One of the best parts about traveling is getting to know the people and places like a local, and being accepted into a culture. When I started catching the bus around Los Angeles, I got to know the city pretty well, which is something most people can't say for themselves because of the circumlocutory nature of the freeway system and the sprawled character of the city itself; it prevents them from actually getting to know the streets and the people on them. There's something to be said about that feeling you get when you know where you are going and what you are doing in a place like LA. It's so exhilarating to be oriented in a place and even to be able to recognize parts of a city in TV shows and movies and know exactly where those shots were filmed. When you are able to recognize a city skyline and are able to get around on your own, it's like that city becomes a part of you, and more importantly, you feel like you have become a part of that city.
As I was thinking about my upcoming trip to Seattle, a new big city for me to visit, for the Pacific Sociological Association conference, I began reminiscing about my trip to New Orleans last April for the American Planning Association Conference. New Orleans, or N'orlans and NOLA as the locals seemed to refer to it, was an amazing, walkable city. I was able to see a lot of it in the 4 days I was there. I danced all night in the French Quarters with some fellow planning students in the grad program at The University of Arizona, I visited the National D-Day Museum near my hotel in the conference district of downtown, I walked along the Mississippi River and had Cafe Du Monde's famous beignets near the St. Louis Cathedral. What a great trip. Since I was able to walk everywhere I went, I felt like I was able to know it better than most can in just 4 days. It was such a great place to be! And attending the wonderful conference sessions by many locals, I feel like I got to know a lot about the other parts of the city which I was not as fortunate to attend. I even had the opportunity to attend a sort of field trip session to the Upper and Lower Ninth Wards to see how the disaster has damaged the communities in those locations. Even five years after Katrina, these communities were still in ruins, and yet they were the heart of NOLA.
I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to visit such a wonderful city. I remember catching a shuttle from the airport to my hotel at just after midnight. I didn't make it there until around 1am. The entire ride there, I couldn't help but to look out the window and see the Superdome under construction, boarded up shops and in some cases buildings, shady street corners and empty sidewalks in the dead of night. When I arrived, I was informed that the hotel had overbooked, and they would be sending me to Harahan, another town nearby, for the night, free of charge. The lady at the counter handed me some cash and called a taxi to take me there. I was terrified at the thought of riding a taxi by myself for the very first time in my life in the middle of a strange city at such a late hour when I had to be back by 7am. I was extremely stressed about the whole situation, especially regarding getting enough sleep and making it to all the sessions I wanted to attend on time, but looking back on it, I think the taxi rides there and back were the highlight of my trip.
On the way to Harahan, I made light conversation with the cab driver. What else was there to do? I discovered much about him and his family who were immigrants from Bangladesh and had moved to New Orleans not a year after Katrina in order to take advantage of the cheap costs of living and to establish a career in the taxi cab business. He didn't know much about the city before the hurricane had hit, but he knew it inside and out the way it was afterward. While it was interesting getting to know this man, I think the ride on the way back was the the most memorable taxi ride of my life. I was already running late on my way back to the conference center, and my taxi cab had not yet arrived 30 minutes after I had called for it. So I jumped in the back seat of the next taxi cab I saw to ask the driver if she knew anything about the situation. She didn't, but she was willing to take me there anyway. Since it was supposedly during morning traffic hours, she took the side streets to get to the conference center, taking 20 minutes longer than I had hoped it would. The whole time I was tense from the thought that I was so late, but the driver, a chubby middle aged caucasian woman who was born and raised in New Orleans, was pleasant to talk to. She told me the most fascinating stories of all the neighborhoods we passed through. She was still a taxi cab driver during the 2005 hurricane disaster, and she told me of how aside from police, taxi drivers were the only ones allowed to drive within the city during the recovery effort, and she was able to see the city at its worst. As we passed certain streets and neighborhoods, she would tell me things like, "Do you see that line along these warehouses here? That's how high the water was." I could not have paid for such a tour of the city. The local knowledge this lady held was astounding, and I was glad to have had her as my guide on the way back to the downtown area.
In the end, I had some wonderful experiences and forged great friendships at that conference, but I never thought much about that taxi ride until now. And yet, it has proved to be one of the most memorable parts of my trip that year. It's so interesting to think about which life experiences, intended or unintended, have the greatest impact on your life. When it comes to deciding what gives meaning to our lives, I do believe that often times reflection on past experiences is what actually creates meaning rather than the experiences themselves. How we react to those experiences once all is said and done is what gives them significance. While I definitely had more fun hanging out with other planning students in the city, I learned the most from this random cab driver I spent half an hour with one morning. She has contributed so much to my knowledge of NOLA, and that was the whole purpose of my trip: to truly understand and experience the city from the local perspective as much as possible.
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