The Fangtastic French Quarter

Wednesday, October 21st

Vampire day! Hurray! A main factor in my decision to go down to New Orleans was the Vampire Stuff and I planned a whole day of Vampire Related activities to do and places to go and things to see! But first, breakfast. Once again, I'm up at about 9am and I just threw on the clothes left out from yesterday and wandered down to the lobby, my hair probably looking completely crazy cause I hadn't brushed it yet, but it's a hotel breakfast, like who cares? Grabbed orange juice, cranberry juice, and muffins again. I decided to take a hot cho-coffee (coffee with a hot chocolate packet in it) too but as I was making it there was a guy talking to two of his friends RIGHT in front of the condiments area and I'm just deftly moving and working around him, making it work, and eventually I have my coffee and my food in my arms and I'm about to head off when I have to duck to around the hand he's waving around as he's talking. That finally made him notice that 1: There are other people around and 2: He is standing in front of the coffee station blocking everyone from everything?? I heard him moving with his friends to a table at last as I hit the elevator and headed up. 

Jess was still snoozing so I set up in the living room area, do some reading and cyberloafing intermittently as I have my coffee. Housekeeping knocks on the door at 9:30-ish, which is strange because it's supposed to be service every other day but they'd already come yesterday? Tell her we don't need anything and head back to chilling out. Jess is up at 10am and we eat and chit-chat for a little while, do some dishes from yesterday, just taking it easy, as we do. We start getting ready for the day eventually, opening the garment suitcase to pull out the days assigned outfits and put yesterday's away. Gotta do hair and make-up and jewelry today too because today is Vampire Day! I manage to get a little writing in while Jess is getting herself ready and then we're headed out at 10:30am! 

First Stop: The Vampire Cafe! Just looking for some nibbles and sips to start the day with, nothing crazy! We walk up the now familiar to us Royal street, enjoying the sights and sounds, and arrive at the Vampire Cafe on the corner! The hostess is so peppy and dressed so colorful compared to everyone else aha! We take a seat at the bar because we don't expect to be there for too-too long or ordering too much food and drink. The bartender, Sasha, is decked out in a Spirit Halloween vampire dress with the tag showing and I just love it! She's super nice and we get started ordering the Wine Flight with the Charcuterie Tray and some Bat Bites! Tasha asks if we want red or white wine, and we go with white because even though red would match The Vibe better, we really only like white wine. As she pours, she explains which white's she's chosen for us, so we get a chardonnay, a pinot grigio, a sauvignon blanc, and a champagne! Of course, I like the champagne best, but they were all quite good! 

The tray came with a set of nice crackers, four cheeses, and some rolled meat, just something simple, and the bat bites were dark chocolate truffle things, and all of that was perfect to pair with our white wines! What an excellent choice on our part to start the day with! As we're eating and drinking, Tasha comes by and sets down two temporary tattoos of vampire neck bites AND the invitation to the Vampire Speakeasy! We didn't even have to ask about it, she just gave it to us! And free tattoos! She explains a little bit when she comes back around how the speakeasy works, and also hands us a free drink!? Something called AB+ I think. I'd seen another bartender filling a bunch of jugs with alcohol and mixers and I imagine there was maybe some overflow or they needed to doa  test pour of something but she gave it to us! For free! 

We finish our wines and food and use the bathroom and are planning on just sucking down the AB+ even though it's pretty early for hard liquor to us, but Tasha asks if we want it in a to-go cup. Alcohol? In a to-go cup? She explains that Louisiana doesn't have rules about public drinking like other places, so as long as it's in a plastic cup, we can just take it and wander! Imagine that! So we get our little booze sippy cup and head around the corner to the Boutique du Vampyre! It's just a little shop attached to the Vampire Cafe that sells vampire themed stuff, very small, but full of neat things! I see boxes of fangs for sale and ask the shop attendant about them, as I know there's the customized fang service but their fangsmith is in the hospital (which I found out when I tried to call to make an appointment several weeks ago). The attendant tells me that they just got a new fangsmith because their old one actually died. So. But she's booked out for the rest of the month, BUT the fangs they have to sale there aren't, like, a started pack to get them fitted, you can just buy them and wear them they're just not ones you can eat in and whatnot. Perfect! I love it! It's just what I wanted! So I pick my fangs and pay the $30 and Jess wants a $4 vampire fangs pin to go in the Pin Pocket of her coffin purse, so we throw that in too! The other pins they were selling we going for like $15 so it was nice to find a $4 one that we thought was the best anyway! We also see the tattoos we got given for free are for sale for $1 each! 

We stuff our purchases into the purse and head off to our Gallier House Tour! Except no, because the walk was shorter than we expected and we have a little over a half-hour before our tour starts, so we turn around and look for somewhere to pop into to get a little coffee to pep us up and use a bathroom. We find a CC's that sells something called Mochassippi's, and something called a Minissippi, which is a $4 little cup of what appears to be a kind of frappe. We order the Tiramisu flavor of that and Jess uses the bathroom while I wait for our order, then I go to use the bathroom. Except I can't, because it's locked. I ask jess if she needed a code and she said no, it just opened, so maybe someone is in it now? I ask the front though and they punch in a code and let me in, so I guess Jess just happened to grab the door before it shut the first time. Weird. But whatever, we've had a bathroom break and put some coffee in us and then it's 1:13pm and we're off again to the Gallier House for real this time! 

We check in 10 minutes before our tour, as one is supposed to, and we finish the last of our AB+ as we peruse the gift shop as there's no drinks allowed on the tour, which makes perfect sense. Our tour starts at 1:30pm and it's a small group of only 4 other people besides us. The house is decorated in the Creole Death and Mourning theme as they do every October and parts of our tour include explanations of the decorations and the customs associated with mourning rituals in New Orleans. We begin the tour in the gift shop rather than outside, as there's some construction going on that's making a racket, but we head out eventually when that stops to see the front door mourning wreath and look at the outside balcony and then enter through the front gates. In the living room there's a coffin, because that's where they would have been put at the time, and mirrors are covered and lilies are in vases and all the clocks are stopped at the time of Mr. Gallier Jr's death. Our tour guide is great, clear voice and she doesn't babble or ramble, even when answering questions not included in her spiel. 

We head upstairs and have a look at the sickroom at the top of the stairs then go to Mrs. Galliers parlor and writing room. The guide explains all the costs of being a widow in mourning, including stationary with black borders that get smaller as your mourning season progresses. Insane. The bedroom has two doors that lead to the children's rooms but those aren't open to see or go into, so we progress to the back balcony that overlooks the courtyard, which has a grassy patch which is uncommon in New Orleans but likely something Mr. Gallier Jr added based on his time in England as a youth. We see the slave quarters next, which were called on the original architecture plans the 'servant quarters' even though they were always intended for enslaved people. Unclear why they were labeled that way, possibly because it was already becoming controversial to own slaves when the plans were being drawn up. The four rooms for the four enslaved people were spacious compared to other slave quarters of the times, but that wasn't because of the Gallier's generosity but rather because it was a sign of wealth and status to offer such accommodations. 

Downstairs to the kitchen, we're told about the indoor plumbing Mr. Gallier Jr had installed which was good for the Gallier's but the enslaved cook Rose had to keep an eye on the pressure as there was no pressure gauge, so this was an added job for her in addition to all her other kitchen duties in the indoor kitchen, which was uncommon also to have had at the time. The tour guide tells us they're fairly certain Rose lost a child at some point during her time at the Gallier's, but her mourning period was, obviously, significantly different, as she did not have the option of removing herself from society or buying all these frivolous mourning items. Instead she likely just dip-dyed a dress she already owned black and that was likely it. Jess noticed a cookbook on the table opened to a recipe called 'Rose Bread' and thought it was neat so she took a picture of it to make later. 

The dining room is lovely, with lovely crystal of white and green that's apparently the toned-down crystal the house has that would have been used during the mourning period. Green crystal for mourning, imagine that. From there we're out to the courtyard where the guide asked "Are there any Interview with the Vampire fans here today?" and everyone on the tour turned to look at me and Jess aha! Some of them probably didn't even know what Interview with the Vampire is they just went "These two freaks probably know what that is" and they're half right, I know what that is thought Jess has never seen the show and, yes, I was on the tour because of IWTV, but also I just dress like a freak all the time so they could have been wrong! Anyway, she points out where in the courtyard the incinerator was when they filmed there for the show, and says they also filmed on the balcony out front but the building was too weak and old to support some of the film rigs so AMC paid to have the place restored "and that's how historic preservation happens!" She also talked about how they didn't film inside the house but did do 3D mapping to replicate the space when they built their sets to do the filming on. 

The tour ends there so we take some pictures and Jess asks the tour guide if the recipe book in the kitchen was opened to the Rose Bread page because the cook was named Rose and the guide says she has no idea, that she didn't think they book was usually opened and if it was it would be to a random page. So maybe it was a ghost who opened it to that! Ooooo! We get some more photos out front then walk around the block to the Ursuline Convent. The Convent is a historically cool sight with stories about vampire women who got shipped over to be brides and there's some cool stories and lore there, both true and fictitious, but we couldn't go in and see anything because it's closed for renovations until the 31st, which I knew beforehand but I still wanted pictures in front and to just see the place! We saw folks working on stuff and we got a few decent pictures of the place I think, considering! 

 

Down that street we spot the French Market we'll be going to the following day, so once again, good to know where that is and how to get there. We pop into two Witchy-themed shops but, again, find nothing we like, so back to Royal street! We're just ambling, no hurry anywhere, until we arrive at the Vampire Apothecary Restaurant. Once again, we're not looking for any big meals, just wanna try some stuff, and once again the host there is super peppy and nice compared to the dark, mysterious vibe the place is going for aha! We get seated in what the host calls "The Fray" which is the single 2-person table unoccupied in a room full of a 25-ish person group. They look like a wedding party, as some have sashes that say as much, but they're all in costumes. We don't mind being seated among them though so we set ourselves up and have a look at the menu while admiring all the cool decor around us! 

We order the lunch special, which is a ½ of a fancy grilled cheese and some chicken & corn soup then we added on a bowl of the mashed yukon gold potatoes with garlic (ha-ha). We were told it might be a bit before our food go there cause they were busy but it came out in no time! The grilled cheese and soup were super good, the potatoes could have used more garlic but they were still tasty. We basically horked down the food, because we were hungrier than we thought, and then just chit-chatted and got some photos and made our plans for the following days. They days were essentially all planned out, but we kept revisiting the plans to see if anything needed to change. Our waitress came by about 30 minutes later, apologizing for forgetting us back there all that time, but Jess and I are so often forgotten by waiters and staff that we didn't think anything of it. Just one of those things! We pay for our food, have a look at the items they have for sale, including sugar skulls and absinth spoons, then head out to track down the Vampire Speakeasy!  

The card told us to go to the courtyard of a bar called Fritzel's so we head there and wander in. There's a live musician playing and the place is pretty dark but they have a good amount of customers. I follow a pair of people towards a door in the back that leads to the courtyard where the bouncer for the speakeasy is set up. This man is so rizzless, so lame, just no vibes on this man at all. There's a cat behind him though so we go admire the kitty while waiting for him to handle the ID's and invitations of the people in front of us. Finally it's our turn to talk to Bobb and then up we go, up the secret staircase to the Vampire Speakeasy! It's pretty neat in there, it really is. There's a living room area, then the room with the bar, then a balcony, all decked out in some great decor with projectors and crystal balls and candles and whatnot! There's no photos or videos allowed but, of course, the woman who came in in front of us took our her phone to take videos and had to be told not to. She did seem genuinely embarrassed, and said she knew that, she knew not to do that, and have just kinda done it on autopilot, which I can get, as I did think to myself a few times "Oh I should get a photo" before remembering there's none of that allowed. 

  

There's a line for the bar so we sit down on one of the velvet sofas and Jess reads some of the Vampire Short Stories book while I read a Monsters magazine, then I go up and order a Pomegranate-Lemonade Vodka bloodbag for myself and a Forbidden Fruit mixed cocktail for Jess. LOVE the bloodbag! SO fun! We have some of the drinks inside then take ourselves out to the balcony to see the streets of the French Quarter. There's a guy trying to chat up some girls behind us saying such riveting things about New Orleans as "There's a lot of history in this place". Yeah bud, sure is. When Jess finishes her drink we head back inside, soak up some more ambience, then decide to head out. We say goodbye to a SECOND cat on the staircase and go back through Fritzels, which now has a full band playing, and head back to the street. 

We correctly navigate our way back to the Boutique du Vampyre without any help so Jess can pick out which tea she wants to purchase! I had already gotten my fangs, but then I saw the cutest little bat sunglasses and they were $25 but I REALLY wanted them so I got them and Jess got the Bella Lugosi's Ashes tea. While there an older couple is looking at some of the stickers and the woman goes "Oh, Lestat. He's from... hm..." And the guy with her went "There was a book, it's a book right?" And she went "But wasn't there a movie too?". The idea of living in a world without any knowledge of IWTV is so foreign to me but also, ya know what, good for them. Don't get involved in this nonsense. Be free. 

Purchases once again stuffed into our purse, we're back at the Vampire Cafe to get their curry because we saw it on the menu earlier and thought it would be fun to take home for dinner! We order with the hostess then hang around waiting for it to be ready. A singer has set up to busk, sings one song very well, then just... stops? She chats with some folks seated outside and plays on her phone and doesn't sing another song as long as we're there, which is like 20 minutes. Not sure what her plan is or was but whatever, none of my business. Our curry comes out and out "extra rice" which didn't look super extra to me but we weren't gonna complain or ask about it, we just took our food and headed off! 

Off to the Cafe Beignet! The cool one on Royal street! It's a very cute little shop right by some courthouse or something, I don't actually remember, but it's the prettiest of the Cafe Beignet's we've seen, of which there are MANY in the French Quarter! We place an order for their 3 beignets for $5.95 and sit down for a little bit. Two older women come in to look at the menu, but as only one of them can eat beignets for some reason or other they decide not to spend the money, but tow younger woman seated at the table by the counter offer the women the beignets they didn't finish, as they seemed to have ordered a set each and only eaten one. The woman are delighted and the whole encounter was so sweet and nice to see! Our beignets come out just as the doors to the front are being locked, so we arrived right on time! We have to exit through the outdoor seating area which is so pretty! From there we make the familiar, pleasant walk down Royal to Canel to St. Charles. We go a little roundabout after St. Charles to see some more of the area around our hotel, but our food is still warm enough when we get to the hotel! 

We arrive just as some Evening Social is happening, Jess and I both remembering the agent at check-in telling us about some get-together that happens at the hotel on some nights at some time or whatever, we weren't really listening, but we decide to grab a salad and croutons and soup and wine and coffee as it's all included! We do not, of course, stay and socialize, but return to our room to eat in the comfort of our hotel room, by the glow of our TV. We have SO much food, both from today and the day before, and we have a fine little feast as we watch the 2023 Haunted Mansion movie that's playing on Freeform! It's set in New Orleans, perfect! I do some writing and Jess finds some internet ha-has to read as we relax. 

I make an attempt to lighten some of the dye in the princess hat Jess brought with her for the Labyrinth Ball later in the week by boiling it and it gets some dye out but not really a lot. Still, we tried, and we don't think anyone will really notice that the hat and dress aren't a perfect match at a nighttime ball. Jess takes a shower while I continue to write and when she returns there's this cacophony of horn noises from the street below? Not angry horn honking, more like two cars trying to make music together? Not sure what that was about but it was funny to hear! He find Rise of the Planet of the Apes on FX and put that on until about 11pm when, as usual, it's time for us to call it a night. Outfits are prepared for tomorrow as we have a somewhat earlier start than the past few days, and then we're off to bed!