There is something peculiar about acting the tourist in your own hometown. Especially if you visit home often (every few months, as I do) and you live in a very different kind of place (small mountain town versus a metropolis), home remains home in some very real ways. You have the feel of the place, you remember shortcuts you figured out ten years ago, and your favorite bartender still knows your name.
Sure, I imagine these things are even truer if New Orleans is your hometown, as in my case, but I think the experience is in many ways universal. Far from a diatribe about returning to your city, overrun by the runoff of Los Angeles—waves of hipsters eroding the coastline—this will be a specific diatribe about Airbnb on the homefront.
Because knowing too much can destroy your pleasant weekend.
A disclaimer: I could just take the blame for not completing the research and stop my whining. But where’s the fun in that?
So this Airbnb, advertised as an “Historic Warehouse” and an “Historic Property with Lots of Charm in a Great Neighborhood,” is where I found myself driving up yesterday. Reading between the lines, I now understand this statement really reads as follows: ‘Old Building, very rundown, in a gentrified neighborhood that is sort of frightening at first glance.’
Because let me tell you: I’ve arrived in a sublevel of hell. In the spirit of honesty, I’ll just admit that I was afraid to get out of the car on the first pass down the block. In part, this is because it looked pretty rough and ragged, but I have to admit that my fear came from being an outsider (read, a white guy from the suburbs) in a black neighborhood that is also near a peripheral area full of homeless people who live under the interstate (literally under the bridge).
I was also scared, however, because our historic warehouse was a junky building on the side of the street, looking more like a big shed than a warehouse. The owners let us know they would be out of town, so I walked through an outer door into someone’s living room—can you tell I’m not hip enough for this?—and immediately got sketched out. Trying to keep it together, I followed the directions to my “room,” entered the code, and walked into a room where someone else was staying (open suitcases, all their personal items on display, bed unmade). At this, I freaked, thinking it was all a sick joke and that this was all fucked. So I fled.
After contacting the “friend of the owners” who was in charge of the property for the weekend, we learned that the owners had mistakenly given the other guy our room codes and us his: which, in my mind, means he can get into our room anytime he wants now, as I’d already violated his space. As I said, all fucked.
This all probably sounds like a typical Airbnb experience, for the uninitiated, of course, except for this fact: because I’m from New Orleans, the second I looked up the address to go and find this place, I cringed. The thing is, in the haste of choosing a place, we picked one we mistakenly thought was in the Warehouse District, which is a slimy area in its own right on the other side of downtown. The Warehouse District is slimy with young film industry snots who think they deserve to live in luxury condos that they will later pay off with their film riches; my hunch is that most of these assholes leave heavily in debt without becoming famous directors, but whatever. The point is, I was ready for that: ready to turn my nose up at LA dickheads and avoid their trendy bars.
When I saw the address, however, I pictured derelict buildings, homeless people, and a late night carjacking. I know this is unfair, but the world isn’t fair. When I drove there, my old apartment only 10 minutes away, I knew exactly what I would find. The only thing I couldn’t foresee was the tackiness of the Airbnb itself. Once I finally got into the right room, I gagged on someone’s pinterest wetdream come to life. The fuckers who own this place clearly see promise in lining their own pockets by selling some fake fantasy of New Orleans to out-of-towners.
But being the “from-towner” made all of this more difficult. I imagine a normal guest flies into town (promised a 15 minute walk to the French Quarter, etc.), takes a cab to their “luxury spot,” is greeted by the excited owners with enough enthusiasm to bury their fear of the neighborhood, and then taking a cab everywhere the rest of the trip to avoid walking through a scary stretch of town. They go home claiming some authentic experience in New Orleans, proud of their own survival.
But, as the “from-towner,” I’m not looking to experience this kind of magic. If I were in another major city, unfamiliar with my environment, I’d probably have the experience explained above (minus lying about authenticity). But knowing exactly where I am (and that I could stay at my parents’ house in a distant suburb), justifying the experience as anything but plain settling becomes an exercise in denial.
What makes things worse is that the owners are out of town. I mean, I know I’d fucking hate these snotty white pioneers prospecting in a poor, black neighborhood as they show me their clever tricks and avoid discussing the water leaking in from the holes in the ceiling. But if they were around, at least I’d have someone to complain to, a face to put to my curses and threats. Without their presence, I feel like a home intruder in someone else’s fantasyland, treading on their absentee dreams.
At first, I thought we couldn’t stay there. Now, I’m staying to prove a point: maybe that I’m not a white bigot, but more likely that I can handle it, especially since we missed the window to get our money back. I’ll rough it out in my urban wilds like any other asshole tourist.
But, whereas I’d only be complaining about hitting my head repeatedly on the low-hanging ceiling beams or about how many dehumidifiers it takes to air out an attic in a dumpy shed moonlighting as a warehouse or about the pinterest-on-display quality of the “vintage” fixtures, as a from-towner I’m resentful that the place exists, depressed that I have to stay there, and want bad things to happen to its trendy owners. While I’m intrinsically an asshole in these respects, I’ll still enjoy the rest of my trip, making this Airbnb situation more of an aberration than anything.
But this aberration brings me to the real takeaway of this experience. I don’t think it possible to truly be a tourist in one’s own city. I think our perceptions and preconceptions always cloud our experience. But usually, this process happens more discretely. And every time I hit my head on a low beam (they even have one in the bathroom between the door and toilet), I’ll try to be resentful for the right reasons and take the lesson to heart: the knowledge of home we carry with us limits our ability to experience home as anything but the place we know. And there’s nothing to do about that but embrace it.
Now, who needs a beer? (At least I can depend on home to fill that particular need.)
momentumiveva 