Small town girls taking on the big city!

Today was our free day in the city of New Orleans and that meant one important thing; we did not have to set an alarm in the morning! Jessica, Mackenzie and I rolled out of bed around 10:00am and didn’t leave the hotel until 11:00am. We started out being typical tourist and went to the outlet mall (because why not?). We really can’t resist shopping especially at an outlet with the best deals (we look for as many validating reasons to go shopping as we can). After we brought our purchases back to the hotel, we took the streetcar back down to Jackson square and were quickly distracted by local performers. I honestly had never felt more like a tourist than I did while watching these grown men perform dance/acrobatic moves. I literally had a smile on my face the whole time that they were performing. They had great music and microphones and were harassing (in a nice way) people who were walking by their performance area based on their age, race, and the company they were walking with. The jokes that they were making were so rude, politically incorrect, and racist but I seriously could not help but to laugh, along with everyone else in the crowd. Even though the performance was only about thirty minutes, it ended up being the most entertaining part of my day. This group of men have been performing in the streets for over thirty years and their oldest member just turned forty-nine. I can’t even dance, let alone spin on my head or even do a handstand and I am only twenty-two years old! These men were so awesome and motivational in a sense that they have been working hard their whole lives as street performers and have been successful for themselves and their families. After that was over, we talked around Jackson square to the different art galleries to look at the work done by local artists. First thing I learned about art galleries, do not touch anything. I swear I was leaning too close to one of the paintings (without even touching it) and the woman working the cash register asked me to either move away from the painting or get out of the store. Needless to say, I put my head down and scurried out of the store before I broke anything and before anyone noticed how embarrassed I was.

            My favorite part of today was the quality time I spent with my roommates. We were sitting at dinner and I thought to myself, “We just navigated through a unfamiliar city completely by ourselves and went everywhere and saw everything that we wanted to. We rock!” We all have traveled before either with our parents or with our boyfriends, but they have always done the navigating and the important task of paying for things. This day was all about the three of us doing whatever we wanted to do and taking care of ourselves, and we did just that! We have fallen in love with this city and its culture and managed to navigate it all on our own. GIRL POWER!

 These are videos of the performances today! One of the performers was dancing (inappropriately) and mocking modern day culture and the other is a performer jumping over six volunteers pulled from the audience! 

Attention all readers of this blog: the following post is going to be sappy and potentially could turn into a feminist rant; proceed with caution. Today was the first time that I have ever toured an unknown city without any family members or a man to take care of me. Well let me just tell you that Jessica, Mackenzie and I maneuvered our way around this city like pros. We woke up in the morning and came up with a game plan and set goals to accomplish today and met all of our goals! One thing that I thought about during the day is the safety of traveling in a group. We only walked on the sideway, in the daytime, in a group of three people. We were not exposed to any dangers of this city and for that I was thankful! Before this trip, my parents were worried that I would venture off into a dangerous part of the city and basically thought I would get kidnapped. Little did they know that I am a competent adult woman who can navigate her way through a city without falling into the hands of danger, take that mom and dad! The city of New Orleans showed me today that three young women could navigate safely throughout the city and absorb as much culture as possible without fear of being harmed or getting into trouble. While I was walking around the city today I could not help but think about how far I have come as a woman. I recently found out that my (now ex) fiancé was cheating on me and I called off our engagement at the beginning of February. Since them, my confidence and self esteem levels hit rock bottom. During the past couple of weeks I have been starting to feel better and more confident about myself. Being able to walk down the street with my own money in my purse, making my own decisions about where to eat and what to buy made me feel like I have actual authority over my own life; a strange feeling that I have not experiences in my life before. The city of New Orleans exposed me to what it feels like to be a strong independent woman who can take care of her self which was way more refreshing feeling than I expected. This society has been trying to put women in a powerless position who tend to live in a world where men make all the decisions. The city of New Orleans has a long history of women who created names for them and showed all the men of New Orleans what’s up and that they can do whatever they want and be successful. These women that I have been learning about on this trip have been giving me mountains of motivation to achieve my dreams and not take shit from anyone, especially the men of this world. Okay, everyone I am done ranting about women’s rights. Sorry if that got weird for a second, but I had to get it off my chest. Moral of the story: New Orleans rocks and it is teaching me to believe in myself again.