I woke up super early in the morning and READY TO GO.
On the way to New Orleans I visited Gulf Islands National Seashore. I did a short hike, but it was July in Mississippi, so I didn't last very long. Sadly, I did not see any alligators.
I arrived in New Orleans just in time for my tour of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. This was one of the best parts of the whole summer. I took notes, which was probably super dorky of me, but I wanted to remember everything I was learning because it was just so fascinating!
Over 50 people are buried in some of these tombs. Your body starts out in the top part. A year and a day after your death, they shove your body to the back and down a hole into the bottom chamber.
They tied bells to fingers and toes to make sure people weren't buried alive- this is where "saved by the bell" comes from.
The wake was invented to be a 24 hour waiting period to make sure the person was actually dead.
They were built to make the decomposition go faster; it's 10 degrees hotter in the cemetery.
The iron work in front of graves is there because, in voodoo culture, a spirit cannot pass through iron.
The tombs are private property so the owners can do what they want to them, like paint them pink with sparkles.
Nicholas Cage bought this pyramid tomb for 3.2 million dollars. He was cursed after owning the Lalaurie Mansion, which is considered to be the most haunted place in New Orleans. (The story behind that place is dark and disturbing.) He went bankrupt twice and finally saw a psychic for advice. She told him he needed to get a tomb as close as possible to Marie Laveau. His tomb has been struck by lightning 4 TIMES. It's not even the tallest thing in this cemetery! Regardless of what you believe when it comes to metaphysical stuff, I think you have to acknowledge that something weird is going on in this cemetery.
The Catholic Church made a rule about filming in this cemetery after Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider was actually having sex in between the tombs. They brought in hookers and drugs and it wasn't just acting.
Antoine is the oldest original tombstone (219 years old), made by an enslaved person. You can tell by how the cross is made.
Although this tomb says "Marie Laveau," no one knows for sure where she is buried. This is believed to be the tomb of her daughter, who had the same name. Marie Laveau didn't want anyone to know because she didn't want people messing with her body; she wanted to be left in peace. She was a devout Catholic who attended mass daily.
After my cemetery tour, I wandered around Congo Square in Armstrong Park.
According to the New Orleans tourism website, Congo Square was an open space where slaves and free blacks gathered throughout the 19th century for meetings, open markets, and the African dance and drumming celebrations that played a substantial role in the development of jazz. Local voodoo practitioners still consider Congo Square a spiritual base and gather at the Square for rituals.
It started raining, so I decided to do some shopping on Magazine Street. When the rain let up, I walked around and looked at the houses.
Would it be weird to build this style of house in SLC? I am obsessed.
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