Now, don't get me wrong; I do love this city and what it stands for. I fell in love with it almost as soon as I started wandering around the French Quarter, listening to wonderful musicians on the street corners and the beautiful views of the Mississippi as it winds its way round to the Gulf. What really cemented my love was a night out on Frenchmen Street (the clued up tourists' hang-out). With people I had just met on the Streetcar - not named Desire unfortunately - I found myself in a bar called the Spotted Cat. Here, and in many places on the street, a truly exceptional jazz band played while people drank and danced. I met a group of people from California who immediately became great friends - if only for an hour. Listening to that music and soaking up the atmosphere, I realised how wonderful this hotch-potch town could be.
However, that realisation came with a tinge of sadness. Sadness because I feel like New Orleans is past its glorious heyday of easy-going, exceptional people from all walks of life ready to experience incredible food, music and dancing. Walking the streets of the French Quarter at night you can see this loss of the romantic world conjured up by writers and musicians for decades. Loud, brutish, mostly white wealthy people come to Bourbon street not to delve into its history, but to drink themselves stupid on outrageous cocktails and stumble around the streets drunk in a fashion worse than many a Brighton hag-do. Hassled at every opportunity by people selling trashy rubbish or women on the streets trying to get you into disgusting looking strip joints, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. I can't fault the people of New Orleans - incredibly friendly, interesting and vibrant - for catering to these people; a city so dependent on tourism has to adapt to what is wanted. But it really did just make me sad.
A good example of this is the number of large groups of men staying at the hostel who aren't interested in the depth of culture that New Orleans has to offer - they simply want to get pissed, get laid and get high. Perhaps I'm missing something and I'm just a square; but I want to be here to enjoy myself and throw myself into the culture of the city, not worry about walking through the main thoroughfares for fear of being set upon by wasted ass-holes. Here was an example of everything I despise about wealthy western culture - an attitude that simple says, 'We have the money, you do what we want'.Luckily, the city is saved by those places outside the French Quarter. Frenchmen Street, though becoming another Bourbon, is currently an incredibly exciting place with bars offering good beer and fantastic music - and people who want to enjoy this properly. Even if you get off the main tourist parts of the Quarter you can find something good - Preservation Hall is a jazz-Mecca and there is some wonderful food to be had if you look hard enough. A trip on the St Charles Streetcar to the Garden District and Magazine Street also brings you to beautiful neighbourhoods, chic boutiques and fabulous bars and restaurants untouched by the masses that descend on Bourbon Street.
Historically, New Orleans is fascinating, with its mix of French, Spanish, British, African and American influences - but I bet the majority of people visiting here don't know that. Its architecture, its food, its music and its entire ethos stem from this mix; when you have lived with so many different types of people and cultures how can you be anything but easy-going and liberal. Perhaps its liberal attitudes to alcohol, sex and other of life's vices are its downfall; when you're one of few areas that allow alcohol on the streets you're bound to get some people going too far. Unfortunately, though, these people are the ones that come and take-over for a few days, paying no attention to cultural heritage and then leaving; not the wonderful, caring, interesting people of the city itself.
I came to New Orleans with the romantic vision of a place packed with wonderful food, music and culture that writers such as Tennessee Williams and songs by jazz musicians evoke. I leave with a feeling that I've done my best to experience this before it is ruined for good by white, western, wealthy tourism as so many places are.
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