The Big Easy

I'm missing the wonderful city of New Orleans today. I've only been to the US once, in February 2013, and we flew from Manchester to Atlanta, and then from there to  New Orleans. We stayed there only a week. But it has left a deep impression on me.

I actually went as part of an A level music trip, through my cousin's school in London. He was a music teacher there and he organized this trip, and me and my friend went along too, with the other students from his school who were all lovely.

I've always looked up my cousin, he's been one of my biggest inspirations ever since I can remember. He did his undergraduate in Music Royal Holloway University, and spent his second year studying in New Orleans. He was there when Hurricane Katrina hit, and he lost the entire years worth of work in the flood because he was evacuated. When I was younger I wanted to have my career in music and to follow in his footsteps. But even as I've got older and realised music isn't for me as a job, I've never stopped looking up to him.

It was an amazing opportunity to be allowed by the school to join this trip. Me and my friend Sarah had an amazing week I'll never forget. We ate out every night as part of the trip, heard live music on every street, had a guided tour of the city's Jazz history, and a general guided tour, we rode on the steamboat Natchez down the Mississippi to the Chalmette battlefield, we went on a night-time ghost walk, we visited Mardi Gras world, and because we were over 18 we were allowed to go out to a Jazz club one evening on Bourbon Street with the teachers when most of the other students were in bed.

If you've ever been, you will know what an incredible place New Orleans is. I was told numerous times how going there is like stepping out of the states. The city is influenced more by the Spanish, French and Caribbean cultures than America itself. It has a very special feel to it. It is so alive; brimming with music and energy unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Yet at the same time, it is such a laid back city. You feel so free there. Everyone is welcome and free to be whoever they choose. 'The Big Easy' is aptly named.

One thing that did strike me is how poor the city looks down on the ground when walking around at night; there are so many beggars and people living on the street that approached us. I was sat next to a lady on the plane there who was travelling to a business conference in New Orleans. She told me to take care because it is not one of America's safest cities. When on our way to a restaurant one evening, my cousin was approached by two men who when he wouldn't give them money, grabbed hold of him. Me and the other students were told by another teacher to walk off and leave him, and he did manage to shake them off after a minute. It was a heart-stopping moment though.

Anyway, what I'm getting down to is that though I will not be visiting New Orleans this summer, I am going back to the States. Back to the country that has my favourite history in the world, and has captured my imagination and my heart since I studied the American West back in 2008.

I was catching up on TV programmes I've missed today on iPlayer, and I watched Reginald D Hunter's 'Songs of the South'; the third episode which is on Mississippi and Louisiana. I have only spent one week of my life there, but seeing New Orleans on the TV; hearing its music, seeing its people and its beautiful buildings, it just felt wonderful to imagine myself back there, breathing in the life of the city.

There are two plans for our trip to America this summer at the moment, and it could go one of two paths. But a definite is that me and Joseph are going to Washington DC and staying with a family friend, visiting Gettysburg and New York City, and very hopefully travelling into Virginia. Perhaps even further south, we shall see.

Music is not for me as a career, but America's music is absolutely wonderful. Its Jazz, the blues, the rhythms and dances all born there and their impact on race relations and the Jim Crow south fascinate me, and is something I am pursuing in my dissertation from September. The deep South is a culturally, politically, socially and economically fascinating place that I will always be drawn to.

I am unbelievably excited for the summer and for what it is going to bring for my personal journey, as well as academically; for the opportunities I will have to do some early research for my dissertation.