Courtney - I am New Orleans

Walking into Mother’s restaurant on Poydras St., I was expecting to have a normal dinner with my parents. I walked up to the register to order my food, took the number, and went to find a table to sit down. After about ten minutes, my number was called, so I went to the pick-up window to get my order. When walking back to the table, I saw a family of four sitting at the table diagonally across from us. Thinking nothing of it, I sat down and started to eat, only to be interrupted by an obnoxious flash. When I looked up, that same family of four was taking pictures of their food and the Mardi Gras beads around their necks. Not only did they keep doing this, sending off a flash every five seconds, but at one point they asked “a real southern local” to take a picture of everyone together. This real southern local was me. When I put the camera up to my eye, they didn’t just smile normally; they then proceeded to lift the plates of jambalaya they were eating to their faces and say “Mother’s” on three. Living in a city as diverse as this one, I can only expect to see these types of tourists vacationing here. New Orleans is one of the most unique cities in America and I understand why people from all over fly down here to see the city for what it really is. Whenever I have a similar encounter to the one I had that night, I can only laugh about it, because living in an environment such as New Orleans, comes with the price of seeing crazy tourists wandering the streets at any given time of the year.

- Courtney, age 16