New Orleans 2016
As my family grows, develops and I become older (maybe not wiser), I see more and more merit in sharing my experiences. Reminiscence of the past is something of a past time for older generations, but along with our bodies, our minds are also slowly withering away. As a service to my future family members young old, blood and relational-I wish to share you my experiences. i hope that I can impart my experiences into knowledge for you. and even though I may not be around forever-hopefully my ideals and principles are, because at the end of the day-those are exactly what brought you to this page in the first place.
Lily has the full collection of our experiences together. Online, there are only bits and pieces to I/we learned and experienced throughout our life together (and my life before family).
The only other thing I would recommend to learn more is to go to the places I was once standing and take in those monumental moments that make us the people we are meant to be. I love you Sam, regardless of the life decisions you may make, god bad, grand-I loved you from the beginning my son.
To my family, you are all special to me in your own ways-our differences are what makes us family. We can be indifferent to each other's criticisms but at the end of the day we are family. We have been through this and we are here now. I love you for that and I hope that regardless of the indifference, you still remember what it was like when we were all at peace.
I just wanted to open up this piece with those reflections and thoughts because of the reason that every time I am down in New Orleans, I am there only after visiting my Uncle Rob and his beautiful family in Texas. Indeed, it is a solid road trip (with all the classic quirks and frustrations of traveling with family), stretching from Hamilton, ON to Texas.
Nonetheless, here it is-A quick experience piece of New Orleans as had back in 2016 while travelling with my fiance at the time, (now my wife) and my parents.
To begin these images (I don't usually post images here because-well frankly speaking, they are annoying on Blogger), are the locations of the "haunted" sites in New Orleans. Worth mentioning however I feel that they are necessary to the purpose of my post this time around. I am requesting that you let me know if the locations are wrong or if you have better map images, that you post them in a comment for others to observe. Thanks!
Along with the regular goings on of a family vacation it was made more interesting because my wife is a very passive voice kind of person and not a real "go-get'ter" however did not only did she have a guide (because I had been before), but she also had quite adventurous travel companions. I believe my spontaneity and willingness to “go with the flow” comes from my parents joint personality contrast-I mean their contrast to each other.
This journey started in Hamilton, went as far south as Austin and now brings up around and back up. At this point we were in New Orleans (for my second time) for 2 days. It is a great place if you don't like sleep and are in for the night life. Louisiana is abundant in wildlife conservation areas and for that reason-so awesome to visit. For this particular area of New Orleans though, its nightlife-red light districts and food. Oyster Bars, craft beer, half naked dancers, this city is a bachelor/bachelorette party year-round. One of the must do things in new Orleans (as messed up as it seems) is to ghost hunt and historical site hop (the later is far too absurd to even consider in this place, just kidding). New Orleans, has a "history" to say it nicely. Keeping in mind that this is the south and racism was extremely prominent for a number of years-you know there were some really bad "things" that probably occurred there over the years. Now, couple those bad "things" with Voodoo and well, these are ingredients to a "wicked" and horrifying set of stories all connected through the misfortunes of the immigrants who suffered at the hands of the well-to-do colonists.
In the 18th century, even though it was significantly changing, African Americans were still kept as slaves around the residences of rich white upper class families (not so much for their labour as much as their symbolic embodiment of what it meant to be wealthy). Let us think here, you have one person for each small process of everything that is done in a household this is highly inefficient and could be solved by just having one or two really good individuals rather than an entire team. Regardless of how it was decided that a person’s wealth is judged by their inability to understand fundamental economics, the “why” is the important part to understand. Some-if not most of the noble families were real-"pieces of work" for lack of a better term.Visiting this area is as much a cultural experience as it is to pay homage to the people who bring diversity to a growing nation's identity.
While there, everything costs money, you can’t walk through the streets without getting propositioned for something and usually, you buy something-flowers, souvenir, alcoholic beverage-something stronger? Oh it’s quite common-I was standing around with my father waiting my mother to return from a refill of a “hand grenade” (local cocktail mix that WILL leave sore as can be in the morning...sugar, sugar and booze) when a fellow approached my father and I asking us if we were interested in some of "the good stuff", my father looked at me and asked for clarification. I told the guy "No thanks", he walked off. Then after explaining to my father-he had a good laugh and couldn’t believe it.
Lily has the full collection of our experiences together. Online, there are only bits and pieces to I/we learned and experienced throughout our life together (and my life before family).
The only other thing I would recommend to learn more is to go to the places I was once standing and take in those monumental moments that make us the people we are meant to be. I love you Sam, regardless of the life decisions you may make, god bad, grand-I loved you from the beginning my son.
To my family, you are all special to me in your own ways-our differences are what makes us family. We can be indifferent to each other's criticisms but at the end of the day we are family. We have been through this and we are here now. I love you for that and I hope that regardless of the indifference, you still remember what it was like when we were all at peace.
I just wanted to open up this piece with those reflections and thoughts because of the reason that every time I am down in New Orleans, I am there only after visiting my Uncle Rob and his beautiful family in Texas. Indeed, it is a solid road trip (with all the classic quirks and frustrations of traveling with family), stretching from Hamilton, ON to Texas.
Nonetheless, here it is-A quick experience piece of New Orleans as had back in 2016 while travelling with my fiance at the time, (now my wife) and my parents.
To begin these images (I don't usually post images here because-well frankly speaking, they are annoying on Blogger), are the locations of the "haunted" sites in New Orleans. Worth mentioning however I feel that they are necessary to the purpose of my post this time around. I am requesting that you let me know if the locations are wrong or if you have better map images, that you post them in a comment for others to observe. Thanks!
Along with the regular goings on of a family vacation it was made more interesting because my wife is a very passive voice kind of person and not a real "go-get'ter" however did not only did she have a guide (because I had been before), but she also had quite adventurous travel companions. I believe my spontaneity and willingness to “go with the flow” comes from my parents joint personality contrast-I mean their contrast to each other.
This journey started in Hamilton, went as far south as Austin and now brings up around and back up. At this point we were in New Orleans (for my second time) for 2 days. It is a great place if you don't like sleep and are in for the night life. Louisiana is abundant in wildlife conservation areas and for that reason-so awesome to visit. For this particular area of New Orleans though, its nightlife-red light districts and food. Oyster Bars, craft beer, half naked dancers, this city is a bachelor/bachelorette party year-round. One of the must do things in new Orleans (as messed up as it seems) is to ghost hunt and historical site hop (the later is far too absurd to even consider in this place, just kidding). New Orleans, has a "history" to say it nicely. Keeping in mind that this is the south and racism was extremely prominent for a number of years-you know there were some really bad "things" that probably occurred there over the years. Now, couple those bad "things" with Voodoo and well, these are ingredients to a "wicked" and horrifying set of stories all connected through the misfortunes of the immigrants who suffered at the hands of the well-to-do colonists.
In the 18th century, even though it was significantly changing, African Americans were still kept as slaves around the residences of rich white upper class families (not so much for their labour as much as their symbolic embodiment of what it meant to be wealthy). Let us think here, you have one person for each small process of everything that is done in a household this is highly inefficient and could be solved by just having one or two really good individuals rather than an entire team. Regardless of how it was decided that a person’s wealth is judged by their inability to understand fundamental economics, the “why” is the important part to understand. Some-if not most of the noble families were real-"pieces of work" for lack of a better term.Visiting this area is as much a cultural experience as it is to pay homage to the people who bring diversity to a growing nation's identity.
While there, everything costs money, you can’t walk through the streets without getting propositioned for something and usually, you buy something-flowers, souvenir, alcoholic beverage-something stronger? Oh it’s quite common-I was standing around with my father waiting my mother to return from a refill of a “hand grenade” (local cocktail mix that WILL leave sore as can be in the morning...sugar, sugar and booze) when a fellow approached my father and I asking us if we were interested in some of "the good stuff", my father looked at me and asked for clarification. I told the guy "No thanks", he walked off. Then after explaining to my father-he had a good laugh and couldn’t believe it.
New Orleans’ French Quarter has a very wide variety of activities, however it is mostly designed to entertain with an 18 and over undertone. Sure you will see kids and teenagers wandering around with their families in the off season, but with no real censorship being enforced, it is quite blatantly clear what each business is doing/merchandising.
For all the red light district interest there may be, and fun that could be had (especially on Mardis Gras), there is truly a large amount of rich history scattered and loitering around the Barton street/French Quarter area. To be honest, as much as like to support the local tourism industry, I can get very particular about how I do that. For example when budgeting I try to divide up what I am going to be spending based on the needs of the trip and then from there divide further between local economy and corporation endorsement. If I am going to be spending going to be spending 1000 dollars (CAD) on accommodation, I know I should probably cool it on the nightlife if I want to be participating in excursions. When it comes to nightlife then, I will be more inclined to find a local beer house than going to whatever place selling commercial import products or whatever. Some might believe this is not important but, hey-it’s my money, my decisions and my way of trying to keep local entrepreneurs kicking. What does this have to do with the rich history of New Orleans? Well, of all the history in New Orleans some of the most interesting was the ghost and horror stories.
Any fool with internet and reading level of a fifth grader could read it and know it-even possibly reiterate it! That is exactly what I decided to do. There are many privately owned establishments in which a person can signup for”ghost walks”, but again-I decided to do it myself as a semi-romantic activity with my wife.
Our ghost walk was a personalized and uninterrupted tour through the French Quarter, had my wife been a drinker-probably would have been a lot more fun as I was scoping every shady little pub we walked by thinking (between stops) it would be awesome to stop for a beer! It was fairly successful and fun regardless-I’ll share some of the stories in case you want to give it a shot yourself with your date. Below are my renditions of the stories (accurately retold but with more gruesome details).
See the next few posts.
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