Swamp tour
Full on City Cemeteries tour of the Louis 1-3
Guided tour of the Garden District with a haunted tour
Dinner at Arnauds http://www.arnauds.com/
Get over past Frenchmen st.
Do a Katrina Tour
Do the House tours of the historical homes

For a one week stay in new Orleans:
To only include the following.
Aine'
4 sun dresses (one being a nice dress)
7 pair of ankle socks
7 pair of underwear
1 pair of ultra comfy shoes
Toiletries to include simple make-up (not the whole case) and sunscreen
Laptop and case
Camera and camera cord
Only one of the phone chargers

John:
1 pair of keens
4 pair of shorts
1 pair of nice trousers
1 nice shirt
4 t-shirts
7 pair of underwear
7 pair of socks
Toiletries to include baby power
Camera and Camera cord

Note to self: We brought WAY too much this past trip, even after we said we wouldn't. We must stick to the above list, no deviation. No layered clothing. For Aine, only one pieces.

We are now sitting in our Condo dreams of New Orleans still fresh in our heads. We forgot we had beers still in the fridge so we are drinking them and going to get Rosebud. Pandora will be tomorrow as well as the 735 pictures we took.

Things I learned in New Orleans:
No amount of pinesol will get rid of the smell of puke on Bourbon Street
It is never a good Idea at the age of 50 to wear your daughters clothes
Never get Tour ideas from a NO police station
Never listen to any one who starts off a conversation with "Mam, I hate to bother you..."
The City is not evil and it didn't force you to drink (said to hung over girl in our Hotel
You can find breakfast in the French Quarter
even if you know it will be hot and humid, you are never really ready for it

After a real good night's sleep we are up and going to meet the people we met yesterday for Breakfast. Something I forgot to mention on Saturday was while we were walking through Jackson Square we saw an actual Jazz Funeral procession. There had been a funeral at St. Louis Cathedral for a white person and when they finished the mourners were lead by a full on procession of umbrella dancing, jazz playing Group. You only read about stuff like that. Alas we didn't get any pictures as we were too shocked.

Here is a link about a jazz Funeral http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_funeral

Taken by John. His personal fav of the day

Thanks Thomas Beene! You have been an amazing host and we went to great lengths to find you tonight.No, not really, not to far of a stretch..... You are awesome in our world

John and I can not even express just how much this trip has meant to us. We have made a few friends and had many amazing experiences. Today We finally did the haunted Tour and it was our same tour guide as the Vampire tour. We fell easily into conversation. Emails exchanged. Stories swapped. Such good times.
We later stopped by Thomas Beene's work to say goodbye. He gave us a picture that he had painted called Pooping Rum duck.... It will go on the wall. It was full of win. We had one last beer at Laffite's and walked slowly back to the hotel, saying goodbye to the city that is our second home.
I miss my Kids, I miss my work..But I will miss the streets of the French Quarter, the worked Iron wrought railings, the sounds.... We will be back sooner than later. Thank you New Orleans, you have given us hope.......

1130am and it is so hot, Aine' decides to have a cold beer

Best Jazz Brunch on Town! Look at that happy boy

So we woke up and had breakfast as mentioned in the previous post. After that we headed down Bourbon street to get than you gifts for people. It was really really hot so we stopped in Laffitte's Black smith shop http://www.atneworleans.com/body/blacksmith.htm
There we ran into Mark and Jamiee on Holiday from Pennsylvania. We got to talking about The absinth museum and lo and behold... Instant Vacation friends! So all four of us went to the Museum and then ran over to Pravda for Absinthe ritual. We were there for 2 hours. We parted ways afterwards and are back here at the hotel to drop of the stuff we bought.
Now it is Hot dogs and the Vampire shoppe. What a great last day!

This is a must do on your vacation to new Orleans. We wanted to start our last non-traveling day in New Orleans with an opulent breakfast Jazz Buffet. Here is an exert from their site:

The History:
"It was two Creole sisters and the notions shop they owned on this site that gave The Court of Two Sisters its name. However, 613 Rue Royale has long played a significant role in the history of the French Quarter and old New Orleans.
Originally known as "Governor's Row", the 600 block of Rue Royale was home to five governors, two state Supreme Court Justices, a future Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and a future President of the United States. It is not surprising, then, that the original resident of our address was Sieur Etienne de Perier, royal governor of colonial Louisiana between 1726 and 1733. It has also been rumored that the outrageous Marquis de Vaudreuil, the colonial royal governor who transformed New Orleans from a marshland village into a "petit Paris", was once a resident of 613 Rue Royale.

The two sisters, Emma and Bertha Camors, born 1858 and 1860 respectively, belonged to a proud and aristocratic Creole family. Their "rabais", or notions, outfitted many of the city's finest women with formal gowns, lace and perfumes imported from Paris. Marriage, reversals of fortune, widowhood - nothing could separate the sisters. Indeed, as the Picayune was to report, the sisters died within two months of each other in the winter of 1944. United in death as in life, the sisters lie side by side at St. Louis Cemetery #3."

http://www.courtoftwosisters.com/

After our long search for a simple breakfast in the Quarter we find one, Clover grill on Bourbon and Dumaine.... at the tail end of our vacation. I was so happy I gave the waiter a 50% tip. That was last night at 9pm.
Yesterday was an amazing day. After getting close to 10 hours sleep, we got up at 630am to catch the shuttle for the Plantation tour. Our tour Guide had the heaviest latino accent and we couldn't understand her, so we just watched the swamp land go buy. I am sure there was some important historical facts. but we missed them because of her accent. Oh well, It was pretty.
First stop was Oak Alley plantation that was featured in the Movie "Interview with a Vampire." The house and Grounds were gorgeous. I really recommend you look at the Links I had provided. Here I (aine') at a Lemon Julep and John had a traditional Mint.
We then headed down the road to Laura Plantation. The house had had a fire back in 2004 and had recovered nicely. The Plantation tour guide was a real Cajun, accent and all. She was an awesome story teller. We got to learn about alot of stuff. Once again look through the links I had provided yesterday. This was the Plantation where the stories of Briar Rabbit came from.
When we got back to New Orleans, we walked over to jackson square and Bought some art and ate at the French market cafe. We were feeling brave so we had a boat of boiled crawdads. I (aine') had about 3 of them and started to feel squeamish, so had the popcorn scrimp instead.
After lunch, we went back to the hotel to get a Siesta.
We woke up, went up to Bourbon street to see our friend Thomas and listen to the most crankiest Bitter woman we have ever met. It was after this, that we found the breakfast place. I had 2 eggs sunny side up, bacon and a Chocolate malt. Pure Heaven.
Still had time before we met up with the gaggle of Goths, so we went to Laffitte's. John got a picture of a ghost, pretty cool.
Met up the New Orleans Goths at Pravda. Drank, laughed and realized that we knew mutual people in the goth world. Good times.
At that we are heading out the Door to have a jazz brunch at the Famous Two Sisters. do some shopping, take a few more tours and then back to the Hotel to Pack....so sad.

taken by john

Taken at Laura Plantation in one of the slave houses looking out at the lawn-Taken by Aine and her personal favourite of the day

In front of Oak Alley Plantation

We have really appreciated all your comments and all of you who are popping in and reading. It is going to be seriously hard to come home. We will blog about the Plantations later on tonight as we are tired and going to lay down for a nap. I can tell you the names of the Plantations:
Oak Alley: http://www.oakalleyplantation.com/

Laura Plantation-http://www.lauraplantation.com/

While Oak Alley was awesome, Laura was by far the best house and informational. They still have slave houses. I encourage you to follow the links and see what we saw

John looking "Punchy" in the dive bar, Miss Mae's

Left to Right:
Noodles, Thomas Beene, Carissa and the back of Aine' head