80: The Langham Hotel
Kathryn (00:11)
think I'm just gonna jump in. I don't remember how to do this.
Gina (00:14)
I know, checked the
calendar. It's been three weeks since we last were.
Kathryn (00:18)
What? right. Well, that makes... Okay. Yeah, that makes me feel better. Like, I hate it, but in the way that my feelings about, like, not remembering how to do this feel better.
Gina (00:20)
So it's completely normal
Yeah.
I can look away and take my headphones out if you want.
Kathryn (00:34)
No, because then I'll just like leave.
All right. Hello, everyone. Welcome. This is I Scream You Scream. We are your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories, mysteries and paranormal perplexities. My name is Kathryn
Gina (00:46)
I'm Gina.
Kathryn (00:47)
And for the month of May, we have been telling very spooky stories about haunted houses. No, we haven't. We've been talking about hotels. ⁓ So I almost did it. almost did it. ⁓ Haunted hotels. And we've been doing so while eating chocolate surprise ice cream. Just as a reminder, this episode is sponsored by Clo-Bear Money Coach. If you're ready to start investing, but unsure how exactly to get started.
Gina (00:53)
That's so close!
Kathryn (01:15)
visit getlazynow.com.
But for now, grab a spoon and let's dig in.
Gina (01:23)
So what are you eating?
Kathryn (01:25)
⁓ okay. So guys, when I
said chocolate surprise, the surprise is we're done with the chocolate. Chocolate is done. No more chocolate. Also, my window is open. So if you see things blowing around, it's just the wind, not a ghost. I just lost my napkin. yeah, so I'm still eating the whiskey ice cream. chocolate. We're done. What's yours? Are you are you eating the
Gina (01:33)
Mm-hmm.
Moved on.
Kathryn (01:52)
What was it? Honeycomb? Okay.
Gina (01:54)
Still honeycomb, yeah, no
chocolate. I know there's a chocolate bar in this house somewhere because I remember buying it, but it's not in my hand anymore, which means at some point I set it down and I don't know where.
Kathryn (02:01)
Yeah.
Yeah, I have a salted caramel chocolate bar in here somewhere. just bought it yesterday. think it's in that bag right over there, but we're already sitting down and recording, so it's too late for that.
Gina (02:14)
Mmm.
Again, we've moved on.
Kathryn (02:24)
We've moved on. ⁓ Do you want to rate
before we talk about other things? Do you have a rating for yours?
Gina (02:30)
I feel like,
to be honest, I feel like it's almost unfair for me to rate my ice cream this month because I was so, I think I did chocolate for the first one, maybe the first and the second one. I was really not, I'll give it a three, average.
Kathryn (02:39)
Yeah.
That's I was gonna give
mine to, But was your ice cream, like did you like the ice cream though? What's the ice cream rated outside of the confines of the theme? Because we are putting these shackles on ourselves here.
Gina (02:48)
Yeah.
I did.
You're right, you're right, I'm a free lady. ⁓ You know, I actually really enjoyed the ice cream. I'm gonna give it a four because it was flavored really nicely, it was very creamy, and it had crunchy bits of honeycomb in it. And you know how I feel about bits. What about you?
Kathryn (03:05)
Mm-hmm.
Yes, I do.
same, literally exact same. I will say if this had been a float, if I had used this in a float, that would have been a five, I think. We're going to do like four, I'm going to give it like a 4.25.
Gina (03:22)
Mmm.
Ooh.
Kathryn (03:30)
But yeah, but within the confines of the theme, I should give it a two, but I'll give it a three. I'll go easy on myself and say three. But flavor-wise, it was very, very good. I would definitely buy this again, for sure. Very good. Oh my God, it's raining. I don't know what's happening today.
Gina (03:38)
Yeah, okay.
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (03:49)
It was like 80 degrees and sunny and hot just like moments ago and then it got really dark and now apparently I'm like getting rain down. It's like coming into the window.
Gina (03:51)
my god!
It's raining by me too. I love when this happens.
Kathryn (04:05)
Me too.
It's so humid. I'm not wearing highlight. It's just, I'm just sweating.
Gina (04:11)
You're just glowing. Man, you went straight
from New Orleans humid to Midwest humid.
Kathryn (04:16)
Yes, very different types of humidity because here I'm not drunk and happy. I'm just sticky.
Gina (04:29)
and stick.
Kathryn (04:31)
I'm just sober and sticky. ⁓ Yes, we were in New Orleans together. still kind of coming down from it. It was such a good time. We were down there with the TWATS We went for Sassy Con And I will say, because I don't think we actually told people this, we didn't do any podcast stuff. So you're not getting an in-person episode. So sorry. I know that people wanted that. So I just had to address that.
Gina (04:54)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, there wasn't really time to do a in-person episode, but if it makes you feel any better, we had a whole bunch of fun doing other stuff. Highlights include ⁓ having caviar and champagne for breakfast one day, which was so much fun.
Kathryn (05:09)
Yeah.
but
you forgot the best part of that meal, which was the hot dog tower dessert that we had. That was so good. ⁓ my God.
Gina (05:18)
⁓ yeah, sorry.
Yeah, that was great. It was so
freaking, and it also came with corn dogs, that hot dog tower, which was so very nice. Yeah, so that was lovely. And truffle fries. So many tasty cocktails in New Orleans.
Kathryn (05:30)
Yeah, it did. And truffle fries. Ugh, so good.
Yes. The food scene in New Orleans in general is so good. I mean, everyone knows, like, the drinks are good, but I forget how good the food is. It's the only place in the world that I've ever liked shrimp. Like, so good.
Gina (05:42)
Hmm.
⁓ man. Mm-hmm. Like
I'm not one of the, I am not on the bandwagon of like, British food sucks because I think people who think that haven't actually eaten British food. However, I will say, yeah, completely agree. I will say going from New Orleans back to the UK is probably the closest I've ever come to having that opinion. But it's not because British food's bad, it's just because the food in New Orleans is like, they season their
Kathryn (06:00)
For sure, I'm so confused by that. Yeah.
Yeah.
Gina (06:16)
fucking food, you know? Like it's just mmm.
Kathryn (06:18)
That's the thing.
That's the thing. And things are, it's so refreshing because it's like, things are spicy without warning and like, you know what I mean? And that's, that doesn't happen places. It's You don't have to salt anything. Man, New Orleans good. Food is so good. shout out to the TWATS because we stuck with them and Frankie had so many good hole in the wall suggestions.
Gina (06:28)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah,
my gosh.
Kathryn (06:44)
It was nice to be with them and experience that.
Gina (06:46)
it so crazy good. we did, Kathryn and I had a lovely day when it was raining outside and we did a little romantic tour de French Quarter and we walked by a lot of the spots that we talked about in New Orleans month, which was really cool to be able to not just do that, but to do it together was really fun.
Kathryn (06:48)
Yeah.
yeah?
Yes.
do have to say.
I would like to issue a public apology for my skepticism, my public skepticism about the convent when we talked about it. Girl, when we rounded that corner,
Gina (07:15)
Mmm.
Kathryn (07:19)
The energy there is weird as hell. Like, I just don't even know how to put it into words. It truly was. When we were standing there out front, like, I get it. It was so spooky and so... I don't understand the science of sound, so I'm sure there is something to it. But when we were standing there and all you could hear was the rain, and like moments prior, you could hear...
drunk girls screaming, like horns honking, all this stuff, and all we did. And it's not like it was empty, like there were people around. It was just this vacuum of sound. And the energy was just so wild and so good. Like, I don't know, doing that in the rain was peak New Orleans spooky vampire experience for me. That was fantastic. Yeah.
Gina (07:56)
Hmm.
completely
agree. And one thing I didn't realize about the convent until we were there is that it's behind like a big ass wall, which makes sense because walls are important, but I didn't realize the wall is so, like you can't see, like I didn't realize the convent was right there until we peeked through one of the little like holes, you know?
Kathryn (08:15)
Yeah.
Mm-mm.
Yeah, remember when we were around the corner and I was like, man, I feel like we're getting close and then we turn and we were kind of like, where is it? And we like look up like, my God, it's right here. Yeah.
Gina (08:31)
Mm-hmm. It's right there.
Yeah, like it is kind of hidden from the street a little bit unless you know where and how to look for it.
Kathryn (08:41)
I walked past it again like two or three times and didn't even realize I noticed like, this is kind of a quiet pocket of New Orleans. Where are we? And I look over and there's the wall. I was like, ⁓ okay.
Gina (08:44)
wow.
Kathryn (08:52)
Well, we're back. Yeah, no, that was great. we will do a little write up of everything we did and places we went food we ate and we've got all our pictures for you. So go over and check that out on Patreon. Yeah, it was such a good time. Sassy Con was great. We have not even really talked about.
Gina (08:52)
that there's a frickin' vampire.
Kathryn (09:11)
the reason we were down there. I think we briefly mentioned it was for SassyCon. ⁓ It was so good. We learned a lot. We'll put some of that in Patreon too. I don't really want to go in-depth with it here,
Gina (09:13)
I know, yeah.
a very welcoming, very nice community. I felt very safe the entire time I was there.
Kathryn (09:27)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, me too. Yeah, everyone was great. They did a great job putting that together.
Gina (09:33)
Agreed, yeah. But while we sit here and daydream about eventually going back to New Orleans, should we maybe share what we're doing next month before I give you the last hotel episode? All right.
Kathryn (09:41)
my God, yes. Yes, I forgot
about this. Hold
Gina (09:45)
Due to the magic of editing, it seems like this was a seamless transition, but we in fact just had major technical difficulty.
Kathryn (09:55)
in factory day.
Gina (09:57)
And I'm struggling to remember the last thing that we talked
Kathryn (10:02)
I am about to announce the flavor for next month and then I'm gonna keep my mouth shut so that I don't ruin things again. no, you're frozen. Okay, no you're not. Okay, I'm gonna do this quick. Okay, so next month is a very special month because friends on Patreon.
⁓ voted for the entire month instead of just one episode and the topic that was chosen was amusement parks. So every story next month will have to do with amusement parks and we chose the ice cream flavor churro in honor of our favorite amusement park snack. So that's what we'll be covering next month and before I lose connection again, I'm going to pass it right directly over to Gina so that she can
tell me a very spooky tale.
Gina (10:56)
Okay, excellent, great. Well, we've talked about quite a few American hotels this month, so I'm gonna take us on a little vacation today to London, which I know is shocking to everyone because I never talk about England or the But yeah, we're going to London. Today we're gonna talk about the Langham Hotel.
Kathryn (11:14)
Not once.
Gina (11:19)
which was the largest and most modern hotel in the city back when it first opened in the 1800s. And in this hotel, we shall find hauntings, my dear Kathryn, but also lots and lots of very interesting, fun facts and rabbit holes that I couldn't stop going down. So slight emphasis on the histories part of histories, mysteries and paranormal perplexities today. But before I get too far into it, a couple of content warnings.
gonna mention suicide in today's episode along with murder. Both of them are within the context of a rumor. There aren't any graphic descriptions or anything like that. But without further ado, let us go to London. And we shall begin on June 10th, 1865, when the Langham Hotel first opened its doors. My first fun fact of the episode is that it was Europe's first grand hotel.
And my follow-up fun fact is that the only source for this is the Langham Hotel's website.
Kathryn (12:16)
⁓ okay.
I was gonna say, wait, so what is the measure for this?
That counts.
Gina (12:28)
So
whether or not that is true, who am I to say? I am simply Europe's first grand woman. So what do I know? But I can confidently say that the Langham was purpose built to be a grand hotel. Very similar to the other hotels that we've talked about this month. This one was built for the rich folks. And it was specifically designed to be, quote, on a scale of comfort and magnificence not hitherto attained.
in London. So yeah, very fancy. Upon opening, it had 10 floors, three of them were underground. It had hot and cold running water and the very first hydraulic elevators in England. It did not have electric lights right away. It opened up a little bit too soon for that, but it started, I know, I'm so sorry. I thought about you when I was reading this. They started using them in 1879, which
Kathryn (13:17)
Ugh. Okay. That's okay.
Gina (13:27)
for the time like that's still pretty early adopter. Yeah.
Kathryn (13:28)
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely,
definitely counts. I'll take it.
Gina (13:34)
get points. Langham gets some electricity points. And it's not just the electricity. Everything in the hotel was built to delight its guests. And so was everything outside of the Langham. The hotel sits in London's West End, which today is one of, if not the most well-known areas in the city. People go there in droves for shopping, dining, and of course going to the theatre.
London's West End is like the big theater area in the city. And the Langham sits in the West End on Regent Street. My next fun fact is that Regent Street was one of the first planned developments in London with an ordered structure to it.
Kathryn (14:19)
Okay, that's... yeah, I do have questions, so thank you.
Gina (14:21)
I I will explain. So
years and years and years, London was full of these really twisty, turny, winding streets that weren't really designed so much as they just like appeared over time as the city got bigger and bigger. Because at its core, this part of London is a medieval city and the area that we now call the West End
has been a popular place to live since the medieval period, especially for the wealthy. And the reason why I thought this was so interesting is that the West End in particular, the way it's positioned, the people who lived slash live there don't have to smell the stink of central London as much as others do. It's something about how the wind blows, the way the breeze faces there. It doesn't stink as much, so.
I don't have time to get into the history of sanitation in London, but suffice it to say it was a really smelly city back in the medieval period. So much so that part of its history is literally called the Great Stink. So the West End was a very popular destination since London's early days as a city, meaning that the roads into and out of it were built around the paths that like people and horses and carts took rather than like a systematic grid. Until...
Kathryn (15:11)
Sure.
Gina (15:41)
A lot of the city was destroyed in a massive fire in 1666, including the West End. Which sucked for a lot of reasons, but also when restoration efforts began, it meant that they could rebuild in a way that was much more fitting to the modern era. And over time, as the West End was gradually rebuilt and modernized, including...
the addition of Regent Street where the Langham is. And so this is what I mean when I say it's one of the first developments in London to have an ordered structure. It wasn't just like organic paths in the dirt that people wore so much over time that they felt compelled to build around it. It was like it had a system to it. It was designed for a purpose this time. So that's interesting.
Kathryn (16:24)
That makes sense. Yeah. Especially for the time period.
Gina (16:26)
Let me scroll.
Yeah, yeah, 100%. the street, Regent Street itself, was specifically designed to be like a very fancy street. It was meant to emulate a Parisian boulevard complete with upscale shopping options, which brings me to my next fun fact, which is that when Regent Street was first built in the 1860s, they were not allowed to put butchers or greengrocers on the street because that's where the help
went, not the rich people. And this wasn't for the help.
Kathryn (17:02)
⁓ interesting. Okay, I can see that, yeah.
Gina (17:05)
Interesting, right? Yeah, so like this
whole area that the Langham opened into when it first became a hotel and it was built, it was specifically designed. Every piece of it was for the wealthy, for the elite.
And as the crown jewel of this fancy schmancy street, they needed a grand hotel for the rich people to stay at, bringing us back around to the Langham. The hotel's grand opening was celebrated by over 2,000 guests from Victorian high society, including the at the time Prince of Wales, Edward VII, who performed the opening ceremony himself. And just for some context, I'm pretty sure he was the
Queen's great grandfather. So like current King's great great grandfather.
Kathryn (17:53)
Okay.
Gina (17:54)
I get lost in the royal family all the time, so I had to look it up. And in the decades that followed its opening, the Langham hosted countless upper-class guests, many of whom we still remember and talk about today, including Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill, and a very interesting woman named Hetty Green, also known as the Witch of Wall Street. Are you familiar with Hetty Green?
Kathryn (17:56)
same.
I've heard the name. I've heard the phrase, which of Wall Street, but I don't know the story or anything like that.
Gina (18:29)
Okay, I had never heard of her before and her life story is kind of another rabbit hole that I fell down during this research process. So I do want to talk a little bit about her because I'm obsessed. So Hetty Green, who was a Scorpio by the way, November 21st, she lived from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s. And when she was alive, she was known as the richest woman in America. But some say she was the richest woman in the world.
Kathryn (18:36)
Okay.
Yeah.
You
Gina (18:59)
She was born to a wealthy whaling family who trained her in finance from a very young age. And she had like a prodigious talent for it. By the time she was 13, she was her family's bookkeeper. And this is one of my favorite stories about her. Allegedly when she turned 20, her dad bought her a wardrobe full of like these really fancy dresses to help her attract suitors. And she sold them all and used the money to buy government bonds.
Kathryn (19:26)
Sweet, my god, I love that.
Gina (19:29)
I know, I'm obsessed with her. She loved money and she had a reputation for being crazy good at managing it. And she was. By the time she died, she had amassed a fortune of $100 million in liquid assets alone at the time, which today is about $3 billion. And that doesn't consider like the land that she owned or any investments she made that didn't have her name on them directly. And I do want to say,
Kathryn (19:49)
Holy moly.
Gina (19:58)
I do hate billionaires and the idea and practice of them, but the fact that Hetty was successful, at this successful when it was literally illegal for her to have a bank account or vote, is just bananas. So that's Hetty Green. ⁓ A lot of people obviously hated her for the success. ⁓ Also, a lot of people hated her because she didn't really care about high society or like social life. She wasn't really in the public eye. She...
Kathryn (20:12)
Yeah.
Gina (20:26)
played things really close to the chest, kind of like Sarah Winchester-y vibes. And so she was given the nickname, the Witch of Wall Street. It's like a purely mean-spirited thing, but Hetty didn't care, because she was rich as hell. And to bring it back to the Langham, apparently, Hetty lived at the hotel when she was pregnant with her two kids.
which was really great timing because when she was pregnant with her second was right around the time that the hotel installed an early version of air conditioning. So can you imagine being one of the first, yeah, the first pregnant women to get to enjoy air conditioning in like a hot city summer? That would be incredible.
Kathryn (21:02)
There we go, yeah.
my gosh.
Yeah, that's a game changer.
Gina (21:13)
Yeah, seriously.
I know, yeah. I'm like, my shoulders are relaxing just thinking about that and I'm not even hot right now. Yeah, Yeah, I was, yeah. When you were telling me it was hot earlier, I did just quickly like Google weather in Milwaukee and I saw the like seven week forecast where it'll, it bounced from like 50 degrees to like upper 70s or something. And in my head, I was like, wow, that's a really intense weather change. And then I remembered.
Kathryn (21:19)
Right? God, it's so hot here right now. Yeah, that's wild.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (21:44)
you live in Milwaukee. I was like, yeah, nevermind. I forgot, that's just how it works.
Kathryn (21:45)
I was going to say that's yeah,
it's more aggressive than that today. I think the low was 40, the high is like 80. Like today. Something like that, yeah.
Gina (21:56)
That's... that's
crazy. But anyway, you know where else there's weather? London! At the Langham Hotel.
And another interesting person who lived there was Napoleon III. And if you are thinking about Napoleon Bonaparte right now, don't worry, because I was too, but that's not the Napoleon we're talking about. Napoleon III was Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew.
Kathryn (22:23)
I only know about the one.
Gina (22:25)
Yeah, honestly, I don't. I didn't realize there were multiple. I'll be honest in saying that. I thought there was really just the one of them. But apparently, yeah, there were lots. And Napoleon III, along with the rest of his family, had basically been kicked out of France after his uncle Napoleon Bonaparte died. And Napoleon III honored his uncle's legacy by trying to seize the country of France like a million times. And he failed every single time until...
Kathryn (22:30)
Yeah, I they did. ⁓
Gina (22:53)
A revolution brought about the second Republic of France and Napoleon III was elected president. he showed his appreciation for this by declaring himself emperor, which always goes so well for people. Anyway, he was overthrown and exiled once again. And in his exile, he moved to England where he became a long-term guest at the Langham before he eventually died during a bladder operation. Couldn't write it. I love this story so much.
Kathryn (23:20)
my.
Gina (23:22)
Yes. And I know we are all on the edge of our seats right now after that little romp in French political history. But the reason I bring up Napoleon III specifically is because some say he never left the hotel. I think this is my first royal haunting that I'm talking about on the pod, if I'm not mistaken. If I am mistaken, there is no need to correct me. Anyway.
Kathryn (23:42)
Yeah, I think so too.
Gina (23:48)
Many people say that his ghost haunts room 312. Guests in that room have reported seeing him stand at the foot of their bed, while others have reported seeing him in the hotel's basement. So based on the stories I read, it seems like he's not malicious. He just kind of hangs out and watches people.
Kathryn (24:09)
I'm stuck on the basement. don't like that there's a haunted Langham basement. What goes on in hotel basements?
Gina (24:16)
I know. And I couldn't...
I wanted to know the same thing. And so I tried to look into, cause I thought, all right, like maybe one floor of the basement used to be like a swimming pool for the guests or something like, like it used to have a function that the guests were welcomed into. And I couldn't find much information on that. So if anyone listening to this is an expert in the history of the Langham hotel, iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com what are those basements and what do they do? Cause there's three of them.
Kathryn (24:27)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
⁓
there's three basements?
Gina (24:47)
There's three subterranean floors. So I don't know if they all count as basements, but.
Kathryn (24:50)
Okay.
I mean, that is what a basement is. Kinda, I guess. It's kinda like square and rectangle. One is one, but not necessarily the other.
Gina (25:01)
Yeah, yes, it's just like geometry.
Kathryn (25:08)
Sorry, can't focus. It's just like geometry. We are a math podcast now.
Gina (25:12)
I couldn't think of anything else to say.
Yeah.
screaming I would scream if we became a math bot. Can you imagine? In this episode two plus two. What? Sorry we can move
Kathryn (25:24)
my God. Gross.
You
Anyway,
Gina (26:36)
Anyway so yes the Langham it was this big grand hotel it had all these very very wealthy guests throughout its time in the 1800s but as so often happens with luxury hotels it really struggled through the 20th century.
World War I happened and the Depression happened and then World War II happened and the Langham was actually forced to close after it was damaged by bombs.
Kathryn (27:03)
⁓ no. Damn, that sucks.
Gina (27:05)
Yeah,
so thanks a lot, Germany. Cut to 1965 when the BBC purchased the building. Quick sidebar for anyone who's not familiar with the BBC or its history. BBC stands for the British Broadcasting Corporation. It's a public broadcasting company in the UK. Started off as like a couple of radio stations in the 1920s and it is now the
oldest and largest national public broadcaster, I think in the entire world. the reason I am mansplaining this, and I do apologize for it, is because a bunch of BBC employees have seen a bunch of ghosts at the Langham. So for credibility's sake, yeah, I want us all to come into this next part of the episode with the knowledge that like, this isn't some random little publication with weird stories coming out of it.
Kathryn (27:47)
interesting.
Gina (27:58)
This was like a royally chartered, globally recognized institution whose employees spoke publicly about paranormal encounters.
Kathryn (27:59)
Yeah.
That's so cool. mean, BBC is like, like that is often a source for us. Oh, that's so cool.
Gina (28:14)
It's very cool, yeah. So the way this all happened is that in 1965, the BBC purchased the building of the Langham and it started to use parts of that building for office space. And the reason why it bought the Langham is because it was right across the street from the BBC's headquarters. And so it was like a very convenient purchase for them.
Kathryn (28:15)
Interesting. I love that.
Gina (28:38)
They needed more office space. And so it made a lot of sense to buy the very nice, very affordable luxury hotel across the street. Like anyone would take that deal. And it also meant that they could keep some of the hotel's original rooms and let BBC employees use them if they were like working late or something, or like had to be up super early for a radio show the next day or something like that. And a lot of these like BBC hotel rooms were on the third floor.
which is now known as by far the most haunted floor of the hotel, with many of these stories centering around room 333. The most famous account in this really?
Kathryn (29:19)
I love 333.
Sorry. Well, just threes my favorite number. Oh damn, sorry. There is. Sorry, there is a delay.
Gina (29:24)
No, I think there's a delay. Sorry.
⁓ Three is a good number though. Are you into angel numbers?
Kathryn (29:36)
I mean, this is a tangent. I never used to be. 333 would not be an angel number for me. It's just three is my favorite number. But I never used to be until I noticed that the numbers two, five and eight were kind of following me around for a large portion of my adult life. And then I looked into what they meant. And there was a lot of like alignment and shit and Phil.
to me on 228 and we got married on 22825. So that was like, but I fought it for a long time because I don't really like even numbers. Just fun fact about me. ⁓ So I didn't, I don't know why. Yeah, it's cause I like triangles. It's like a whole thing. I told you it's a tangent. I know.
Gina (30:19)
Really? ⁓
Man, okay, interesting, because I'm the opposite. I don't
like odd numbers, they make me uncomfortable. Okay.
Kathryn (30:31)
Yeah,
I've gotten into a lot of fights about what volume numbers are appropriate to keep the TV at because I'm not an even-numbered girl and that makes people really upset.
Gina (30:45)
It
can be an even number or a multiple of five. That's my rule. Mm-hmm, yeah.
Kathryn (30:47)
Multiple of five, yeah. Mine's just odd numbers or
a multiple of 10. Yeah, I know, sorry. I'm sorry, it's just who I am.
Gina (30:53)
god, okay, yeah, I can see how that would get messy. Remember when we said we were
a math podcast? This is our first problem.
Kathryn (31:04)
Anyway, continue, sorry.
Gina (31:07)
Anyway, yes, so most haunted room in the hotel is room 333. The most famous account from this room came in 1973 when a BBC radio announcer named James Alexander Gordon stayed the night in that room. And he woke up to see a glowing ball of light in front of him. stared at it.
And as he stared, it slowly turned into the shape of a human. And to James, it looked like someone in kind of Victorian era fashion, like fancy evening wear, cloak, cravat, that kind of thing. And it seemed like it was transparent, but only a little bit. Like he could see the whole thing and just like barely see the wall behind it. But most notably,
the ghost appeared to be missing its legs below the knee. James asked the ghost what it wanted, and it responded by starting to slowly move toward him with its arms stretched out, staring at him with dead eyes.
Kathryn (32:03)
Ooh.
⁓
that's so scary.
Gina (32:17)
I know, it's so freaky. So naturally James was freaked the hell out and he dove off of his bed, he grabbed his shoe and he just lobbed it as hard as he could at this ghost. But the shoe went right through. Didn't mean to rhyme, sorry. The shoe passed through the entity. ⁓ So James ran out into the hallway and he eventually found one of his co-workers who agreed to go back to the room with him. Like kind of like, all right.
sure buddy, like you saw a ghost, I'll make sure it's safe for you, whatever. And if the story is to be believed, when James and his friend re-entered the room, the ghost was still there and the friend saw it. And together they watched as it faded into nothingness.
Kathryn (33:03)
so it just was waiting? weird. Hmm.
Gina (33:05)
Mm-hmm. It was just hanging around. Yep.
It just wanted someone to watch as it dissipated into the air. Very glamourously. Other BBC employees have reported seeing something similar, but interestingly, this ghost only seems to appear in October. Clearly to celebrate your birthday.
Kathryn (33:11)
Yeah.
Yeah, or Halloween.
Gina (33:28)
Or Halloween, yes. Mainly your birthday. ⁓ The legs being cut off thing I do actually have a kind of logical explanation for because when the BBC bought the building, they had some work done to it. And that included installing central heating. And in order for that to be done, they had to raise some of the floors a few feet, I think. It was either a few feet or like one foot or something like that. So it could be that the ghost did slash does have legs.
They just get like cut off by the floor because it's not where it used to be, if that makes sense.
Kathryn (34:00)
⁓
yeah. I like that explanation. I was just thinking war. Men lose their legs in war sometime.
Gina (34:09)
Those men. Always out there losing their lives. I keep telling them to stop. They just don't stop. Gosh. Yeah.
Kathryn (34:11)
You know, you know how they do. Yeah. Interesting. So like his spirit is
where the flow like it would have been before or like when he was alive or whatever. Interesting. I kind of like that. I never thought of that.
Gina (34:25)
That's what I think,
I've never thought of that either, how the space... Well, I guess we talked about it a little bit with, was it the Drury Lane ghost that like walks through the wall into a secret room? A little bit the impact of space on ghosts, but not very much.
Kathryn (34:30)
Hmm. Yeah, now I'm...
Yes, yes, a little bit.
Yeah, I'm now this is opening a rabbit hole in my head. Now I'm like, is that why ghosts float sometimes? was the floor in a different spot in the previous building or whatever was once there?
Gina (34:53)
Yeah?
Kathryn (34:56)
That's interesting.
Gina (34:58)
I hope that happens to me. I hope I die in a really tall building so I can fly.
Kathryn (35:04)
A tall building that gets demolished after demise.
Gina (35:09)
yeah, it can't stay there. No, no, no, no.
Kathryn (35:11)
You're taking it with you. You know, that's a thing
that I actually think that happened. I think that happened with my grandma because she was obsessed with Boston store, obsessed with it. That's like the only place she would stop is like a department store. The in immediately after she died, they went out of business and like closed all the stores and they all got turned into like movie theaters and shit. She took it with her. Yeah, she took it with her when she went.
Gina (35:32)
wow.
Alright. Okay. Well now I'm going to be thinking about if I die, yeah, which chain do I want to bring with me?
Kathryn (35:37)
Yeah, so you could do that.
Yeah, exactly.
Gina (35:43)
Okay, alright, let's follow up on this. I like this question a lot. You wanna hear another ghost story?
Kathryn (35:44)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, we will.
I do.
Gina (35:49)
Sweet, all right, so another story from this era of BBC came in 1971, so a couple of years before the experience we just talked about, also in room 333. And this time, the story centers around a guy named Ray Moore. Apparently, he woke up for work around 4.30 in the morning, and when he looked out of his window, he saw, quote, a biggish man
thick set with a crew cut and wearing a uniform style coat they buttoned up to the neck, surrounded by an aura of white light.
Kathryn (36:28)
Okay, lots of glowing.
Gina (36:29)
I know, yeah. Just like James, Ray got very, very freaked out about this and he ran out of the room. But instead of going to get help, Ray just like went to work, which I guess, you know, everyone deals with things differently, but it just made me laugh a little bit that he was like, all right, I'm going to go, I'm like be on the radio now or whatever. Ray did wind up seeing the ghost again. And this time, the second time that he saw it,
Kathryn (36:41)
Yeah.
Gina (36:54)
It appeared in his hotel room while he was shaving.
Kathryn (36:59)
Ooh.
Gina (37:00)
which freaks me out because that's like you're already in a vulnerable position with literally a knife to your throat. Anyway, he was fine. He got away unharmed. And I do have to say there are some commonalities between James's story and Ray's story and also the story of pretty much every BBC who reported seeing a ghost at the Langham because there were quite a few. And the commonalities are something that naysayers are really quick to point out, which are all of the BBC ghost stories from this time.
Kathryn (37:02)
Yeah, that's scary.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (37:29)
come from people who were very sleep deprived, very stressed, and all of these experiences happened like first thing in the morning. some people interpret as like, you know, people just seeing things when they first wake up and they don't really know what's going on, so their brain interprets it in a weird way, or it could also be kind of like a shared hallucination quasi mini mass panic thing, or...
that the journalists just made the whole thing up to get away with missing deadlines. And to be honest, I would not be mad if that were true because if you build up like a multi-part ghost conspiracy just for a few extra days of grace at work, you probably both need it and deserve it, but that has not stopped people from continuing to report unsettling experiences in the room. And it has also not stopped people speculating about who or what.
Kathryn (38:14)
Yeah.
Gina (38:24)
might be haunting it. Before I move on, do you have anything to say to the naysayers other than go away you're no fun?
Kathryn (38:32)
there's almost a part of me as much as I love a ghost story. kind of hope that that's what was happening. They were just making it up to like get deadline extensions because that is one of the funniest things that we've ever mentioned on this podcast. And I don't want to just brush past that because
What a beautiful excuse. Like I'm wishing that I could do that. It's like the dog ate my homework, except the ghost like kept me away from, you know what I mean? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think of who I can try that on.
Gina (39:02)
The ghost threatened me while I was shaving.
Yeah, I fucking love that. I...
I love that, like, if it was, you the journalists making it up, there were so many people that had to have been in on it. And that's really funny too, to picture, like, a group of BBC journalists sitting in a circle and being like, all right, guys, we're going to say there was a ghost. That's the best excuse we can come up with.
Kathryn (39:20)
Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah, these are literally
an internationally coveted job position. Like, and they're out here missing deadlines because of Casper. That's funny. I kind of hope that's true. But based on everything that was just said, don't actually think it's true. But I do think it would be funny if it was.
Gina (39:37)
Right?
It's so funny.
Exactly, like I wouldn't be mad, would not be mad if it were true. I'd be totally fine with that. But if it is true, the theories about who this ghost is are thus. So one very popular theory is that it's the ghost of a doctor who killed both his wife and himself in that room. Others say it was a German military officer who committed suicide just before World War I started.
Kathryn (39:54)
No. Right.
Gina (40:20)
or that it was a long dead butler who's just trying to serve the guests of the hotel. No one really knows and we don't have any like clues about the room's past that can point us to one story or another. There's not like a documented case of a murder suicide doctor in the room or anything like that. And actually a lot of people also point out that the butler
ghost theory is very similar to a ghost that's to haunt the BBC's headquarters across the street. And so some people think that over time, like the ghost stories just kind of got muddled up and that the actual ghost in room 333, that their story is lost and will be forever, which is pretty sad.
So we don't know who the ghost is or what the ghosts, like plural, who they are, can we theorize about why it's room 333 specifically, even though we don't have like documented evidence about something weird that happened in there? Like, is there anything weird about the fact that it's the number 333? It turns out there's a lot associated with the number 333. So I'm going to tell you all about it. First of all,
it and it's the devil's number. 666, that one's probably the most obvious. Also, the witching hour, when spirits and demons are said to be most active, is rumored to start at 3.33am. Also, and this is where I started going real off the rails, 3am is the opposite of 3pm, which is the hour at which Jesus is said to have died. And...
Kathryn (41:54)
So that's honestly, I want to land
on that though, because that's not off the rails at all, because that is specifically why the witching hour is when it is, is because it's like the devil's hour or whatever.
Gina (42:05)
I shouldn't have said
I take it back. I'm on the rails, I'm riding this track all the way to the station.
Kathryn (42:07)
That makes total sense. You are so on the rails. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, there's a direct correlation between those two.
Gina (42:15)
Also.
Okay, thank you for validating me. And to add on to that, also kind of in like a religious theme, apparently the number 333 is associated with a demon called Choronzon AKA the Dweller of the Abyss. And that's like a whole other thing. That gets into like Thelema and Crowley and all that kind of stuff, which is another excellent rabbit hole, but I have to draw the line somewhere. I can't do a rabbit hole within a rabbit hole. So anyway, it could just be that
Kathryn (42:17)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Gina (42:45)
Room 333 is not haunted as much as it's cursed. And I'm not 100 % sure that I personally believe that to be true, but if there's one thing that makes me wonder, it's the anecdotes we have about people sleeping in that room and waking up to their bed literally shaking. And not like, know, slight, like someone's walking in the hallway, they shake, you know, the things in your room a little bit.
Kathryn (43:05)
⁓
Mm-hmm.
Gina (43:10)
It feels,
the way it's described, feels like someone is gripping your mattress and shaking it trying to get you to fall off onto the floor.
Kathryn (43:18)
⁓ my goodness, that's aggressive.
Gina (43:19)
Yeah.
Yeah, screw that. So, back to a quick bit of history. The BBC wound up selling the Langham in 1986 and eventually it was reopened as a normal hotel in 1991, blah, blah, blah. Very boring corporate stuff. It's like owned by other fancy companies. I don't know. Doesn't matter. It's not just BBC people anymore is the moral of that bit of the story. It's like a fully functioning, gorgeous hotel now.
It maintains its five-star status, all of that stuff, and it still attracts very famous visitors, including a very infamous experience by the England Cricket team in 2014.
Kathryn (44:03)
my god, fun! This is just like the Pfister.
Gina (44:05)
That's what I thought about too! Yeah! And it's even like the British version of baseball. I'm gonna get killed for saying that. ⁓
Kathryn (44:07)
Yeah!
Yes, literally, yes. It's
true though, because like you think of an American sport, baseball. You think of a British sport, cricket.
Gina (44:17)
it is.
Kathryn (44:23)
Cricket.
Gina (44:28)
So for just a quick bit of background, ⁓ in 2014 England were playing cricket as they want to do and from what I understand it was not going well for them. I will not pretend to understand the intricacies of cricket But England were on a bit of a bad streak when they came to the Langham. During their stay, players and some of their families became convinced that they were being haunted.
One player reported that he woke up in the middle of the night convinced there was someone or something in his room with him. It was like that feeling where you just know that you are not alone. And that same player also reported strange encounters with the faucets in the sink. They would turn on for no reason. And then when he turned the lights on to check it out, the taps would turn off. And then as soon as he switched the lights off, the taps would turn back on again.
Kathryn (45:05)
Yeah.
Who?
that's weird.
Gina (45:25)
Really freaky, right? And I don't understand the way buildings work. It's probably an area I should learn more about. But I don't think there's any reason that those two systems should be connected. That's water and electricity. Pretty opposite, shouldn't touch ever, you know?
Kathryn (45:27)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, those pretty famously
don't mix.
Gina (45:45)
Yeah, pretty, pretty bad, yeah. Also, he was not the only one that claimed to have experiences at the hotel. Other players reported having a very hard time sleeping because they felt very unsettled, especially on the third floor. And some players' partners straight up refused to stay at the hotel with them because they had such a horrible feeling about And one of the reasons I really, really love this specific story is...
in researching it, ⁓ I read quite a few news articles, like sports journalism articles about it, and a lot of the narrative was like, ⁓ the boys can't sleep because of the ghosts, and so now they're not gonna play well. And it was just funny to hear a sports-y voice talking about ghosts. It's just not something I had ever encountered before. I just loved it. It cracked me up.
Kathryn (46:31)
Yeah.
That's fantastic. This truly is
exactly like the Pfister. That was totally my experience reading like the MLB.com talking about the Pfister ghost. Yeah. It's wild.
Gina (46:43)
Yeah.
my God. It's so much fun. mean, anyway, that's,
that's pretty much all I got on the Langham. So if you listening to this or you, Kathryn, if you want to pay a visit to the hotel, you certainly can, but hold on dear, but because it's super fricking expensive. When I looked, it was like 400 pounds a night, which is like $500. So out of my budget, but I do want to go to the bar, the bar at the Langham. It's called the Artisan.
Kathryn (47:03)
Yeah. my god.
Mmm.
Gina (47:16)
I think Artisan? I don't know. And it won the World's Best Bar award a few years back. And they do champagne and caviar at this... Yeah, World's Best Bar. And they do champagne and caviar. So we have to go someday.
Kathryn (47:23)
The world.
Ooh, okay, but do they have hot
dog towers?
Gina (47:31)
They will when we go. For 500 bucks a night? I'm just kidding, I'm not paying 500 bucks to stay there.
Kathryn (47:35)
Truly.
Dude, listen, honestly, this is a tangent, but hotels are so fucking expensive. I was looking at hotels in Portland for our Maine trip. They were literally averaging like four or $500 a night.
Gina (47:52)
Averaging?
Kathryn (47:53)
Yes, there were like $800 a night hotels in Portland. Now, granted, this is like June is like peak visit Maine season because of like whale watching and stuff. And like I'm doing this very, very late. So like literally I had to book a motel for $250. motel. Yeah. Anyway, I
Gina (47:58)
Dude, what the fuck?
Holy fuck.
Kathryn (48:16)
like I'm sitting here like 500 for the Langham doesn't sound too bad.
Gina (48:23)
my god, can you imagine that? my goodness. I mean, I would love to, but
Kathryn (48:24)
I'm like, honestly. But no, yeah.
sorry, I just had to say that
Gina (48:32)
That's the end. The end. Done.
Kathryn (48:33)
I'm so sorry.
Okay.
Gina (48:40)
and scene. So yeah, that was it.
Kathryn (48:41)
And scene.
Wow, I love that. I didn't know, I mean, I've heard of the Langham. It's a whole, they've got locations all over the place now. I didn't, I think I knew it started in London. I've just never really thought of it before. I'm just gonna always assume that old hotels are haunted. Just always. Yeah, I think that's safe.
Gina (49:00)
Yeah, I think that's a fair assumption.
Kathryn (49:04)
I will say, speaking of haunted hotels, I think we accidentally stayed one in New Orleans this what? This past weekend, two weekends ago, whenever we were there. Yes. So for today's scary on top, I'm just going to.
Gina (49:14)
I think we did. ⁓ huh.
Kathryn (49:20)
Babble on about an experience that I slash we had In New Orleans in our room I say I slash we because you're very much part of this story, but you were asleep for most of it so Just for our listeners I kind of envisioned this as being like a collaborative scary on top and then when I started talking about it I was like, I don't even know How to do that. So I'm just gonna start rambling and here we go
⁓ Okay, so there was one night that, were dealing with some jet lag and some ⁓ like needing to go to sleep early situation so that we could be raring to go for the next day. But I was struggling to sleep. Gina was asleep in bed and I...
Took like the longest hotel shower of my entire life. so I'm showering and all of a sudden I hear
like a pounding on the door. It sounded like you needed to get into the bathroom basically. So I get out, open the door and I don't know if I'm telling you this story or the listeners. So I'm like.
moving back and forth between she slash you. You already know the story. I get out and Gina is lying there sound asleep in bed. So I'm like, okay, whatever.
That part of the story, I'm gonna go ahead and say, could have been the sound of someone knocking on one of our neighbor's doors, because we could hear people checking into their room and they were, I don't wanna say they were being pretty loud, it's just, you it's a hotel, you can hear things. So I was like, okay, maybe it was just a neighbor, blah, blah, blah. And so this is the part where my timeline is still a little fuzzy. So this is the part where I do need it to be collaborative, because I don't remember how things happened from here.
Gina (51:13)
Yeah.
Kathryn (51:14)
So I'm out of the shower. You are still sleeping. I have not fallen asleep yet, but I when the bathroom door is closed so that I can't see any like scary things peeking at me from the deep, dark depths of.
the hotel bathroom. So I had closed the door. I am still up and all of a sudden Gina sits up in bed. Like seriously still kind of fucks me up a little bit. I know I kind of did too. We're not at the weird timeline part yet. She sits up in bed and she like turns her body and is just looking in the corner of the room for like a solid minute. And I'm sitting there like
Gina (51:42)
I about this.
Kathryn (51:59)
Hello, like what is happening and All of sudden it probably wasn't a full minute it felt like an hour But it was probably just like 30 seconds ish But it was a long time to just be sitting there all of a sudden she like turns around pops up and it's just like oh hey and like is going to the bathroom and I was like, are you okay? What is happening? She's just like yeah, I'm fine. I'm going to the bathroom blah blah blah and From your perspective. What did you just said you like got up and went to the bathroom?
Gina (52:29)
Yeah, I just got up and went to the bathroom. There was nothing weird about it.
Kathryn (52:33)
Yeah. But there was.
Gina (52:37)
except that there
Kathryn (52:38)
was, cause I was scared that like, maybe she feels sick or, you know, you're nauseous and trying to like gain composure before you stand up. So I'm sitting there like, my God, do I need to get this bitch a bucket? Like what is about to happen? And you're just totally fine. So you go to the bathroom, fine, whatever. Go back to sleep.
Gina (52:43)
Mm-hmm.
hahahaha
Kathryn (52:57)
The bathroom door is closed. I am late. And at this point, I'm like starting to try to, like, I'm still kind of awake. I'm trying to like get tired or whatever. So I'm listening to an audio book and some time goes on and I start to get tired. And I had left my earplugs on the bedside table and I use lime green earplugs so that I don't lose them in the night.
And so I'm done with my audio book. like trying to get ready to go to sleep. And I go to grab my earplugs and there's only one earplug. And I'm like, that's so weird. I swear to God, there were two, like I just put them on the nightstand.
I haven't done anything, nothing has happened. So unless you bumped it when you got out of bed, which you didn't, you know what I mean? Like they were there. I put them on the nightstand. I am looking for like 10 minutes. I like literally turned the light on and was searching all over the place for this earplug. Couldn't find it. Whatever. I go in my bag. I always travel with an extra set, put them in my ears, go to bed. In the middle of the night, I wake up and the bathroom...
Gina (53:50)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (54:12)
door is open. And this is the part where I'm like, okay, A, immediately scared. I like got that like stomach drop feeling because immediately I felt like something was weird or something was wrong. I had that like being watched type of feeling. And so I'm real quickly like, okay,
maybe she got up in the middle of the night again, maybe it's what I like, I don't know. That's really the only logical explanation, but the door is open. So I get up, go to the bathroom and come back to bed. And I just like had that feeling. I don't know how else to describe it other than like what you kind of described to the people in the lane. And we're feeling like you just, you know, when someone is there, you know what I mean?
And then, this is the part that I really hate talking about, because it just had such weird vibes. I look over into the corner of the room, and I swear on my soul, I saw what appeared to be a little boy.
he was standing by the little mini fridge. So I immediately had like this heart drop feeling. And I was like, oh my God, there's a ghost here, blah, blah. But then like immediately went away. And I like got up, I turned the light on and I like, obviously nothing was there anymore. Nothing bad happens when the lights are on. So I'm trying to calm down. Everything's fine. I like reclosed the door.
before I go back, like I had gone to the bathroom, I had closed the door behind me. And then I don't remember, did you wake up a second time in the middle of the night or was it just, okay. Okay.
Gina (55:53)
I I did. I woke up,
it was sometime between two and four in the morning and I woke up to go to the bathroom again and the door was open and I remember thinking it was weird because I, yeah, because I knew that you liked to keep the door closed, so like I always closed the door and I know you wouldn't leave it open, so I remember just being like, that's weird, like I'll just close it, whatever, go back to bed. And then obviously I didn't find out about everything going on with you until the next morning. I was in my own little world.
Kathryn (56:02)
Yeah, so that would have been after me. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Right, yeah.
So the door opened by itself twice in the middle of the night because this, think mine happened before, like you went, then I got up and then you got up, I think is how it happened. And then, so before I came down to talk to you the next morning, because you got up first and you headed down to the coffee shop So before I joined you, I...
woke up and I had three earplugs. My missing earplug was just sitting there on my nightstand, like where I thought it had been. Because I just pulled one from the extra set that I had. I just pulled one out and was just using the original one and then a new one. So all of a sudden I had three earplugs. Don't know where that third one came from.
And I think that was the only weird thing that happened in the morning. But then, so I'm laying there trying to like chill for a second before I come down and meet you at the coffee shop. Because at this point, I felt like I didn't sleep at all. I was like super disheveled and weird. And so I decided to pull up Ghost Tube just for funsies, just to see. Because now I'm like, OK, well, like this definitely feels like a haunted hotel.
which we didn't really get that vibe last time we stayed there. This was the same spot that we stayed in last time. And so I pull it up, immediately, the first thing it said was kitchen. And I was like, okay, it was standing by the refrigerator the night before, maybe it's making that association. And then the other thing it said was I come and go. And then it said one other thing.
I don't remember if I do you remember if I told you what the other thing was? It didn't. it was like it was either it was either like alcohol or drunk or something like that. had to do with drinking in some way. I think it said alcohol, but I don't remember. And then I was just like, whatever, I need coffee. I'm going to go downstairs. So then I come and meet you and I'm relaying this information to you. And then.
Gina (58:12)
I only remember the kitchen one.
Kathryn (58:34)
What did you tell me you learned about this hotel when we started Hotel Month?
Gina (58:38)
you
I researched the history of this hotel before we stayed there because I was interested to learn what it was. And it turns out that the floor we were staying on used to have kitchen supplies on it because the building used to, was originally a bakery and the first floor, like the ground floor was the shop where people could come buy the bread or whatever. Second floor was where the family lived and the third floor, which we were on, is where they stored all of the supplies, like their baking supplies and kitchen supplies and stuff.
And so it ticks the kitchen box and also the I come and go box because that's what you do with a storage space.
Kathryn (59:14)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. And also it being a hotel now, like pretty much every iteration of what it has been. So anyway, that's my story. Yeah.
Gina (59:21)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so
we met a ghost. I do, I wonder if it was a ghost, because that's the other thing with it, is that when we were talking about it the next morning, we were like, okay, well maybe, like one of us just forgot to close the door, and like there was a spot on the wall that I guess could've kind of looked like a kid, but it was, it was just.
Kathryn (59:36)
We were trying real hard. Yeah.
Yeah, I was proud of us because we really were trying to find an explanation and like, only thing that I am still like, this could have actually been something else was the knocking on the door. That very much could have been a neighbor knocking on a neighbor's door. Everything else just doesn't really add up.
Gina (1:00:02)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kathryn (1:00:03)
Yeah.
So anyway, that's our, are you okay? Okay.
Gina (1:00:07)
Yes, no, I was
remembering the day after that. I don't think I told you about this actually. It was the day after that. It's not another ghost experience. I'll tell you the thing. I was in the shower. We basically traded places. I was in the shower, you were downstairs getting coffee. And I was in the shower, whatever, la la. And I heard a door slam. And I thought it was whatever we had encountered the night before. It was back with the door banging or something. And so I turned the shower off.
Kathryn (1:00:13)
Cool.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (1:00:36)
got out of the shower, like I was looking around, I was like, okay, no one's in here, I don't know what could've made that noise, because it was like, swear to God it was in the room. And so I was all ready to tell you that we had had another experience, and then you told me it was just you coming in to drop my coffee off before you left, and I didn't see you.
Kathryn (1:00:46)
You
Yeah.
I was going to say that one was probably me. actually do. I want kind of want to tell that story too, because this is such a good New Orleans story. Let me real quick end on this. So I go downstairs to the same coffee shop and I walk in and nobody is there and it's super dark. But the door was unlocked. So I was like, oh my God, am I? I kind of had a similar experience where I was like, I? Did I step into another timeline? Like I'm straight up in ghost mode here. Like, what the hell?
Gina (1:00:56)
It was funny.
My gosh, yeah.
Eheh!
Kathryn (1:01:17)
And all of a sudden these three employees come around the corner and we kind of just look at each other like both of us are like, what the fuck are you doing here? And it was right at that moment that I realized, oh my God, are you guys not open? And this, the one who was very likely the manager whips to this guy next to her and she was like, no, we're not. I don't know why the door's unlocked. And he was like, I couldn't find the key. I didn't think anyone was going to come in in the next five minutes because
Gina (1:01:39)
Yeah.
Kathryn (1:01:44)
It was like 6.35, you know, he probably clocked in at 6.30. They don't open till 7. So I was gonna like hang out down there and like wait for Gina to get up and get going. they very graciously, she was, I was like, don't worry, like I'll just come back at seven. She was like, don't you dare, what do you want? Like I just got the coffee brewing. And I was like, I'm just getting two black coffees or like one with milk, blah, blah, blah. And she was like, don't go anywhere. Like, let me get it for you.
And it got to the point where like, had I left, she would have been offended. So I was like, okay, will let you do this for me. It was so sweet. then, yeah, they were super nice. it was a good experience because I felt like, was like, hoo hoo, I'm part of the team. Like, what are you guys up to? What's your opening ritual? But I could tell like they were being very, like they were all kind of like watching what they said. Because it's still like, you know, I work retail. I understand like.
Those pre-opening hours are absolutely sacred. You are not customer ready. So it was just very kind of them to... It was PJs that? Should I not tell people where we stayed?
Gina (1:02:49)
Yeah, shout out to BJs.
Kathryn (1:02:51)
They were very kind. But then I was like, I still, like, we still both need like our wake up period. So I just dropped your coffee and then went to the courtyard in the hotel for my wake up time. But anyway,
Yeah, so that's our ghost, our conjoined, our joint ghost experience in New Orleans. Happy we had one. And if you have a ghost story that you would like to send us or any story whatsoever that you want us to share at end of one of the episodes, give us an email. What? Give us. Send it to us via email. iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com
And if you would like more from us each week, go ahead and join us on Patreon and leave us a five star review wherever you listen. That'll really help us out. And until next time, when we talk about amusement parks, keep it cool.
Gina (1:03:37)
and keep it creepy.
