New Orleans: First Thoughts on the Big Easy
The most beautiful words, sentences, paragraphs that I could attempt to write would never even come close to doing New Orleans justice.
You see.
I have a very bad habit of falling in love with places.
With its free spirit, amazing people, and robust history and culture, New Orleans has just made the top of that list.
This week, I want to give you all some initial thoughts I have about my time in The Big Easy. Today is all about first impressions, gut reactions, and the rationale behind my immediate longing to return the second my plane took off to Boston.
Today’s post is dedicated to the pieces of my trip that stand out the most.
If you’ve ever been, I think you’ll know what I mean.
The Culture
While I definitely am going to be writing a piece about the culture of New Orleans soon, I want to address it here first.
Because I was overwhelmed in the best possible way.
The first thing I noticed about New Orleans was the color. The houses were pink and blue and purple. The shops and streets were overflowing with purples and yellows and greens. Now, I was lucky to have caught the city during Mardi Gras season. I’d be curious to see how different it is in September once the festivities have died down.
Music flowed down every street, snuck around from unlikely corners, live bands and parades popped up from nowhere.
New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz and boy don’t you know it. I thought I knew what jazz was before. I’d seen La La Land. Watched videos on YouTube.
I didn’t know what jazz was untinstil I went to The Spotted Cat on Frenchmen Street. And stood with countless others in a bar the size of my old living room. I wasn’t listening to the music.
I was feeling it.
That’s jazz.
Almost every house I saw was decorated for Mardi Gras in some way. It was beautiful.
The People
Everyone I met went out of their way to be nice. People were kind and open and said hello to you on the sidewalks.
Our first morning, I woke up early to go out and get some photos of the Garden District. Being from Boston, I expected zero eye contact and maybe a curt nod in my general direction. Instead, people said “good morning” and “how are you.”
It seems, after only a couple days in New Orleans, that the people there are an interesting (and incredible) mix of southern hospitality and northern progressiveness.
In other words, my people.
People like Christian made my trip absolutely amazing. If you ever want some amazing photos, check out @faiphoneexpo
The Food
The gumbo. The beignets. The jambalaya. The BEIGNETS. The food in New Orleans was some of the best I’ve ever had (and I’ve been to Italy).
When I say that I don’t think I had a single bad meal here, I mean it.
From the honey bun at a little mom-and-pop-shop cafe to the chicken and waffles at Atchafalaya, everything I ate here was incredible.
Even the potato chips were amazing.
If you told me I can only eat food from one place for the rest of my life, I'd be hard pressed to choose between Italy and New Orleans.
The Transit
The whole trip couldn’t have been incredible, right?
When I did all my research in advance, I read that public transit was the way to go. Those articles, however, weren’t written with Mardi Gras in mind.
Around this time of year, even the locals don’t attempt to take the bus or the streetcar. With all the parades (and I’m talking two to five a day depending on how close we are to Mardi Gras), road closures are inevitable. So public transit becomes a bit of a mess.
Needless to say, I spent a little more than I was planning on Uber’s and Lyft’s.
Would I go back? In a heartbeat. Will I go back in the fall instead of February? Count on it.