This morning started with a trip to the incredibly poignant WW2 museum. It is huge and we only did half of it (missed out the Japan section - one of many reasons we already have for wanting to come back to this place).
We also took a street car. It was not named desire, but it was good fun nonetheless.
After the WW2 museum, we walked over to the Garden District, following Clare's incredibly planned itinerary.
We managed to catch a tour of the cemetery, even though it was supposed to have been closed for 2 hours already!
We were given a fascinating talk on how New Orleans inters people above ground in family tombs, which is not because of the high water table but apparently just for land management...the body is left in the coffin for a year and one day and the hot Nola summer bakes the body and accelerates decomposition - they then take the bones out, grind them up and re-inter the fragments at the bottom of the tomb. The coffin is thrown away and the tomb is then good to go for its next occupant. Pretty gruesome but efficient at the same time!
We also got an ice cream at "Sucre" - a must-see from Clare's Pinterest board...The ice creams were good but the cakes were amazing!
Then in the evening we went out on Freret Street for drinks and dinner - think Shoreditch, Freret Street is quite student-y, full of pop up bars and dive bars and is right on the cusp of a pretty ropey neighbourhood (which Clare made us walk through). But it is a fascinating area, just next to part of the Garden District and was decimated by Hurricane Katrina.
The devastation is very apparent with newbuild "Brad Pitt houses" (so-called as he apparently donated a lot of money to the rebuilding effort) next to abandoned, boarded-up properties.
Thanks SJ and Tyson (again) for our drinks!!
Dinner at "Dat Dog" - a hot dog joint. Clare had a crawfish dog and Rich had an alligator dog...but the waiter didn't seem to appreciate being told to make it snappy. No sense of humour these 'Mericans...
