I’ve wanted to see this place for so long.
It starts with a feeling. The sun shining bright. The music. The art. The waves of heat dancing all around you. The clothes that would turn heads anywhere else barely getting noticed here.
This city operates on a kind of laissez-faire culture: loosen up, enjoy yourself, let people be. That’s how it has been known, that’s how locals describe it, and that’s how I feel it too. I feel so alive here, all my senses activated.
But there’s more to it. That something else starts showing through.
The tour guide asking for tips. The waiter pulling the money directly from my hand while I was still trying to count the bills. A souvenir photo taken before the boat ride, without asking, only to be offered back to you at an outrageous price.
And the shops. You don’t even have to decide to walk into them. Someone standing outside decides that for you. Before you know it, you’re inside negotiating for your life back.
After just one day, I started feeling two New Orleanses at once. The peaceful one that whispers in your ear: Relax. Have another drink. Bring the good times back.
And the aggressive one that gets right in your face, screaming for attention through a forced smile: Tip me. Buy this. Spend more.
But maybe that shouldn’t be so surprising after all. The unique culture of this city comes from an equally unique history.
The colonial period in the 1700s, under both French and Spanish rule, when today’s Jackson Square, then called the Place d’Armes, was a public gathering place where authorities also carried out punishments and executions in the open, before watching crowds.
Plaque in Memory of Jean Baptiste Baudrau II, New Orleans Riverfront
Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, with people getting shot by armed vigilante groups trying to keep outsiders away from their neighborhoods.
It all explains the harder edge I kept sensing underneath all that apparent ease. Laissez-faire and toughness aren’t opposites here. They live together. Pleasure and survival have been living side by side for a very long time.
The beauty is real. The freedom is real. And so is the hustle.
The best birthday gift. I wouldn’t have done it any other way.