There is a lot to love about New Orleans: its architecture, care-free spirit, thriving arts scene, spiritual (or even ghostly) history and of course it’s lively and sleepless jazz festivities. During the day, one could stroll amongst the neoclassical houses whose entrances were bestowed with a majestic essence from the white columns at its front. The intricate detail of these buildings would poke out between the bushes and trees enclosing them. Huge oak trees lined the streets and cast shadows on the road under the powerful sun. Miniature benches on the front porch, bright turquoise houses and salmon pink houses, moss branches handing down from balconies: these were the features that would greet the eyes and make New Orleans the delicate, picturesque city that it is.
I cannot say that my scheduled flight to New Orleans was a pleasant one because I never made it onto that flight. I had arrived at the airport in generous time and waited at the gate that was printed on my ticket. Due to having arrived so early, I plugged in my headphones to distract myself but unfortunately, I missed an announcement that the gate had changed. Worse still, I overheard a woman near to me say that the plane was delayed, and assumed she was referring to the same plane and checked the screen at the gate to confirm. Unfortunately, the gate I now sat at was departing for San Antonia, and I sat there long after my flight had taken off, assuming that my flight was delayed. Fortunately, the workers at the desk scheduled me onto the next flight, which left the airport 12 hours later. I would instead be arriving in the daytime, but technically would not miss any time in New Orleans as I would have arrived in the evening after all and slept in the airport on a coach in Starbucks instead of in a hostel bed where I had first planned. After an unexpectedly long journey, I arrived to a thunderstorm. The thunderstorms in New Orleans are like nothing I have experienced in England. They are so powerful that it is as though they are trying to communicate with the Earth. They are loud, ferocious and quite frightening. Once it passed, I took to Magazine Street and Royal Street where there are endless galleries with some incredible photography that can make anything as mundane as a motorway underpass look beautiful. There were plenty of stores selling ‘pralines’ too which were sweet pralines served in biscuit form, but incredibly popular and rather tasty. There were also pet boutiques and candy stores.
The cuisine in New Orleans is truly worth sleeping 12 hours in an airport to fly over for. There is a plethora of interesting dishes to try, including seafood, gumbo and jambalaya, Po'Boy sandwiches, and ‘water ice’ which is much like a slushy. I did not go as far as to try crocodile. Eager to taste the Cajun-style cuisine that there was to offer, but still hoping to stay within budget, I kept my eyes peeled on the walk back to my hostel, hoping that I might a place where I could taste gumbo soup at a reasonable price but of fairly high quality to make it satisfactory enough to count as dinner. After rejecting many restaurants arbitrarily, I decided to walk into one that would be the last restaurant I would encounter before arriving at the hostel and that spoke to my instincts. (It turned out that this restaurant happened to be one of the most highly rated of its kind on Trip Advisor, and hence one of the best restaurants I could choose to taste gumbo soup.) When I walked it, it was packed full and there would no vacant spaces in sight – I was told I could nab a spot at the bar if one opened up, since I was a party of one and so could squeeze into wherever a free spot opened up. Fortunately, a spot at the bar did free up in not too long. The gumbo soup was beautifully fresh, full of flavour and spice, and was the perfect balance between smooth and stew-like. After I had had my soup, there was little reason for me to stay and so I ordered the bill and paid off the soup. Just as I was about to leave, a woman sat next to me and it did not take much to spark a conversation, after she had seen my recorder sitting in front of me. At first, she thought I was a journalist, which is what a lot of people would first assume. Though I had paid off my bill, she kept me at the restaurant for another hour as we became more and more immersed in conversation. We shared our passion for solo travelling as she told me about her days travelling around Europe. She admired my ability to travel on my own and we recognized how doing so enabled conversations like this and meeting interesting people. Herself, she was a wedding photographer and artistic planner, married and with two children, and adored cycling. She offered to buy a dessert to share and devour between the two of us: we shared a delicious banana soufflé. By the end of the night, she had offered her place to stay in Flagstaff, Arizona. (Sadly, my entire trip was booked and could not be adjusted to visit new places.) It was an unexpected yet so pleasant a conversation.
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New Orleans is known as a hedonistic city. When I asked a taxi driver why the wheels of city’s rental bikes flash neon lights as they spin, his reply was, “Just for the fun of it! Everything in New Orleans is just for the fun.” If the food does not draw people to the city, it is the booze and music. Two iconic drinks in the city are the daiquiri and the “grenade”. I sampled an ice-cold daiquiri whose texture was not dissimilar to that of a slushy, served in a polystyrene cup like it was a large coke from the local garage. I was warned by a taxi driver that its alcoholic contents would kick in suddenly and unexpectedly, and not to be fooled by the innocent foam cup, refreshingly cold taste or funky colour. He was quite right. Alcoholic drinks like spirits in convenience stores are especially cheap, with vodka being available at more than half the average cost on the market. The night life is even more funky than New Orleans’ drinks selection. The most famous strip is Bourbon Street which resembles the profitable streets of Ibiza. As you walk down the street, you will have to make a conscious effort to dodge the swaying, stumbling crowds if you are not part of it yourself. No doubt will you be approached several times in an attempt to persuade you to enter another club or bar. Frenchman Street is considered more original or less mainstream. The jazz music and live performances here are second-to-none. The performers take the audience on a journey all night long with saxophone instrumentals and improvised melodies. A song might last as long as ten minutes, being dragged out and remixed with solo performances or pitch changes or lengthy builds. Just when you thought a song was about to finish, the chorus would repeat and the audience would only cheer louder and dance more energetically. There would be at least five of these lively blues or jazz bars side by side along the street, each as popular as the next.
It is easy to escape the endless party scene by taking the trolley (also called the Street Car) to the Garden District. The trolley itself is one of the oldest transport networks in the USA. This also makes it a particularly slow way of getting around the city, but it is an enjoyable experience nonetheless. The windows are wide open, letting the breeze rush in, but the trolley itself is very open allowing you a great view as you pass through the city and past some of the city’s impressive mansions. The trolley will crank as it pulls to a stop and turns corners. The drivers are very informal: a passenger was interested in getting off despite that no such stop existed where she wished to disembark, and the driver simply pulled the trolley to a halt to allow the passenger off. In contrast, the driver might not stop at designated stops unless you frantically run to the front of the trolley. After a very long journey on the trolley, I arrived in the Garden District, which brings in lucrative business for its expensive boutique stores that stock unique brands and expensive lines for shopaholics. If you are lucky, however, you can find a 90% discount on the price tag of some items, which is what I discovered for a top that was reduced from $299 to $29. If you walk far enough to pass the extensive length of boutique shops, you will find yourself at Audubon park. The park was filled with couples running as they pushed a pram in front of them, or running with their dogs; and energetic individuals zooming and twirling in their roller skates along the smooth pavement curving around the park. In the centre of the park lay a golf course, and golf balls could be heard slicing the calm background noise of the park.
On my last evening, I attended a music event so original and whose music was so artistic and uncontrived. Prior to arriving in New Orleans, I had come across a well-known music venue in my research: the Preservation Live Jazz Hall. The hall had hosted many iconic jazz musicians. On its website, they were hosting an event, though the event was not at the hall itself. There was a corresponding Preservation Live Jazz Band that was performing at a unique venue in New Orleans. I booked the tickets in advance. When I arrived at the venue, it was an outdoor performance space that was composed of scrap metal and looked like an artistic, curated junkyard. The Jazz Band performed their newest jazz album in the authentic, outdoor setting hidden away in the celebratory allure of New Orleans, drawing crowds young and old, eccentric and reserved, who perched on stitched summer blankets, to dance to the cheerful rhythm, immersed in the performance. Children bounced around their parents to the Cuban-inspired music that comprised their new album, So What. The atmosphere was energetic, cheerful and lively. At the start of the night, I met a woman, Ashlye, in the queue who had helped to organise the entire evening. She called herself a music/culture/environmental advocate and co-founded an initiative called, The ELLA Project. The project helps artists to become successful in the cultural treasure box that is New Orleans, helping the cultural community thrive where they may not have the resources to do so. Ashlye took great interest in my project, since it was fusing the world of music and culture, and providing a space in which to explore culture, both of which were much aligned with her values. Throughout the night, she spoke about her work and about the talented Jazz Band that was performing that night, and how the evening was organised and its aims. She did not discuss much about a collaboration on the night but expressed a clear interest in one. Very simply, she emailed me saying, “Call me and great meeting you” which followed with, “Let's plan on getting together to discuss more at some point before you leave. We can also talk via phone.” Sadly, by the time I received this response, I had already left New Orleans and, despite several follow-up attempts, never did hear back from her. However, after the project has been published, it may be that we re-connect again; given her experience unique position in the industry, existing connections and exposure to culture in New Orleans and the music industry more broadly, I would be very excited to see what would come of such a collaboration.