Ghost Walk in Alexandria

On Saturday night, Tori and I went to Old Town Alexandria and went on a Ghost Walk. You might've seen these guys on the Travel Channel, and I hate to say it, but I preferred seeing it on the Travel Channel! Maybe it's because they had better re-enactments, and on the tour you just have someone telling you the stories...It was fun though. We met at the Ramsay Visitor's center (the cute house below), and our guides were dressed in semi-authentic eighteenth-century outfits (probably would've been hard to speak to a large group and trot about town wearing corsets!), and carried lanterns with candles. It wasn't nearly as hot and humid as it has been lately, but Tori and I were wondering how in the world women lived here back then, having to wear about ten times the amount of clothing as we wear today, and not even having deodorant or makeup... All together now:Ewwwww....Once again, I pause to thank God for having me be born in this wonderful century with deodorant, Origins makeup, and antibacterial soap.

So moving right along...this was a sign right outside the visitor's center, explaining the origin of Alexandria. Hopefully you can read it:

We took of around town, led by Barb our very-enthusiastic tour guide. We learned some interesting stuff along the way, about the ghosts and hauntings of Alexandria, all of which this tour company researches from old newspapers and public records (with some rumor/speculation thrown in for fun, I'm sure!) - pretty neat!

Below is Barb explaining about how women could give men over 100 different signals by using their fans. This was the origin of the saying "don't get your signals crossed," because if a woman touched her right cheek with her fan, it meant she liked you, but if she touched her left cheek, it meant she didn't, and since basically any forward-ness on a guy's part in those days meant a woman could expect a proposal shortly, it was definitely a good idea to learn those fan signals very well!

Another funny thing she told us about was how the size/amount of hair in a man's wig was a very obvious clue to his wealth, thus the origin of the term "bigwigs." Thought that was funny...

She is standing on the steps of the house right next to George and Martha Washington's town house, and while she was teaching us about the fan signals and the meaning of bigwigs, the people in the house had ordered pizza, and we had to get out of the way of the pizza guy. We kept getting twenty-first century reminders of life all throughout the tour like that. It was kind of funny.

After the tour was over, we retired to Murphy's Pub, a neat place Tori & the gang used to go to more when they lived in Alexandria (they're mostly in Arlington now). This guy named Pat was singing these really funny Irish drinking songs all night, and everyone in the audience was apparently a regular (except for us), because they knew all the words and what to call out & when. When Pat says, "Lovely," you repeat "Lovely," and when he says "Brilliant," you repeat "Brilliant." There was one song where one line is "...and God bless the Queen," and as you're singing along with that, everybody in the place does the sort of lightbulb-turning wave the Queen does, all together. We felt positively British. Hopefully we'll get to go back before I leave - it was really fun!