This time last week, I was sitting outside of a McDonald’s (for the free wifi) writing my post, anxious to get to catch the sunset at the little cabin on the river that I would call home for the next three days. Now and I am back home in Olympia, feeling like the trip was a lifetime ago. It’s funny how that works. I think I owe that feeling to the 48 hour drive home. Before I get into the details of the days spent in New Orleans and Alabama, I wanted to take some time to process the travel aspect of my trip. There is something unique about road trips. Driving into a city – especially a city that is across the country – gives you context. Cities made more sense to me after driving through the state, and I was able to make more sense of my trip during those long hours in the car. Because the actual time spent in the different cities was sandwiched between four days of driving, it all blurred together Even after being home for a few days, every time somebody asks me how my trip was I seem to come up with a different answer. I anticipated spending this week processing, collecting all of my data and getting back into the swing of things – and I’m glad I did because it has proven to be necessary.

Pontalba Building

Fritzel’s European Jazz Club

I am still amazed and grateful for how smooth the whole trip was. We all got along well, the only car troubles we had involved layers of splattered bug carcasses on the grill, and we managed to hit 17 states total! My car has 5,000+ more miles on it, we are all still friends, and I am in desperate need of a car wash. It’s good to be back.

The happiest travelers patiently awaiting beignets!

Flashback one week; We were driving into the French Quarter, music off and windows down. I think I said things along the lines of “Wow! The smells! Whoa, look at these houses! This is crazy…I’ve never seen anything like this. *silence while we drive by a street jazz band* “Is this real??” And yes, I probably said all of those things out loud, unable to hold my excitement. A spot of time, I believe – the moment where all of the research, day dreaming, preparing, planning, and anticipation became my reality. I think that was one of the few moments during my time in NO that that I felt immersed as opposed to being an outsider or an observer. After the beignets, we walked up to the water. We stood over looking Jackson Square, the water behind us, the city below us. Another spot of time. Jackson Square is lined with these gates that locals use to hang their art to sell – almost every art piece I saw was so loud and colorful. One artist’s work was charcoal sketches of birds that reminded me of home. I regret that I didn’t ask where the artist was from. The city is loud, crowded and smelly. Sometimes the smells are pleasant, like when you were passing a restaurant or in a well kept bar. Most of the time it was one whiff of hot garbage after the next.

Jackson Square

The crowd of people was diverse, to say the least. Even though we spent most of our time on Bourbon street and in the French Quarter – there were more than tourists. It wasn’t too difficult to pick out the locals. One of the first places we went to is called Pat O’Brien’s – home of the hurricane. This place has been around since 1933 – when Pat O’Brien himself converted his speakeasy to a legitimate drinking establishment at the end of the prohibition era. The building itself was gorgeous – old staircases leading up to the restrooms (where there is someone to hand you a paper towel after you dry your hands) and my favorite part, the piano bar. We walked in to a dimly lit room, with a stage, tables and chairs. The stage had two huge pianos covered in copper and two even bigger mirrors mounted on the wall that allowed the audience to see the piano player’s hands. Something that felt different to me – in every live music experience that I had while I was in the south – was that the music was not just being created to entertain, rather it was created to tell a story. I felt that especially while I was in Alabama – but I will elaborate on that in my next post.

We went from bar to bar listening to live music, chatting with other visitors, stopping along the way to listen to street bands and performers. We ate jambalaya, gumbo, fried catfish po’boys and fried alligator for lunch. We spent a couple of hours standing on a balcony just watching – listening and talking about what were were seeing. If you love people watching as much as I do, I highly suggest visiting New Orleans.I talked a little bit about Fritzel’s Jazz club in my last post. We were immediately drawn in to this place – it was not nearly as crowded as the other bars we’d been to that day. We found seats really close to the stage and listened to The Red Hot Brass Band play for over an hour. We even closed out our tab and walked out the door at one point and as soon as we stepped out of the club we all decided to just go back in and wait for the band to finish the set because we were enjoying it so much – it didn’t matter what else we might be missing out on. We ended the night at a restaurant where I noticed that our waiter sounded more like us than other people we had talked to that day. Sure enough, when I asked him where he was from he told me that he was from Enumclaw, WA and by the end of the conversation we realized that we had a mutual friend. He even told us that we was once enrolled at TESC before he decided to move to New Orleans. The more of the world I see, the smaller it seems.