Daron, Luke, Daron's dad and I went to New Orleans for BYU's appearance in the Sweet Sixteen. They lost which was such a bummer, especially because they didn't play well at all and easily could have won if they had played half as well as they usually do. Despite us all being a little depressed because of the game, we still had a great time in the city. The weather was beautiful - low 80's most of the time and sunny - and there was so much to do and see. New Orleans really is such a unique city with so much personality and good food.
There are beautiful plantations outside of the city along the Mississippi River. There used to be 500 of them and the owners were called "New Orleans' 500 Millionaires" which is saying a lot considering the time period was early 1800's and a million dollars was worth a lot more then. People can tour many of these plantations today and we went to one called Oak Alley Plantation. It was given the name because of its row of oak trees leading up to the entrance. The trees are 300 years old!
We went and visited the areas hit hardest when Hurricane Katrina came through in 2005. 180,000 people used to live in the 9th ward and now there's only about 20,000 people living there. There are still many houses that are condemned and need to be torn down, and many areas where we saw slabs of concrete where foundations used to be but are now just overgrown with weeds. Many businesses and schools are still closed. Here are some pictures in the community Brad Pitt has helped get going.
Here are some pictures from a few of the restaurants we ate at. Delicious sea food! At Mr. B's Bistro one of our waiters had the chef sign the dessert menu for Luke and gave him a fun hat to wear.
We went on a swamp tour and saw many snakes and a couple of alligators.
There were so many things for kids to do that we didn't get to them all, but we were able to go to the Insectorium and the Aquarium. Here are some pictures from the Insectorium. Luke got a stamp on his hand for eating a chocolate covered cricket. He declined the six-legged salsa and other dishes with worms. Good thing since he was barely able to keep the cricket down.
They also had an atrium with live butterflies flying everywhere.
Here are some pictures from the Aquarium.
We did a city bus tour and one of our stops was a cemetery. It has only been somewhat recently that people have been able to be buried underground. The water table is so high and flooding so common that the buried didn't stay buried for very long. So they started burying above ground in vaults. Wealthy families have bigger more ornate crypts and many family members can be buried in the same one. After two years they just take the remains of the most recently buried person and move them to a specially made burial bag and put the bag to the side or back of the vault. That coffin is then destroyed and the vault is ready for the newly deceased family member. The vaults are forms of real estate and can be sold for tens of thousands of dollars if the family decides they no longer want it.
New Orleans is a beautiful city with its flowers, bright colors and wrought iron balconies. If BYU had to lose, they picked a good city to do it in.
