#stvincentsguesthouse

[fieryginge]

a few days ago the sky looked like a pink ember. allow whatever fire is igniting to ignite-- let it burn and allow that inspiration to allow yourself to love you. life is rough and I love when people compare it to a roller coaster-- we're all on this ride and we all experience it and feel it differently. follow where she leads you, you learn from success and mistakes, take what you learn and grow. don't fret, don't hate yourself from mistakes made; use this lifetime to grow from what you've learned and learn to embrace the drops, twists, and random upward turns on this ride to make yourself better. YOU matter. YOU are important. Don't let dreams fade away, follow them and embrace them. It's a turn in this roller coaster you don't wanna miss. #stvincentsguesthouse #sunset #aftertherain #sky #gay #gayboy #beYOUtiful #neworleanslgbt #mynola #nola #nolahome #followyourheart #eagertolearn

[miss-lady-sunshine]

When you have to check out of this place and move on to a new one. #stvincentsguesthouse #nola #gardendistrict #neworleans #oldorphanage (at St. Vincents guest house Magazine st.)

[bundleofdelights-blog]

Day 88: Nightmare on Magazine Street

I knew I was going to hate New Orleans as soon as I stepped off the plane and into the world of Crazy Taxi. Everywhere I looked I saw cars that were on the verge of being written off and I leapt straight into the clutches of a madman who had no regard for those around him and was hopping across the massive stretch of lanes like there was no tomorrow. As I keep reiterating, I am a nervous passenger, but this was no overreaction; I have never felt so close to death before and having my limbs scattered across a New Orleans motorway is a far cry from the comfortable bed in which I see myself departing from this world 60 years down the line. The only redeeming factor was that the taxi windows were wide open and, coupled with the sheer velocity at which we were travelling, there were very few moments at which my face was not masked by my windswept mane which shielded me from impending doom.

The moments I did catch a glimpse of the place I would be staying for the next five nights were – for want of a better word – soul-destroying. We appeared to be driving through a third world slum where people were almost jumping into the car and tearing the clothes from our very backs. In fact, the inhabitants of New Orleans reminded me of Shaun of the Dead; I didn’t want to get too close in case I was sucked in and became one of them. Every car park was a makeshift home for the homeless and every building was being left to rot after Hurricane Katrina struck five years ago. It seemed as if everyone had given up on rebuilding New Orleans just for it to be demolished by the next hurricane that struck but let me just say that there is a reason the third little pig built his house out of bricks. Have a think about that one when the next bit of wind blows your community down, New Orleans.

When we eventually rocked up at the building we were staying in and realised that it was not actually abandoned, the first sign we encountered read ‘no refunds’. Now, I guess that should probably have been a warning sign for us to up and run there and then and, wanting to know more about what I was letting myself in for, I logged onto TripAdvisor and came face to face with a review entitled ‘Nightmare on Magazine Street’. Once I started reading I couldn’t stop and I trawled through thousands of terrible reviews of St Vincent’s Guest House as the reality hit us that we had made a terrible mistake. Our room was on the second floor and looked out onto a balcony of rotting wood, which looked like it could give way at any moment. Not that the lovely people at St Vincent’s even bothered to tell us that. In fact, I would have welcomed the early escape from the house of terrors and looked at the veranda most fondly as the days went on…With us as the exceptions, the nightmare on Magazine Street appeared to provide a shelter for the waifs and strays of New Orleans with its employees being plucked from the roadside and given a roof over their heads in exchange for their services. Call me prejudicial but I was rather concerned about leaving my MacBook, iPad, Kindle and Beats headphones in my room while someone from the street with no possessions of their own came in to have their wicked way with them. And the lack of hot water in the shower required me to bathe myself by filling up a Burger King cup with water from the tap and pouring it over my body several hundred times. Ahhhhh, luxury.

With only the tiniest sliver of my soul still in tact, I headed into the town centre thinking that it would be rich in pretty architecture, shops and restaurants that a young, British woman such as myself could enjoy. However, as it happened, we managed to stumble upon Bourbon Street – New Orleans’ most famous street, in fact – and within seconds it was clear that we had come face to face with a monster that was tackier than Blackpool Illuminations. There were neon signs, strip joints and cheap booze everywhere: the pervy old man’s oasis. I can see why Tennessee Williams chose a backdrop so steeped in broken dreams for A Streetcar Named Desire. After roaming the streets in dismay and fearing we would starve to death if we dismissed any more of the restaurants New Orleans had to offer, exhaustion prevailed and we dragged our tired feet into a café in the French Quarter. As if things couldn’t get any worse, I was threatened by an army of pigeons who refused to vacate the area around my feet after I accidentally dropped a chip on the ground, which led to a massive scene in the middle of the café where I was driven out of my seat and refused to return until the pigeons were gone, as people looked on with smirks splattered across their smug faces. And some wise-guy had the audacity to look at me when I was in a blind panic and on the verge of mental collapse and say ‘You don’t like the pigeons, huh?’ Well, well done, Sherlock Holmes. Big gold star for you. 

Returning to the streetcar theme, we thought it only right that we experienced one for ourselves, thus we hopped on a streetcar named ‘Cemeteries’ to check out the graves of those who had plummeted to their deaths from the balcony of room 65 at St Vincent’s. Because of the potential for natural disasters in New Orleans, nobody can be buried below ground. Instead, everyone gets a grand ol’ tomb to lie rotting in so that when the land floods the corpses aren’t brought back up to the surface and swept across the city. Although, I doubt anyone would even notice if they were, considering how downtrodden the area is in the first place. It would probably give it some character. 

The only time I really felt safe in New Orleans was ironically on a tiny boat wading through an alligator-infested swamp. Since I had already carried out a spot of whale-watching, my affinity for the natural world was at an all time high and I fancied seeing some ‘gators in their natural habitat (and possibly throwing myself in as bait). I already mentioned that my whale-watching experience wasn’t the best but the swamp tour was incredible, despite some posh English bird responding to the tour guide ‘Someone falling in’ when asked what she had come here to see. I was ready to volunteer to make her dreams come true and push the silly mare in myself. However, I was distracted by the hoards of alligators all over the shop munching on the marshmallows and hotdogs that the tour guide had to offer. The thing that made me happiest was that I forgot about St Vincent’s for a good few hours as I considered myself the next Steve Irwin. After a good long think, I decided that I actually like alligators more than humans. They are a lot less hassle and a lot less rude.

When our time in New Orleans came to an end and we were ready to board the bus to our next destination, there was one final obstacle thrown into the mix: a man, around 40 years old but with the mental age of around four came over to us and uttered, in a deep Southern accent, ‘Is this the bus stop? I ain’t never ridden no bus before’ with a chilling eeriness that echoed across the dark, dodgy neighbourhood. And with that, the horror of New Orleans transformed into the luxury of an overnight Megabus. And who said travelling’s not for me?