Give me snapshots of New Orleans

[toberane]

One interesting thing I found was that one of the best places we found for shrimp and for Po' Boys was in an all you can eat buffet that was attached to a gas station. This was in New Orleans proper, several miles from the French Quarter.

There also used to be a really cool shop on Decatur street that sold cartoon memorabilia, but I haven't been able to find it the last couple of times I went down, so I thinnk it went out of business.

An interesting story I just remembered revolves around the restaurant right across from the Cafe Du Monde, the one that used to be the Planet Hollywood before it went out of business. It is believed to be cursed by some people, since it has one of the best locations you could imagine for a business (right off Jackson Square, just down from Jax Brewery and the Virgin Megastore, with a huge 2 story open front that gives it an indoor/outdoor restaurant feel), and yet every business that has opened in that location for the last several years has gone out of business within like 6 months. The location is also supposed to be haunted, but what isn't supposed to be haunted in the Quarter? We had an extremely talkative and flamboyant waiter while we were there who told us as much history and gossip as we could take in about the location.

There is also a toy and kite store right on Jackson square that has a lot of cool kites and vintage toys, as well as a creepy little toy and kite museum in the back room. My Aunt worked there years and years ago, but the store was still there last time I was in New Oreleans.

And I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Cathedral that overlooks Jackson square. It is huge and beautiful, and I can't remember the name off the top of my head even though I should considering how famous it is.

Geez, you guys have me wanting to go back there soon! The feel of the city can't be described if you've enever been there. It's beautiful, and fun, with an air of moral decay and despair that I've never felt anywhere else. It's as cosmopolitan as New York or Chicago with a distinctly southern flavor that permeates everything there. But that doesn't even scratch the surface.

 

[toberane]

One other thing... one of the most enjoyable spots we visited was the Aquarium of the Americas, a HHHHUUUUUGGGEEE aquarium built for the World's Expo back in the 1980's. There is every kind of aquatic and amphibian life you can imagine there, so much so that it takes up an entire afternoon just to see it. My kids loved it (after we finally convinced them to go in, since the first thing you do there is walk through some tubes that take you right through a huge aquarium, so it was almost like being underwater surrounded by sharks, manta rays, and other animals, many of which had large, menacing teeth )

 

[nakia]

And I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Cathedral that overlooks Jackson square. It is huge and beautiful, and I can't remember the name off the top of my head even though I should considering how famous it is.

The St. Louis Cathedral (mentioned briefly in my post about Cafe du Monde). Attached/adjacent is the Cabildo.

 

[toberane]

The St. Louis Cathedral (mentioned briefly in my post about Cafe du Monde). Attached/adjacent is the Cabildo.

Ah, thanks. Couldn't remember the name, even though I've visited it several times. Sorry, I missed your mention of it.

 

[Shadow64]

Darn - someone already mentioned the whole "I know where you got your shoes" con, that's what I was going to mention. On the same vein look up stuff about other cons and grifts and throw a few of those at your players. Not to put down the Big Easy, I love the place, but there are lots of shady people there.

Other people have mentioned the cemetaries, so I will too. They are everywhere. I used to live in Gretna, which was across the Miss from NO. In some of the older neighborhoods there was a small cemetarie on the corner of the blocks. It was a little weird to be drving around the town and see house, house, cemetarie, house, house. As cool as the larger cemetaries are in New Orleans I'd look for cemetaries a little out from it in places like Gretna, Metarie, etc. They are smaller and I know as a player I probably wouldn't expect to find something in them.

There are two cemetaries I remember thinking would work well in a game. One was a cemetarie that was near an on/offramp for a bridge that crossed the Miss out in St. John Parish. Right on the side of the road in a corn field was a small cemetarie. Lots of rickety wooden crosses and unmarked graves, but nothing that said who the graveyard belong too. It was just there.

The second was also in St. John Parish, on the west bank, don't remember exactly where. But it was an old catholic church (i think) that was really beat down. It also had a large graveyard with a whole bunch of crumbling tombstones and mausoleums that I always thought would be perfect entrances for a little dungeaon crawl.

As for weather, I recall it either being really hot, or just this side of cold. Also, about 85% of the time it would pour down rain right about 3 or 4pm. Depending on where you were at the streets could semi-flood and you'd have a soup of water, garbage and sometime beer, urine, etc. It staaaaank.

Right around Jackson Square and Cafe Du Mond there are a few fountains tucked away behind the main buildings. They have small bronze statues on/near them. They make for interesting little nooks where meetings could take place.

Some more color:
Lingere Wendsdays: Some restaurants have Lingere Wendsday where scantily clad women walk around the restaurant and try to get you to either a) buy what they are wearing or b) enter into a raffle for a prize. Might be a great way to fluster some players when they are in a meeting with some hougan.

Drive Thru Daquiri Stands: Remember Lousiana has an open container law. So you can drive up to a place that hands you an alcoholic bevarage IN YOUR CAR. They ussually leave the straw covered, but most oft-times not. Give the players a scare when a cabby or buddy who is driving them around stops and gets a daquiri filled with Everclear!

The cochroaches: They are everywhere. I remember getting followed by a few of them one the way home from my office more then a few times. Is it a normal cochroach or is it some pet familar swarm following you and keeping tabs on you?

Random Craziness: Everytime I went drinking with my buddies to the quarter we always saw one thing to remember. Here are some: A disheveled woman walks down the street, her hair is a mess, her face and clothes are covered in dirt. She carries a limp dog in her arms (don't know if it was dead or not). Behind her a tall, thin man limps along with only a single flip-flop on. As we passed him he yells/drawls: "I'm gonna kill you bch". Never found out what that was about.

Also saw a guy who hit a HORSE with his TRUCK. The truck was all sorts of messed up, the horse was fine. The guy who was drving the buggy the horse was pulling was two seconds away from beating the truck-driver down for hitting his horse. This was on a very busy sidestreet and had drawn quite a crowd. Never knew what happend because a buddy of mine named Brandon was trying to get away from a transexual he had just hit on. Ah...the memories of a good run through the quarter....

So there is my two cents. Have fun.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Wow, this brings back memories...

I visited New Orleans over spring break a little over a year ago... wow, I didn't know what I was getting into! Up until then, my idea of what a city was like were the clean info-age commercial cities of the north (think Minneapolis or Seattle)... I had no idea just how weird, dirty, strange and magical a city could be...

In any event, here's my story, and it should give you several character ideas...

http://www.livejournal.com/users/quantanephilim/20955.html

 

[Teflon Billy]

I know it wasn't asked for but...

Me getting the "Margi Gras Scum" off my boots at Jackson Square (When it rains during Mardi Gras, the streets turn into knee-deep Papier Mache as people trod the waist-deep paper cups down into a mire)

 

[Teflon Billy]

Me, drunk, getting a Voodoo Doctor to power me up with his magic to avoid a hangover. He Wiped my hand with a black rose, twitched a bit, demanded a shot of my vodka, twitched a bit more, and told me to give him dolllar.

I did it all.

No hangover

 

[Teflon Billy]

My boon travelling companion Michelle, posing in front of the statue of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson at Jackson Square.

 

[toberane]

My boon travelling companion Michelle, posing in front of the statue of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson at Jackson Square.

That's a good shot of the Cathedral I was talking about, too.