I Lava Getting a Little WeirdFresno in New Orleans.

New Orleans has always been on my list of places to visit, and admittedly for entirely literary reasons- I picked up a copy of The Awakening by Kate Chopin in the 11th grade and have been in love with NOLA ever since.  A subsequent obsession with the Imagination Movers (yes, the children's show) has made my desire to visit their hometown much stronger.  I am a stalker at heart.  I work for a student exchange company and our conference was to be held in New Orleans, so I flipped out a bit when I realized I'd be wandering the French Quarter on the company dime in exchange for 8-10 hours of conference time every day.  Uh yeah.  Totes do-able!

However, it wasn't until Weird Fresno asked me to grab a voodoo doll and maybe hit up a few cemeteries that I realized that the bulk of my trip wouldn't be spent reading, stalking or even on business.  It would be an all consuming immersion in the supernatural side of this bad-ass-old-ass city.  Okay, so maybe I just walked (quicky) by a few haunted hotels.  Shut up.

New Orleans is a beautiful city.  I got there at night and fell in love with it at night. It may smell a bit like vomit, but sniff a little more and you'll discover that its vomit mixed with an amazing history.  In Fresno we don't really have old, so I got a little reverent when it came to the sheer age of the buildings and businesses.  One of my first stops was Lafittes Blacksmith Shop to have a beer in America's oldest continuously operating bar- rumored to have once belonged to the pirate Jean Lafitte as a fancy little legitimate business.  While pirates aren't necessarily supernatural, I justified the excursion by saying booze=spirits and spirits=paranormal.  Also, I ordered a Blackened Voodoo beer because I needed something to take the edge off of the reality of "built before 1772". 

Of course, as I looked around the bar I realized I had actually dreamed about this place before.  A year ago I'd dreamed I had won a trip to NOLA and here in this bar I met and ultimately wooed Imagination Mover Smitty.  I'd even sent the movers a fan-e-mail about the dream last year.  I knew there was a piano around the corner of the tiny bar because that's where I made my move on unsuspecting Smitty.  1 hour in New Orleans and I'm already discovering I'm slightly psychic.  I know, blew my freakin' mind too.

That was just about it for my first night- I was wanting to wander further down Chartres to where a few haunted places were but my travel buddies seemed less than thrilled.  Instead I stuffed beignets down my throat and ruminated on the weird connection I already had with NOLA.

The next day was full of conference meetings, but we did take a bus tour of the city and saw the 9th ward and among the devastation and rubble still prevalent, there was all kinds of hope and rebuilding.  And Brad Pitt homes.  They come with an escape hatch in the roof.  It took a few minutes to take that in.

It is a completely humbling experience, especially to hear the way the locals talk about it- New Orleans seems to be full of optimists.  Big disaster, but look what we're doing together to bring our community back.  It was a good lesson in checking my own bitching, that's for sure. 

 The bus tour also included a stop at the St Louis Cemetery #3.  Once again, I was dumbstruck while in the presence of a place so rich with history. Plus, New Orleans is know for their unique funerals and even more unique way of burying the dead.  I'd type it all out, but I was smart and just left my camera rolling when my tour guide was doing her thing, so lucky reader, check out this video!

After the bus, I struck out on my own, determined to find something haunted and cool.  And of course, as I was getting myself lost, I looked up and found the Hotel Provencial.

At one time a confederate hospital, this unassuming chateau is a quite, er, spirited.  You're likely to open a door and see a bloody civil war soldier on a bed or according to some- blood stains that disappear and reappear on the floor.

Chilled to the bone, I kept on my way through the French Quarter and picked up the aforementioned voodoo doll- one for protection.  Can't go wrong with that, right? The guy behind the counter at Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo commented on how red is a good color on me.  I was hoping he meant my hair, and not a reappearing bloodstain.

As the night wore on I decided it was time to make use of one of the many tarot card readers set up along Jackson Square.  I've never had cards read before, so I didn't really know what to look for in a clairvoyant. I chose Devlin.  I liked his name.  And his dreds.  Shut up.

Devlin actually surprised the cafe au-lait right outta me.  Everything was spot on as far as where I am right now- breaking out, having arguments I need to have, deleting people from my life and my facebook, etc.  That set me up to believe anything he said.  So it looks like in the next six months I'm going to need to be really commitment-phobic, buried in paperwork, and, heaven help us- I'll be really fertile in July.  I may borrow back that voodoo doll for protection.

I also got some advice for a problem i've been having that shed major light on the situation.  Now call them charlatans and fakes, whatever, but My Devlin totally helped me to get the resolve to make positive changes.  So even if he was only giving me some generic "Are you getting back what you put in, if not walk" advice, it was pretty good.  I'll take it.

Word on the street is that this place was used in filming Interview With The Vampire- and I do mean on the street, we overheard a Vampire tour guide say this.  Anyone know what I'm talking about because I certainly don't.  Anyone wanna confirm this for me?

The next day was even more inundated with meetings, so I didn't have much time at all for ghostly pursuits, but I did manage to find a cute, stylized voodoo doll for myself.  It's a two headed giraffe.  Yeah, I know. The city is filled with the authentic and then the over the top tourist stuff.  But really.  Button eyes?  A bow?  I couldn't say no!

I'd love to go back someday, actually spend some time exploring and learning about New Orleans, but for now I'm really grateful that my job managed to get me there for a 4 day weekend where I could get stoked during the day about working with kick-ass international kids and then indulge the side of me that likes a good spine-tingling thrill too.  New Orleans, I Lava You!