martha-in-wonderland

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 51 - LA

I got up, checked out of my hotel and stored my bags, before I got onto the hotel's shuttle and headed to Universal Studios. I spent the day there. I went on the Revenge of the Mummy ride, a personal favourite.

I went to the Harry Potter area and did Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, and I also got some butter beer and a pumpkin cake.

I did the Walking Dead experience, which was absolutely terrifying, and I went to Springfield and went on the Simpsons ride.

I did a studio tour and saw the London street and the New York street, and Whoville and the Jaws town.

I finished up with City Walk.

I got the shuttle back to my hotel to get my bags and then got an Uber to the airport. The traffic was ridiculous so it took ages, but I finally got to LAX, and then eventually managed to get through security.

I'm now waiting for my flight to leave, at 10:30. This will be my last post because I'll be home within 24 hours, which is quite sad. I've really enjoyed writing for this blog.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 50 - LA

I got up early to catch the shuttle to New Orleans airport. My first flight was from New Orleans to Dallas, and then a flight from Dallas to LA. These are some cool photos that I took on the way to LA, out the plane window.

I arrived in LA at midday and got an Uber to my hotel. It was super exciting to have my room, and a television! I went to the grocery store and then I came back and watched television for the afternoon. For dinner I got some Thai takeaway. My sweet sticky rice was blue, which I found interesting, but it still tasted good.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 49 - New Orleans

Today was my last day in New Orleans. I went to the Hermann-Grima House first, which is a big house in the French Quarter.

I got a tour and the woman told us about the families who used to live in the house. The rooms are furnished with period furniture. Three of the rooms were used as Madame LaLaurie's house in American Horror Story.

I had some really good jambalaya for lunch, from the French Market. I also had praline beignets, which are exactly what they sound like - beignets with hot praline inside. I spent the rest of the day walking around New Orleans, looking in some of the shops that I hadn't seen earlier. I took a few more nice photos of the city because it's so beautiful.

Lots of people were already dressed up. I came back to the hostel to pack everything up, and then I went out again for dinner. I had a jambalaya burger for dinner, which wasn't too bad. A lot of the roads in the French Quarter were shut off and almost everyone was dressed up. I didn't spend too much time out, though, because I had to get up early in the morning.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 48 - New Orleans

This morning I got up for a tour to Oak Alley Plantation and the swamps. I'd already briefly visited Oak Alley on my other plantation tour, but this time I got to go around and inside the house, as opposed to just going to the restaurant.

It's named after the line of oak trees leading to the front of the house, which were there 150 years before the house was even built.

I got back on the bus and we went out to the swamps. The tour was on an airboat, which was super loud but lots of fun.

Despite the cold weather we managed to see quite a few alligators.

They go into hibernation in the next few days, so we were really lucky to see them.

I really liked the trees around the swamps.

The bus brought me back to my hostel and for dinner I went to a nearby bakery and tavern. I had a beef poor boy, which was the last Creole meal I wanted to try. It's basically just a messy sandwich but it was really good. I also had a huge slab of bread pudding.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 47 - New Orleans

Today I walked down to Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World. Blaine Kern worked as a designer and artist for Mardi Gras floats. Mardi Gras World is where floats and props are made for some of the krewes in New Orleans.

I got a tour and I got to try some king cake, which is traditionally eaten on Mardi Gras.

Most of the props are made from styrofoam, covered in papier mâché and painted.

One of the props was a character from the movie Coraline.

They also make some props for Disneyworld and Universal Studios in Florida.

I walked back up to the French Quarter, passing the river.

I went over to the Garden District which I hadn't been to yet. I did a tour of the district, starting with the Lafayette Cemetery.

We then walked around the district, which is known as the wealthy area, to see the amazing houses.

This is the house that inspired Walt Disney's Haunted House.

The houses are big and they're beautiful.

I went back to the hostel and had dinner there, and chatted to some people who were also staying there.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 46 - New Orleans

This morning I went to the National WWII Museum. I spent hours in the five different buildings.

One thing that I did notice was that Australia's efforts were only mentioned once - in the deciphering of some Japanese codes.

Outside the museum, the pavement bricks all have names on them.

I also took a photo of the Civil War Museum because I like the building, even though I didn't go in.

After that I went to get some lunch. Because there's a music and arts festival on in New Orleans at the moment, and because it's just before Halloween, the city is packed all of a sudden. I wanted to get some beignets but the line was so long that I couldn't. I did manage to get some a bit later though. A small parade went down one of the main streets, and some of the people threw beads at me, which was very exciting!

I came back to the hostel for an early night.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 45 - New Orleans

This morning I got up and met for my tour. Yesterday I got a call from the company I was doing the tour with, a plantation tour to Whitney and St Joseph plantations, and they cancelled the tour because I was the only person to book it. They didn't have the same tour on any of the days that I was free so I had to look for a similar tour. I ended up booking a combination tour with another company, and I chose to visit Whitney and Laura plantations (St Joseph wasn't an option). So I got on the bus and the first plantation was Whitney. Whitney Plantation has actually been made into a slavery museum, so the tour was very much about how the slaves lived. In the church were statues that were made of some of the children slaves who were at the plantation at the time of emancipation.

The church wasn't originally from Whitney, but it was deconstructed from another plantation and brought there.

We briefly went into the big house, but that wasn't the focus of the tour.

Next we went to Laura Plantation, which is known as a Creole plantation. The definition of Creole is anyone born or anything made in Louisiana. The main house of the plantation has been restored to its original colours, which are beautiful and very Creole.

The tour focused mainly on the lives of Laura and her family, from before the plantation was sold to a German family. This is because Laura actually wrote her memoirs into a book which was found while researching the plantation.

Given the Creole influence of Laura Plantation, I'm really glad that I got a chance to go there, so it's actually a good thing that my original tour was cancelled - having driven past St Joseph Plantation today, I know that it's very similar in style and colour (white) to Whitney and Oak Alley, and nothing like Laura.

Because I was the only one from my tour who did the combination of Whitney and Laura, I was taken to Oak Alley Plantation while everyone else finished their tours. I didn't have a ticket for the plantation but I went to the restaurant and had some gumbo for lunch. After that we left to come back to the city. There was a lot of traffic but we made it back eventually. I took the streetcar and the bus to Lakeside Shopping Centre for some Friday night shopping and dinner, and then I caught an Uber back to the hostel.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 44 - New Orleans

I got up and packed up because I had to change hostels. I got to my new hostel and then went back into the French Quarter. I got 1/4 of a mufalatta for lunch, from the French Market.

I went into the Cabildo, a museum about Louisiana history. A lot of the information I'd already gathered from different tours, but there was some new interesting information. I headed to Frenchmen street where I did a bit of shopping. At 4pm I went to Electric Ladyland to get a tattoo. Three hours and a lot of pain later, I left with my beautiful tattoo. I got some dinner and then went back to my hostel for some well needed rest.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 43 - New Orleans

This morning I had a cooking class. I learnt how to make gumbo, jambalaya, bread pudding and pralines, and I got to eat some for lunch.

I had seconds of both the gumbo and the jambalaya.

I went to the Pharmacy Museum next, and I was just on time for the guided tour.

The guide was entertaining and knew so much about historical medicine. I went in just because I was nearby, but it was a really good decision. Below is a collection of vaccines.

Next, I went to the Presbytere. I saw an exhibition about Hurricane Katrina, interestingly focusing on the lack of protective engineering and the lack of help that some people received. The other exhibition I saw was about Mardi Gras.

On display were many outfits from different krewes over the years.

They had information about the parade, but also about the other celebrations, including courirs in others areas of Louisiana.

I went to an IHOP for dinner and had French toast and bacon, just because I could.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 42 - New Orleans

This morning I went to the Audobon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium.

They have a collection of insects including dung beetles, a tarantula and leaf cutter ants (all alive).

The best part was their butterfly garden though.

I had jambalaya for lunch, which is spicy rice with, in this case, chicken and sausage.

I walked around the French Quarter, doing a bit of shopping. I'm really enjoying just exploring the French Quarter, especially all of the shops.

On my way back to the hostel I took a detour to see the Immaculate Conception Church.

I had dinner at a diner and then went back to the hostel for the night.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 41 - New Orleans

I got up and went to the French Quarter for my American Horror Story walking tour. The guide showed us the places in the French Quarter where scenes from season 3 were filmed. We went to St Louis Cemetery No. 1 and saw Marie Laveau's real tomb,

as well as Madame LaLaurie's

and Nicholas Cage's.

The tour guide explained everything that was supported by evidence, without embellishment, and it was interesting to find out the truth behind the television show. Marie Laveau was known as the Voodoo Queen, but she made that name for herself. She was a free black woman and a hairdresser, and when the slaves came to her to get they hair cut, they told her things about the households they worked in. Marie Laveau then pretended to know these things through reading people's auras, and so people thought she was the Voodoo Queen. She also made her daughters dress exactly like her, and they would all go to different parts of the city, so it would seem like she was in numerous places at once. We also went to the place where Marie Laveau really lived, except the house there now isn't the one that she lived in.

After the tour I went to Cafe du Monde, where I had some beignets. They're like a donut except square and covered in icing sugar, and they're what Tiana makes in the Princess and the Frog.

I went to a sweets store which was huge and had everything from fudge to chocolate to toffee apples. Then I went up to the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum. It explained that Voodoo isn't evil, like it's portrayed in movies, but it's actually just a religion focusing on worshipping a god. It has a lot of similarities to Catholicism, for example, in Voodoo there are loa, which are very similar to saints. Louisiana Voodoo is now connected with Catholicism because everyone in New Orleans was forced to be Catholic, so the Haitian and Africans drew parallels between Catholicism and their religion so that they could still practice Voodoo without getting caught. Voodoo is thought to be the oldest religion in the world.

I caught a bus out to see Buckner Mansion, the house that was used as the academy in American Horror Story.

I came back for a rest during the day when it was hot, and I went back out to have an early dinner of pizza and then meet the guide for my haunted tour. The tour is a 5-in-1 tour operated by the Voodoo Bone Lady, and my tour guide was Brian, who was very good. He took us to the Old Ursuline Convent, which, he told us, is a prison for vampires. They live in that top attic level.

We went to a restaurant in which a man had killed himself when it was his home. He was a peaceful ghost until they made it a restaurant, and then he turned into a poltergeist. They got a medium in to ask him why he was angry, and he said that he was angry because people were having parties in his house every night and he wasn't invited. So every night they set a table for him with bread and wine, and now he is peaceful again, but there are still sightings of him. This is his table.

We went to Madame LaLaurie's house, where he told the story of a rich socialite woman who tortured and killed around 65 slaves. This version of the story was more embellished than the one I heard in the morning, so it was interesting to see the difference between the story and the reality. There was a fire in the household and the fire brigade went upstairs and found her torture attic, with 7 slaves inside, horrible things having been done to them. She escaped and ended up living in Paris until she died naturally, but there are still screams from the house every week, and sometimes the ghost of a young slave girl can be seen running around the balcony.

Finally, we went to a hotel on a location that was once a boys' school. The school burned down in one of the two fires, and now there are hauntings of children ghosts. One couple was on their honeymoon and they decided to stay there because they wanted to see a haunting, but they were disappointed because they saw nothing. They went home and got their photos developed and realised they had been haunted after all. The second last photo was of both of them in bed, sleeping.

After the tour I caught the bus back to my hostel and I went to bed.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 40 - New Orleans

I woke up, had breakfast, and then walked down to the French Quarter for my walking tour. The guy giving the tour was friendly and funny, and it was really interesting to learn the history of the city. The buildings are all beautiful.

We ended up at the French market, where I got some strawberry lemonade and looked around. I had lunch at a diner and then tried to find a street that we'd passed on the tour. I tried to get some help from Google Maps, but it took me to the wrong street, so it took quite some time to finally make it there. I got to see some nice houses though.

Some of the houses were dressed up for Halloween.

I went into to St Louis Cathedral, which we had passed on the tour.

This cathedral is what Walt Disney based his design for the enchanted castle on.

There were some people playing violins outside, and I really liked the music, so I decided to buy their CD. I did some more shopping and then started to get a headache, so I went back to the hostel to get some water and maybe rest for a bit. My headache got a lot worse and I also started to feel sick, which I assumed was from being outside in the sun, so I drank some Hydralyte and had a nap. When I woke up I felt much better. I chatted with some people in my room for a while and before getting into bed.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 39 - New Orleans

I got up, made my last visit to the patisserie, and checked out of my hostel. I went to the airport and tried to check in for my flight, only to find that I didn't have a seat. The flight had been overbooked, meaning that I couldn't be allocated a seat. I had to wait until boarding time to know if there was a seat for me, but thankfully there was. The plane ride was 9 hours and 20 minutes, so I arrived at 7:20pm in New Orleans. It took an hour to get through immigration but then I was on a shuttle straight to my hostel. I checked in and went to sleep.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 38 - London

I got up this morning and had to post some things home, so that hopefully all my possessions will fit in my bag. After that I went to the Science Museum. I saw an exhibition about photography of India, which was beautiful. Some of the photographs had been painted over and it was really enchanting. There was also a room dedicated to space exploration, with the real space suit worn by the first British person in space (who was a woman).

There was an room dedicated to the evolution of steam power, and an area for different types of materials. It had a cool statue.

Next, I left and went to the Natural History Museum.

I saw an exhibition about the evolution of humans.

In the exhibition they had a real hominid canine tooth, dated at 3.5 million years old. It was incredibly interesting.

I saw an exhibition about volcanoes and earthquakes, and then I went to the one about dinosaurs. Some dinosaurs lose their teeth when they wear down, and grow more. They had a room with a big T. rex. It had very little arms.

They had a collection of fossilised marine reptiles as well.

And the skeleton of a giant ground sloth.

They had many stuffed birds, and I now have a new respect for any item of taxidermy. They had two different types of dodo.

I went out to my last show, American in Paris. Once again, the seats were amazing. The show was marvellous, and made me sad to be leaving London tomorrow morning. I had some really nice Vietnamese fusion food for dinner and met two lovely women on the table next to me before I went back to my hostel.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 37 - London

After a late start this morning and a few accidental scenic routes, I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. In the foyer is a lovely glass sculpture hanging from the ceiling.

I saw an exhibition about plywood, as well as one about how jewellery has changed over time.

They also had collections of silver and stained glass, and an exhibition on the evolution of fashion.

After a few hours I came out and went back to my hostel for a short rest before I went out to St Martin Theatre to see The Mousetrap. Even though I'd already seen it, the suspense was thrilling. I also bought a t-shirt.

I had some dinner and came back to the hostel to sleep.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 36 - London

This morning I found the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, which I missed on my first visit.

I then had to go out of the city for my taxidermy experience. I learnt how to skin, clean, stuff and mount my little weasel. The woman who ran it, Suzette, also gave us a delicious lunch. She's a vegetarian and all of her animals are ethically sourced. I left my weasel with Suzette to post home, and then raced to the Prince Edward Theatre, just in time for the show. I saw Aladdin and it was beautiful and colourful and exciting.

[martha-in-wonderland]

Day 35 - London

I got up this morning and went to Victoria Station again, where I got on a bus to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studios. I took so many photos, but I managed to narrow it down to a few to post here. This is the Great Hall, decorated with pumpkins for Halloween. They never found a ceiling that they liked so they edited it in post-production.

All of the costumes were the ones used in the filming.

This cabinet contained the crystal goblet from the 6th movie, the Philosopher's Stone, Sirius Black's prison number, the golden snitch, Nevil's remembrall, and more.

In Dolores Umbridge's table you can see the quill that she forces Harry to write with.

There was a recreation of the Forbidden Forest, which was awesome, and it had spiders that came down when the worker pressed a button.

They had a Diagon Alley, complete with Olivander's, Scribulus, Flourish & Blotts, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes and more.

They'd set up some carriages of the train (the real one from the movies) with objects from each movie - the one for Prisoner of Azkaban had frosted windows, from the cold of the dementors.

This was one of the table decorations for the Yule Ball in the fourth movie.

They had an area about the mechanics of things like the creatures. This is inside the Monster Book of Monsters.

At the very end was a huge model of Hogwarts.

I came back on the bus and then did some laundry and shopping, before I went to dinner at a French Restaurant, where they serve crepes and galettes. I had a galette with chicken, cheese and egg, and a crepe with salted caramel, walnuts, ice cream and pear. It was amazing.