2013 Nervous Breakdown Tour: The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans....

New Orleans: Saturday November 2, 2013

A wander around the streets prior to my cemetary walking tour led me to find some fish....

It's amazing how quiet Bourbon Street is in the morning....

My tour began in front of the Zombie Cigar shoppe.....love it!!

Our guide, Ernie, was a real character and had lots of stories to tell about the city. New Orleans was built where it was so that there was a clear line of sight up and down the Mississippi. Also, a bayou connects Lake Pontrachain and the River....settlements always appearing along waterways. Still doesn't make sense to me though....

St. Louis Cemetary No. 1 houses approximately 100,000 bodies in a very small amount of space. The way it works is when you die you pay for an opening and closing of a tomb. The tomb is opened and you are placed in there. Prior to embalming, it would take about a year for the body to decompose (a lot of heat is generated in the tombs), but with modern embalming, it takes about seven years for bodies to decompose.

After the specified amount of time, you pay an opening fee and the remains are scooped out and then placed at the bottom of the tomb so the next person can be put in the tomb. So some hold 10 or more remains, but others like the society tombs (for example the Masons) can hold 100s.

There are wall vaults like this one.....

Or traditional vaults.....

The most famous grave and the second most visited grave in the US is that of Marie Leavau. The first most popular being Elvis'....I'll be seeing him soon....

Legend has it you mark three Xs using red brick and scratch you left foot three times or knock three times on the tomb and Marie will grant your wish. When your wish has been granted, you should return to the tomb and circle your Xs.

This is reportedly where she is buried....the bones of a voodoo priestess can be used for some serious magic, so therefore it is believed that her family had her remains buried somewhere else secretly.

One of the other famous graves in the cemetary is Nicholas Cage's....he hasn't died yet, but this is where he will be buried....

"Easy Rider" had scenes filmed in the cemetary: after taking LSD the characters ran around the cemetary and Dennis Hopper did some things best not done in a cemetary. It is "believed" that he stole the heads from the Italian vault.....

When the local parishioners saw the movie and informed the church about what happened in the movie, the church banned the making if any movie in the cemetary with the exception of documentaries. So all scenes from movies are filmed in the nearby Lafayatte Cemetary.

There are just some amazing tombs located in the cemetary.....

There is a second tomb for Marie Laveau, but Ernie ensured us the first one was the correct one....as far as he knows.....

After the tour, I caught up with Amber in Louis Armstrong Park which is just across the road from our hotel....

Brent had flown in from NYC for a quick stop visit, so we left the boys to their Liverpool game in a pub. I needed to have a bourbon on Bourbon Street....

I had a bourbon on Bourbon Street in a bar called On Bourbon....that's the trifecta right there....

Amber had a Grasshopper and we are now craving peppermint Aero bars....

After getting a little sozzled, Amber very kindly accompanied me to the Acme Oyster Bar. Adam Richman of Man vs Food fame ate 15 dozen oysters here....

I however made do with six of the best....including this whopper....

I followed these up with Oyster Rockefeller soup and an oyster Po boy....a little bit speechless as it was sooooooooooooooooo good!! Apparently they go through 8000 oysters a shift!!!

After lunch, we jumped on the hop on hop off bus which provided a running commentary about city sights and has a great opportunity just to chill out....

And apparently THIS is the Anne Rice house....