The Queen is Giving a Ball

Friday, October 23rd

It's the day of the ball! The most expensive event of this trip! But, it's not until later in the evening, so we made plans to visit the Garden District during the day. No real intense plans, I just wanted to wander around and see some of the stuff associated with Interview with the Vampire and Mayfair Witches and just have a look about the district. I'm up at 9am, as per usual, to get yogurts and juice (we never got around to eating yesterday's muffins so I didn't get more). Jess is still snoozing when I get back so I put on Scoobtober and watch the New Orleans episode that's playing! That's the second time a New Orleans Scooby-Doo episode has aired on the TV! What're the odds?

Jess gets up around 10:10am and we eat and start getting ready, leisurely as usual, but we're all packed up and ready to go just a few minutes passed the 11am checkout time. We stop in the lobby to grab a coffee each as I'd forgotten to get some at breakfast and settle down there for a bit while Jess messages our next hotel to see if they hold luggage. The hotel doesn't get back to us in the 20 or so minutes we're having about for and we decide to just head on over and ask in person, deciding if they don't we can just come back to this hotel and ask if they'll hold our luggage. The walk is only 5 minutes, maybe less, it wouldn't kill us to walk it back with our two suitcases and one bag of goodies.

At the next hotel the main door is locked at all times so you have to use a call button to get in, but someone with a key is going in before us so we follow them and then have to take an elevator to the 11th floor cause that's where the lobby is? We work out eventually that the other floors are all the parking garage, which probably gets the hotel a lot of business as parking that close to the French Quarter seems hard to find. At the desk they tell us they do hold luggage so Jess rolls the suitcases in and gets them tagged and then we're off on our merry way! We go up the street just a tick as we're getting the 12 today and that doesn't pick up on Canel street like the 47 and 48. A small crowd is already waiting there and after we join the crowd only gets larger. Getting busier and busier as the parade weekend creeps closer! The streetcar ran a little late, as it does, but we could see why this time as it was pretty full in there already! The driver did a commendable job getting everyone onto the car, making everyone move all the way to the back to fill in all the available space. That did mean, however, that there was no space come the next stop and there was an identical size crowd waiting there for the 12 too. The driver just had to tell em all to wait for the next one and drive on, waiting for people on the streetcar to get off and clear some room before she could start letting people on again. Here and there people did get off, so the car could have fit some people at some stops if people would move down as people got off, but they didn't so the driver just waited until a good amount were gone before stopping and picking up more folks. There was also the issue of the back door not opening so folks had to push their way to the front to get off and good lord the amount of people in the aisle who just weren't paying attention to people coming up behind them. The car is not picking up more people, so if it's stopped it's because someone is getting off, and as the back door is broken that means someone is coming up the aisle. This isn't complicated folks. 

But no matter, we were lucky ducklings who happened to be at the right stop at the right time and we were able to ride that first streetcar all the way to Eight and Charles in the Garden District! That stop is, incredibly, right in front of the house we're going to later that evening for the Labyrinth Ball! We can see them setting up! What're the odds! So, now we, once again, know where we're going later on, which has happened to us multiple times this trip! Anyway, that stop also put us just one block from the Soria-Creel House, also known as the Mayfair Witches House! Of course, I needed pictures in front of it, so we walked the quick but lovely block up and snapped some photos and wondered about the bicycle wheel nailed to a tree and also saw a crow or raven of some kind land beside us! Spooky! No, I had gamed out in my mind the day before that the best route to see all the things I wanted to see was to hit the Mayfair Witch House, then Lafayette Cemetery, then Anne Rice's Second Home, then finish at Magazine Street where we'd get food and drinks at The Vintage. For some reason, however, I confused myself, and we ended up going from the Mayfair Witch House all the way to Anne Rice's Second Home. I don't know how I got myself confused about where we were going, but it was so nice walking about the place that I didn't mind us taking in more of the streets and scenes doing things the long way. 

After Anne Rice's Second Home, which is semi-concealed with mesh on the fencing by the current owners who likely experience lots of tourists such as myself coming for photos, we passed a gas station and we decided to pick up an energy drink and use the bathroom before continuing the journey back up to Lafayette Cemetery Number 1. Despite going a different route to see more of the houses and whatnot we end up passing the Mayfair Witches House again so naturally we take more pictures, and then the cemetery comes into view. It's literally RIGHT there near the Mayfair Witches House, not sure how I got confused about where we were originally set to go next but I must have just not been looking at anything besides the house the first time aha! 

I knew going in that Lafayette Cemetery was closed, and has been so for a good while, for refurbishment, but like the Ursuline Convent I just wanted to see it from the outside. Google Maps took issue with that however and kept trying to remove that location from my route? Like it told me if I didn't select a button to say I still wanted to go it was going to remove that stop from my route and just send us to the next one? What a weird feature. But we don't need the map in the end because it's RIGHT there. It's basically a giant square in the middle of the Garden District, just plopped right in there, with 4 points of entrance, one on every side, all currently locked tight. The walls of the cemetery are just that, walls, but the entrance-ways are gates, so we took a turn around the place to get a look at the cemetery from every gate to get every possible angle. We did walk passed one without looking in and then turn around to go back because an employee of some kind was in the middle of locking the gate and we didn't want her to see us looking in because... Well I don't know actually, because she might have thought we didn't know it was closed and try to tell us we can't go in or something? We're just awkward like that, I can't explain every single thing we do. 

On the final side there's a little table set up and a tour guide greeting people who are coming for some Garden District and Cemetery Tour and I wonder if they get access to the graveyard or if they just have to do the tour from the outside currently, but I don't bother to ask as I'm not interested in any tours and we keep moving, taking a few turns around the cemetery before deciding it's time for food and Magazine street. Google Maps is DEEPLY confused about where we are, but we've got a pretty good sense of where to go so we set off and let the app catch up with us when it figures itself out. The streets are so lovely, but they reminded both of us so much of Minnesota ave in Deland. I suppose there's not really that much difference between the people who were building stately homes in Louisiana and the people building the same in Florida! 

Magazine street is hopping, as expected, since it's a Friday leading up to a parade weekend, and we pop into an artist co-op on our journey. Lots of interesting things, some actually quite neat stuff, like the Witchy Stuff right at the front, but also, as usual, a lot of stuff that's fun to look at but not really worth anyone buying. At least, that's what I think. I think a lot of artists are making art that would do well in an exhibit or showcase, but they're not really being made with customers in mind. But still, neat to look at, and Jess did actually find something she wanted to purchase, an ornament to get as a gift for her boyfriend, Chris, so ya! A purchase has been made! Woo! After a few turns about and a look at the shop cat who is being showered in attention by a little girl, we're off on the hunt for The Vintage! And we find it! 

The place is jumping, but we find a two-person window seat right away, go us, and I go up to the front to put in our order, as there's no table service. The barista taking my order is nice, but boy I could NOT understand anything coming out of his mouth. My hearing is a little lousy after years working in front of loud, industrial washing machines and there was pretty loud music playing in the place and the guy's mouth didn't move that much when he spoke so I probably annoyed him a little bit asking him to repeat himself, but I did say my hearing wasn't great and he did not do anything to accommodate that so it's kinda on him if he didn't like repeating everything. I do eventually manage to order the Three Sisters Panini with truffle fries (which I didn't know cost more but I like truffle so it was worth the extra dollar or 2), the Fancy Beignet Flight (with my three choices being everything but the Matcha flavor, so just the Smores, the Mud Cup, and the Raspberry), and their cafe au lait, as they were out of the cafe au lait with chicory that we'd wanted to try. 

I bring back our Table Card, which is a picture of Hannah Montana as all the Table Cards are images of famous people?? and we wait for our food. We do our usual chit-chatting and also our usual judging of the people around us, as we're sitting net to a weirdly loud group of people about our age who we can't really judge too much for being enthusiastic and having fun but yeah they were kinda annoying and it was nicer when they left just as our food arrived. Everything was so good! Except maybe the cafe au lait which, compared to the one we had the other day, was just ok. As we're eating people keep poking their heads in, looking around, and leaving. I don't know if it's just to say they've seen the place, which seems to be some kind of staple to visit in the area, or if they're just looking to see if it's busy before deciding to go elsewhere, but it was good people watching to see folks pop in, do a turn, and walk out. 

That was everything on my list, so one we finish eating we're headed back to Eight and Charles to catch the streetcar and return to our hotel so we can get ready for the ball! Check-in for the hotel is 4pm and it was about 2:45pm so we figured we'd be arriving at the hotel just in time! We take a new street up to Eight and Charles, a street with a lot of lovely one-story houses which was rather different from all the other streets, and arrive at the streetcar pickup spot basically just as the streetcar was arriving and once again just barely get on as the last people who can be picked up for a while until some folks get off. The driver wondered out loud why it was so busy and a passenger told her it was Krewe of Boo coming up and she was like "AH! Ok, yeah, that explains it", confirming for me that these crowds are about the parade weekend and aren't just usual weekend numbers for New Orleans. The streetcar deposits us that nice 4-5 minute walk from our hotel and Jess noticed when we were leaving in the morning that the garage door is always open so we just enter through there and head up to the lobby to see about checking in. 

There's a huge line though, so we just set up at one of the tables and drink the cafe au lait we're still working on and wait for it to disperse before Jess goes up to see if our room is ready. The woman working the front is so nice, and also so flustered to explain that the hotel is overbooked on Double Queens because of some fraternity event happening and asks if we could stay in a King room instead. Jess and I both get it, that the team member staying on the cheapo team member rate is the guest that gets bumped and lodged in the problem rooms and whatnot, so we're totally cool with it and she seems so relieved to have sorted out at least one of the overbooking issues with people who don't mind sharing one King bed for two nights. So, she gets our keys and gives us our food and beverage credits (which Jess gets as a Gold Member at hotels that don't have a free breakfast offered) and she almost forgets to get our luggage and we have a laugh about that as we go to the storage room and grab our stuff. Our room is on the 14th floor so up we go! Actually down we go, because we got into the one elevator that is having issues with the key reader which is necessary to go up to the guest-level floors so we go down, pick up some people at the bottom level, and then head back up to 11 to switch elevators for one that actually takes us upstairs and to our room! It's an ok room, nothing special, but it has a microwave so that's nice. It also has the craziest looking AC/Heating unit I've ever seen, but it mostly did the job.

The live TV feature just... doesn't work in the room, but this hotel has TV's with the apps on them so we just pull up PlutoTV and put on the Addams Family channel! Jess takes a shower while I do some writing and when she gets our she changes the TV to the Columbo channel as she debates which dress she's going to wear to the ball. Both dresses were selected by Jess and she couldn't choose between them so I said she could bring both of them and I'd just wear whichever one she decided not to go with, but it was crunch time now and she had to finally make a decision. She putters and debates and decides on the silver dress. She puts it on and... nope, she actually wants the pink one, she's sure now, so she puts on the pink one and I can now do my hair and makeup as I officially know which outfit I'll be wearing. 

We're ready and headed out the door to catch our Lyft outside the hotel at 6:20pm, as we decided we didn't want to deal with the streetcar on the way in while we want our outfits to look nice and want to arrive on time. We get quite a few looks standing on the sidewalk in our costumes, but not unkind looks as people certainly expect to see that kind of thing in New Orleans. Our Lyft driver arrives, literally just stops in the middle of the street and lets himself get honked at as we verify he's ours and climb in. He does not say a single work to us aha! Not one, man just drives the car and that's it, and yeah, ok, whatever works man, just get us where we're going. And we do get where we're going! There's already a line forming outside the place and we join the queue, peaking in through the gates to see the VIP's already being let in and looking at all the cool decorations while also looking at all the costumes people around us are wearing. There's dragons and monarchs and fairies and knights and sorcerers and a Marie Antoinette with a bloody neck, which doesn't quite fit the theme of "Medieval Reign" but it's close enough and it's a costume, which are required for this event! It says so explicitly on the invitation! 

All along the line there's people taking photos of the manor house and the costumes, some who were just passing by and noticed the event and others who seem to come out every year to get photos of everyone's costumes! We pass that assortment of folk as the line begins to move and we head inside! A woman had already come down the line while it was stationary to scan everyone's tickets and get us wristbanded, which I think is so great cause that meant as soon as gates were open we all just got to go in! At the gate on person checked that everyone entering had a wristband (and costume), another handed everyone a glass of champagne, and a woman in giant wings and a goddess costume welcomed everyone to the ball, doing little bits with folks as they entered, including telling the woman a few people ahead of us "Wow, those tits! Sorry if I read the situation wrong, but WOW, those titties be tittying!" Which got a nice laugh from that woman and everyone around her. She told me she loved my weird face cage, the first of many people across the evening to comment on how cool it looks. 

Inside is so cool! We drink our champagne as we explore, going up to a way that's temporarily blocked at first, the back of the Queen's gazebo where they're setting up still for the opening show, so we have to go back around to where the DJ booth is and from there head towards the left side of the gazebo where there's two bars, one serving a Limoncello drink and a TCH drink, and the other serving Old Fashioneds. We don't care for Old Fashioneds, but we decide we'll head back to get the Limoncello when we finish our champagne. From there we enter the Queen's Labyrinth! And discover a fairytale themed room full of deserts! We grab some cake and meringues, and a mixed absinthe drink from one of the two absinthe bars in the room, and eat and drink those as we check out the rest of the rooms. They're open to explore, but there's clearly spots where performers are going to be later, such as a stage in the Queen's Livery, a confessional booth in the Cathedral, dance cages in The Pit and Pendulum, and a throne in Arachne's Web. By the throne is a bottle of absinthe and tiny cups, so Jess and I pour ourselves a shot, encouraging the person exploring the space behind us to do the same. Might as well, right! We toss the little plastic shot cups but hold onto our purple champagne cups to use for the rest of the evening, as those ones feel special to us, and we get a drink at the Pitt and Pendulum bar before heading out of the labyrinth to watch the opening show we can hear starting. 

There's a flock of dancers dressed as ravens who do a number down the dance floor/aisle to the Queen's Gazebo before the emcee, a jester, announces the arrival of a three-headed Raven God, who does a dance number, and then there's these fire dancers and the one closest to us almost knocked her fire-headband off and had to try and get it stable on her head while performing with the fire sword and boy was that something to see! Finally the jester gave a little speach before welcoming the Queen and her entourage, who ascend to the gazebo. The queen is played by someone much younger than I expected, but I suppose the event if supposed to have a youthful energy. She has some lovely ginger hair though, and it didn't look like a wig! As we're watching the people in front of us have taken a seat at the table there, only for the people who actually reserved that table to show up and tell them to beat it. Like, folks, there's a BIG sign that says RESERVED on every table along with the name of who's table it is. No, you can't just sit there for the show. Scoot. So we really got two shows for the price of one, which is always fun. 

The shows ends, and the Labyrinth is officially open! Hurrah! We take a peak inside the garden labyrinth and see the actors have gotten into place, but the place is much busier now it's officially open, so we decide to stay out of it for a bit and explore what's going on outside, and get a Limoncello! While perusing we discover that not only is the outdoor labyrinth open, but the manor house is now open too! Cool! We didn't know that was gonna be open to explore! The first room is full of food, but Jess and I aren't hungry as we've eaten a number of the hors d'oeuvres that have been passed around on trays by the staff since the start of the event and the line is huge anyway, so we just take a look and walk through. In the room off the entry room there's a fortune teller and a sign that says you have to have the right token to get your fortune told, and we remember the emcee saying something about the queen and her party giving our tokens for games and such. Past that is a room for photos and to the right is a staircase, which is roped off, and a small parlor where you can see through a window to a room with a stage where a marionette show is happening! We take a seat by the window and drink our drinks and chit-chat a little about how cool everything is! When the show ends we pop into the room and there's a bar there but it's not serving any specialty drinks so we're not interested, as we'd rather try the selected drinks than just order something regular. 

As we're heading back outside to find new drinks and hit the desert room again, two things happen. First, we hear some girl coming out of the indoor bathrooms saying to a friend, in her most horrified voice, "Girl, they're doing COKE in the bathroom!" which made Jess and I chuckle quite a bit because, well, yeah people do that at parties like this, but the sweet, innocent thing sounded so shocked, it was wonderful to overhear. Second, we run into the queen, who says she loves our outfits and hands us two tokens with horse heads on them. She doesn't explain where to do with them or what they do, and we don't ask, we just say thank you and smile and enjoy the fact that we got handed tokens at all! We hit the desert table, get some more treats, then go to the Pit and Pendulum bar for another drink there and we run into the Minotaur performer and decide to ask this horned man in assless-chaps if he knows what we do with the token. It's loud and the guy is wearing a mask, but Jess thinks he says we go to the "room with a bathtub in it", so we figure we need to head back to the manor, stopping to get the TCH drink on the way.

Back at the house we get some strawberries from the food table and end up taking a seat in the parlor by the stairs to do some people watching, having discovered no bathtubs in any rooms and feeling we must have misheard the Minotaur. While there were watch people taking pictures on the staircase, including one woman who's dictating to her friend like "You wanna get a photo of just the titties? That's what they're out there for!" She and her group have someone take their photo together and the woman taking the pics is so funny, posing them and hyping them up, and that group in turn does the same for that girl and her group, who are all dressed in cloaks with dark face paint, and it was all great fun to watch! We also chat with a woman and her husband who are dressed as characters from A Court of Thorns and Roses who both love our outfits and we do the usual drunk-girl thing of showering each other in compliments and whatnot! 

We grab some more strawberries and exit the house, returning to the Labyrinth and while wandering a woman in the queen's entourage comes up to say she LOVES my outfit and gives me a little metal sword! She decides she also loves Jess's outfit, and I think feels it's wrong to give one of us a gift and not the other for some reason, and gives Jess a little sword too! Free souvenirs! Nice!

As we enjoy those little trinkets, a random woman notices our champagne cups, which we still have, are empty, so off we all parade together to the desert room for more drinks! This time we get the pure absinth drink, which is WILD, and we discover a secret macaroon table! Nice! As we're eating our macaroons and having our absinth, we work out that our tokens are for the Queen's Livery (duh) and they go to a woman who's essentially treating guests to some light BDSM play. You give a token, you get brought up onto the little stage to get some light spanking with various instruments while the guests friends, and anyone else about, all hoot and holler and laugh. We watch this little show for a bit before deciding to hit the bathroom for, shockingly, the first time that evening, and decide to go to the house bathroom as that line is shorter. Inside the bathroom is the usual drunk-girls-in-bathrooms behavior, which is somewhat understandable but given how much everyone has paid to be here, it does seem silly for the women present to be spending such an awful lot of their time in the bathroom. You can be drunk girls together in the garden you paid to have access to. I end up forgetting my token in the bathroom stall, but the woman after me brings it out to me while I'm washing my hands which was quite sweet of her to do as she could have just taken it. 

Back to the Livery we continue to watch the insane little show and while we're enjoying watching it, we aren't sure if either of us are quite game to participate but the decision is made for us as a staff member comes in to tell us that they're closing down the labyrinth for the evening. Jess asks what we do with the tokens we have, as in, if the labyrinth is closing is there anything else we can do with them, and the staff member seems confused by the question and a little upset she doesn't have an answer, just telling us that she's sorry, she doesn't know, she was just told to clear the area. We understand and figure if there's nothing else to do with them we'll just keep them as free souvenirs, which works for us! We love little free mementos! Outside the labyrinth we see people with headphones on and know the Silent Disco is starting. We surmise that the close everything down at 10pm and start the silent disco because of some noise ordinances in the Garden District. The silent disco lets them stay in the boundaries of those ordinances while also allowing them to host a late-night event. Smart. Except Jess and I can't participate until we find some headphones and we have no idea where they're being handed out. 

We make a turn around the gazebo and dance floor, looking around, and finally ask someone who directs us to a table between the two primary outdoor bars. The table, however, does not currently have any headphones. Seems they were expecting more people to leave early than actually did and they don't have enough headphones for everyone. The guy handing them out tells us people will be leaving them about or bringing them back and we say we're fine with waiting and grab some of the pralines that are on the table. A woman comes back with two sets of headphones to return and Jess and I let a man who was waiting before us and a woman who arrived after us but was waiting to get a second pair of headphones for her friend take them because we're in no hurry! Some more people join us at the table as the guy disappears to check tables and see if he can find any abandoned headphones, and he does! He finds five! Everyone around us immediately wants them but he insists that Jess and I have been waiting the longest and gives them to us first! Nice! 

The headphones have three settings for three DJ's and all of them are playing just the worst music aha! It's all club beats and club beat remixes but no, like, songs, possibly to discourage people from singing along out loud and breaking the noise ordinance? I dunno, but Jess and I flip through them and decide we like the Green setting best, which features what can only be described as Club Penguin music. We do some dancing on the dance floor before Jess decides she wants another drink, but both the specialty bars are closed, but in the top right corner there's just a regular open bar so we go there and order some fruity drinks after asking the bartender her opinion on what to make. Mine is fruitier than Jess's but both do the trick as we return to the dance floor. One of the DJ's plays Taylor Swift's Love Story as his final song and a bunch of us near the gazebo just have a ball of a time singing along until it ends and the music cuts out. Two of the three DJ's just cut their music when the disco time was over, but the Green DJ kept playing the music and just got onto the mic to say "I'm not gonna stop the music, but they're telling me you need to return the headphones now. Yeah, I know, write your senators about it or whatever." which Jess and I found quite funny. He does, eventually, cut the music and we hand our headphones in and stand at a table to finish our drinks while the staff whirl about us to get a start on clean-up. 

We hit the outdoor bathroom, where some guy is in one of the stalls actively on the phone with someone while peeing, which I always think is bizarre but whatever, I guess the person on the other end can end the call if it peeves them. As we're exiting we stop to get a few more pictures of the house and we end up chatting with a couple about the movie versions of Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella on account of Jess's double-coned hat, which we saw a couple other people wearing at the party! Not the same one as her, but we always made a point to bond with the other person wearing one when they were spotted. While talking with them I do end up dropping Jess's phone, whoops, and cracking the protector screen, but she said she needed to change it anyway and it's not like the phone itself was damaged so it's whatever.  

When we're finally ready to go we decide we're fine just taking the streetcar back, save us $14, and we cross the street to the Eighth and Charles stop. There we run into a woman we'd briefly spoken to during the ball and we have a lovely chat as we wait for the streetcar and she waits for her Uber. It was nice to have someone else there to talk to so we weren't just standing alone at a streetcar stop at midnight. Her Uber arrives just before our streetcar and despite being full of so much alcohol, Jess and I are quite lucid getting on, scanning our passes, and talking about Jekyll and Hyde for some reason all the way to our stop a few minutes from our hotel! There we put on Columbo (the episode Short Fuse with Roddy McDowall was on!), and get ready for bed so fast. We're entirely satisfied with our fun-filled evening, but we're also beat, drunk, and ready for bed!