On the day we left, we stopped by a few more places. One being the St. Louis cemetery #1 where we could see some of the oldest mausoleums in the city. Dating back to the 1700s, they reuse the mausoleums by waiting a year and a day and then pushing the bodies to the back where they fall down a chute and then they can place a new body. When new bodies are placed, the break down, as gently as they can, the gravestone covering the hole and then place new ones.

This is Marie Laveau's unmarked grave and people leave trinkets and mark the stone with an x to make a wish for her to grant.

 This is an example of the gravestones being moved to make room for a new body.

Our guide said some fancy actor bought this "tomb" for their body.

Gorgeous statues and artwork.

This was insane. That's a grave stone that has sunk. I took pictures but they didn't come out well, but you can find seashells all around showing how it was under water. The guide said that after Katrina, this grave yard was 17 feet under water.

Tessa and Drea leaving trinkets.

Another stop we made on our way home was to Longue Vue House and Gardens (pronounced "long" ). It was so gorgeous! Built in the 1930s, it had the original furniture and  amazing gardens all around. I wasn't allowed to take photos of the interior of the house but we got a lot around the gorgeous gardens.

This stone sidewalk was amazing!

Happy Birthday Tessa!!