madbaker | Spoooooky. (Or not.)

On a whim we bought tickets for a haunted house tour run by the Haas-Lilienthal mansion last Friday evening. I used to drive by it every day and it's gorgeous; we hadn't gotten around to taking the tour so this seemed like a good excuse. Plus, they advertised that you could get cocktails in their "spookeasy". That sounded grand.

We got there slightly later than planned (Muni, aargh) but at least we didn't have to look for parking. They weren't ready for the tour yet so we went to the bar. Where we found jello shots, beer and wine, whiskey or tequila shots... yeah, no thanks. If you're in a Queen Anne Victorian you should at least have a period-appropriate boozy punch available. But I suppose my standards have been corrupted by the suspenders bars around town.

Anyway, eventually they were ready. We were in a large-ish group, maybe 15 people. The guide had a script about the house being built by a surgeon whose wife went insane and he performed experiments on missing people. The haunted house portion basically consisted of actors popping out as servants in bloody clothes and yelling. The wife and I were not scared (nor, particularly, impressed). Then again, we were focusing on the fixtures and the house itself. But we tried not to be Those People^TM and I thanked the guide at the end.

It's probably worth going on the regular tour.