Discovering New Orleans: A Personal Journey Through the French Quarter, Jazz, and Beignets

I’ve never been drawn to drinking for sport. Not in high school, not in college, not even in New York when I was closing down bars most nights. Still, I can enjoy a good drink. I like the lift. But I’ve never understood the pageantry, the games designed to erase memory, the social theater that rewards collapse. Beer pong always felt like the only game where losing was the point.

So, Bourbon Street was never going to be my kind of place. I knew that before I went. We walked the length of Bourbon Street twice on our first night in New Orleans. It was late, crowded, and loud. The air was thick with the scent of sugar, vomit, and neon. At one point, a woman in a roller derby outfit grabbed my wrist, shoved a handful of glowing beakers into her cleavage, palmed the back of my head, and pressed me into her chest. “That’ll be fifteen dollars,” she said. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t even flinch. I just wanted to leave.

Earlier that day, we walked Bourbon in daylight, looking for food. We stopped at Felix’s Restaurant & Oyster Bar and were led upstairs, through a tall window, onto a balcony that felt like it might give way at any moment. We ordered oysters and alligator. It was my first time trying alligator. The food was incredible. The place was worn and beautiful. That balcony—rickety, sunlit, and suspended above the street. It was the best part of Bourbon Street.

But my favorite hours in New Orleans are always spent walking the French Quarter. The buildings hang with gardens. The interiors are unpredictable; the bars, galleries, bookstores, and voodoo shops were remarkable. You step inside and know exactly where you are. We stopped at Pirates Alley Café & Absinthe House off Royal Street. The bartender poured absinthe over sugar cubes. We sat at the bar and let the place settle into us. “Where past and architecture have been preserved by neglect.” That line stayed with me.

The next day, we toured NOMA and wandered through Congo Square and Louis Armstrong Park. Museums do something fiction can’t. They make history tactile. They strip away the polish. You stand in front of something that belonged to someone who shaped the present, and suddenly the past isn’t distant—it’s yours. It’s real because you’re there.

We arrived on Thursday. Saturday was our last night. I was the only one who wanted to go out. That still baffles me. We’re in New Orleans, on a Saturday night, and my friends stayed in, watching television. I went out alone. Walked Royal Street toward Frenchmen. Had dinner somewhere I can’t name. Drifted in and out of bars, listening. I settled into one—again, no name—and ordered a drink. The jazz was extraordinary. I walked from Decatur to Canal and back to the Airbnb. That night was the best I had in New Orleans. When I got back, they were still on the couch.

I like New Orleans. I haven’t spent much time outside the French Quarter, but even that small slice holds more character than most cities in full. In places like New York, the original layers have been rebuilt so many times that they exist only in story. New Orleans isn’t like that. It’s like D.C. in that way. You walk through it and feel the weight of what hasn’t been erased. I could spend weeks there. I wouldn’t get bored. I wouldn’t black out. I’d just keep walking. And yes, we got beignets. You have to. It’s part of the ritual.