The New Orleans Adventure, Part 1

New Orleans isn’t on the Gulf, but flying into to the New Orleans Airport, you see the Gulf on one side for a bit, and the tangle of the Delta below you, all twists and side meanders and very little that looks like reliably dry land. The water was coated with yellow in some areas. Pollen? Algae?

The first things I noticed when we got into the airport shuttle: the driver, who was a smallish white man, sounded like Louis Armstrong, the radio played jazz, and the lush shrubbery along the highway was ablaze with red and brilliant pink flowers that looked like wisteria, oblong and bunchy. The air was thick, humid, expectant.

The next thing I noticed was the relentless flatness. Every time I thought we were going up a tiny incline, it turned out to be a ramp over another road. When I’d first moved here from the hills of the Finger Lakes, Massachusetts had looked flat. The town where we live is only about thirty feet above sea level, and I work near Boston Harbor, so my office building is just above sea level. But we have hills in Massachusetts. For the most part, there’s a clear line of demarcation between water and land, except along the ever-shifting dunes of Cape Cod. But New Orleans and its surroundings seem borrowed from water, from river and gulf and swamp. Later, I saw the theory, in a museum, that the shifting and meanderings of jazz were tied to the geography of the Delta, born of a place where people know solidity is an illusion and fluidity is reality. Interesting theory. I suspect the birth of jazz has a lot more to do with the merging of various musical African musical traditions with the many Western ones that met in the Delta, including a Spanish influence that centuries after the Reconquista still bore the marks of Arabic improvisational stylings. (The same museum had field recordings of Isleno music. The Islenos are a subculture of people who’d immigrated from the Canary Islands in the 18^th century and still retained much of their own culture. Although the language was Spanish, the intonations and musical style reminded me of Andalusian Arab music.) But I could also see how the landscape might influence the music on some level.

We were staying at the Wyndham La Belle Maison, a time share resort, thanks to our fellow travelers Suhayma and Periac (their SCA names). I’d have to look up the history of the building. It’s been a Wyndham resort since 2008 or so, but the building’s Art Deco and quite impressive. Our suite was 1,200 square feet total, a bigger footprint than my mom’s house and certainly bigger than we needed for four people, though the privacy of the well-separated bedrooms was certainly welcome. Check-in was smooth and gracious, the staff almost too helpful and friendly for my northern reserve. I know it’s their job to be helpful, but I’m used to vacationing in Maine, where folks get their job done and do it well, but tend not to chat a lot while they’re doing it. Sometimes stereotypes have roots in truth, and the truth seems to be that Southerners are … well, I don’t know if they’re honestly friendlier and more open or if the Southern version of good manners demands an appearance of it (where ours is based more on “mind your business and stay out of people’s way”) but the hotel staff and even complete strangers seemed welcoming and eager to talk about their town.

As a result, we were directed to the Crescent City Brewpub for a late lunch. This was a good thing, because it was after 2 local time–after 3 Boston time–and we were ravenous. (I’d eaten something that vaguely resembled a salad, picked up before we got on the plane in Boston, but it had been small and inadequate—and that was still more than my traveling companions ate.) We’d planned on hitting the brewpub at some point during our travels, since Periac loves to try local beers, but armed with the knowledge that the food was good—our concierge was friends with the chef—we headed there directly. The space had an “old industrial” look. I suspect  it was a warehouse originally, since it was close to the river—and I went a little crazy taking pictures. But soon I was distracted from my photography, though not from the live jazz wafting from upstairs, by the arrival of food.

 

We started with the first of many marvelous oysters eaten in New Orleans, plump and large and sweet. These were a little muddy tasting, but it worked. We ate a dozen raw, a half-dozen cooked. I had a crawfish etouffee. Amusingly, Periac and I both had that and it was delicious and Suhayma and my husband both ordered ribs, which were apparently also delicious, though thanks to my pork allergy I couldn’t taste them. We washed all that yumminess down with local beer—probably a little more than we should have enjoyed, considering the heat and how early we’d gotten up, but we were on vacation.

Slightly buzzed, we set off to explore the French Quarter. We didn’t have a plan, just wanted to soak in atmosphere and see what there was to see.

Cocktails to go: a concept I can get behind!

An art show at Jackson Square Park—it’s there, as it turned out, most days, though it’s  on bigger weekends. Suhayma got henna on her hand.

Performers in Mardi Gras costumes.

 

Random street musicians.

The Cathedral of St. Louis, white and imposing, yet at the same time simple. A wedding was in progress when we got there and we never did get around to checking out the inside.

Beauty and tackiness side by side: the blatant come-on of Bourbon Street, the tourist shops on Decatur, and the residential side streets with their delightful old houses, wrought iron balconies covered with flowers.

Everywhere the smell of flowers and good food, but also the smell of a city in hot weather: garbage and pavement and piss.

And in the evening, as we headed toward Bourbon Street to find music and drinks, we heard a Dixieland brass band. Glancing down the street, we saw what looked like a parade.

It was a wedding, perhaps the one from St. Louis Cathedral, doing a “second-line” parade down Royal Street, dancing to the sound of the brass band. It was a big wedding, a formal one with most of the men, not just the groomsmen, in tuxes, the women in elegant dresses, many full-length, and towering heels. Some of the guests looked a bit cross about the whole thing. It was blazing hot, after all, and tuxes are hot and stilettos aren’t exactly the thing for dancing down the street. But most people, young and old, were strutting and laughing and waving handkerchiefs, which I later learned was part of the tradition. I didn’t take pictures. Even though it was a public spectacle, it was part of two complete strangers’ special day and it felt awkward. But it’s a moment I’ll always remember.

At some point, we decided to sample some of the signature drinks of Bourbon Street: the hurricane and the hand grenade. After less than half of a poisonously sweet hand grenade, I decided I’d stick to something more to my taste for the rest of the night, but it was definitely an experience to wander through the already raucous crowd holding my booze-to-go.

Bourbon Street was described in our guidebook as “tittie bars and t-shirt shops” (existing cheek-to-jowl with some of the neighborhood’s finest restaurants, some of which had been there before t-shirt shops, or t-shirts, for that matter, existed). Still, we managed to find a jazz club. Maison Bourbon proclaimed itself tube “dedicated to the preservation of jazz”. It was small and dark and a little smoky and when we heard the music—like most bars in New Orleans, it was open to the outside—we had to go in.

And once we were in, we had to call our friend Random and let him listen to “St. James Infirmary Blues” played lively and mournful as it was meant to be.

We were tired. We stayed only for one set, one round of drinks. But we resolved we’d go back to hear Jamil Sharif and his band again. We ended the night in an outdoor cafe, splitting an oyster po’ boy (me and Suhayma–yes, oysters twice in one day, the start of a great vacation) and a muffalatta sandwich with Italian cold cuts and olive salad (my husband and Periac), listening to still more jazz.

And that was just the first day! I promise that next time

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