NOLA Travel Journal-Part 3

Wednesday:

The next morning’s alarm woke us up at 8am, and Kristina had about a couple hours sleep, and didn’t feel well. Not Virginia, she was dancing in the shower shaking it to the left and right and singing a song from Big Al’s the night before… it was awesome, but poor Kristina just couldn’t appreciate.

This of course was the day we had pre-paid reservations to The Court of two Sisters famous jazz brunch for 9am. We put on some cute sundresses, and headed off to breakfast / brunch. We were the first ones there, once seated we helped ourselves to the fresh untouched buffet. Nibbled and listened to jazz for a while, then headed back to the hotel for some rest. Kristina was feeling tired and icky.

View inside the beautiful courtyard of the Court of Two Sisters!

After a power nap, Kristina was refreshed and feeling like a new woman, so we hit the streets once again, camera’s in hand to discover more of this awesome city. Left hotel on foot down Royal Street, and found a really great art studio.  Fortunately the artist, Craig Tracy, was in the gallery that day and we were able to meet and chat with him for a little bit. While we chatted and admired his art we found one piece that called out our name, and was an uncanny match to a scene in GIFT OF BLOOD, it was another one of those ‘Sedona Moments’ (explained in this post). So we each bought a limited addition signed print, and continued on our exploration down towards Frenchmen street but we got side tracked on Esplanade and headed in that direction. Wandered down Rampart and finally found our way around to Canal Street, where we used Kristina’s phone to locate our favorite store, Anthropologie!

The print we purchased 

We were exhausted after our long walk so we headed back to the hotel to freshen up and get ready for the evening. All gussied up once again, we walked to Frenchman st. We heard this was the place to meet the locals, and had heard rumors that there was some amazing music and swing-dancing happening at the Spotted Cat club.  Starved, we saw a quaint restaurant across the street to the club, and shared a nice meal of boneless fried chicken with mashed potatoes. Energy replenished, we crossed the street to get our groove on.

The place was hopping! Literally, everyone in there dancing was doing the lindy hop and cutting a rug, we admit, we were a little intimidated by the professional quality of dancers, so we sat back, enjoyed the show and tapped our feet to the music.

It was great, until a couple guys approached us and tried to make small talk, they seemed nice enough, but we weren’t there to meet boys. They hovered around asking us questions and not getting the hint that we weren’t interested, and then one told a stupid story about a race car he bought, while the other lit a cigarette and huffed smoke in our faces. We decided that it had been a long enough day, and intended on coming back later and opted to leave for fresh air and the hotel.

Thursday Morning:

Breakfast again at Café du Monde, for beignets. We decided that one could become addicted to the little triangle shaped sugar covered pastry concoctions. We shared a plate of three and debated on ordering another helping, but through sheer willpower didn’t.

Cafe DuMonde two words - Sooooo good!

This was the day we changed hotels, we were headed out of the happening Bourbon street area, to the more upscale, Le Pavilion. Packed up we got a taxi and headed to the next hotel and settled in once again. It was late morning, so we decided to hop on the streetcar, a couple blocks away, and head over to the beautiful garden District.  We got off, and quickly found the old, Lafayette Cemetery No.1 to explore. It was really a beautiful place; the ancient mausoleums were beautifully adorned and preserved.  It felt a little strange to be taking pictures in that particular setting however there were several other tourists doing the same thing so our discomfort was quickly forgotten As we explored, we were surprised by the feelings we got walking around. There was a ‘heaviness’ in the air around us and as we approached one crypt the heaviness built until there was a central pressure just under our ribs in our stomachs. Kristina turned to look back at Virginia, both of us with our hands on our bellies feeling the same thing. We didn’t need to say a word to know that the other felt the same. We lingered a bit and enjoyed the new sensation, not really understanding why we were picking up whatever it was. The general spookiness of the event inspired us. As we walked in and out of “heavy spots” we talked about how this is exactly how one of our significant characters will feel when she comes to New Orleans in Gift 2. The creepiness and strangeness of the occurrence put us directly in her shoes, now we can write from first hand experience.  After that we were famished so headed across the street to the renowned, Commander's Palace for lunch.  This was by far the best food we’d had in NOLA. Super delish.  We didn’t hold back ordering a lovely three course lunch, with dessert.

The cemeteries are beautiful.

The two of us at the Lafayette Cemetery 

Fat and happy we caught the train back and decided to take it easy the rest of the afternoon at the pool at the new hotel. 

Thurs night….

We had some more spooky feelings that woke both of us up in the middle of the night. The only way to describe it was the tightness in our chest and the heaviness returned. However, it was accompanied with a great sense of anxiety and angst, as if you were being watched. It was a different feeling than the loneliness from the cemetery. We found out that there is supposedly a teenager that haunts this hotel…so perhaps we had a visit from him or her!