May 7, 2007: 10:30 PM

Well. To start, I have lost my digital camera. Don't worry--it's at home, just not with me. So I will have to post my pictures from the trip later.

The flight down was good--everything was on time and there wasn't any turbulence. After Ryan and Karen picked me up at the airport and I dropped my stuff off at the volunteer village, we went for a walk up to the French Quarter. There was a jazz funeral and we got (fake) Mardi Gras beads thrown at us, so that was cool.

Then we had to return to the volunteer village and have Orientation. The village is set up in the World Trade Center, which was basically wrecked during Katrina. They are letting us use 3 floors of the building, and the rest of it contains businesses, foreign consolates, and tv stations. There is a Boys Floor and a Girls Floor. The third floor allows comingling of the sexes, but we are required to "dress modestly." This is a very religious place, the volunteer village. The other major group here is a Canadian Baptist church. They go out in the evening to "spread their message." I daresay they don't meet with much success, as the WTC is right next to the French Quarter. There are Bibles everywhere around the dormitory.

But I digress...


The Orientation. We got the Rules. There are to be no boys on the 5th floor, and no girls on the 4th floor. We must not have any food or beverages on the dormitory floors either. Except water. If the water is in a sealed container that has a label indicating it's water, so that they can tell it's nothing else in the bottle, "like Coke," he said. But he really meant like liquor. We are not allowed to speak in the dormitories after 11 pm. We must be back to the building by 10 PM on the dot, or else we will be locked out for the night. We must wear our volunteer ID badges at all times while in the building. We are not to drink while we are out of the building. Well, actually, our fearless orienter, Nick With The Cross Visible Around His Neck, told us that while he cannot tell us not to drink while we are out in the evenings, he can tell us that we will be kicked out of the building (he said this last part slightly gleefully). He repeated the fact that he could kick us out at a moment's notice several times.

They don't like us much here. They can tell that we are Northeastern Liberal Heathens. I wonder what they would do if they found out that one of our group members is gay. Also we brought a black guy with us. He's the only one in the whole building. And a Taiwanese girl.

So we proceeded to walk on over to the French Quarter and have several drinks. And dinner. I had a creole shrimp and crawfish (insert french word here that means brown slightly spicy sauce). And a martini. And a Bloody Mary. I don't normally drink Bloody Mary's (Maries?), but down here they are yummy! Like a gazbacho soup, really, just with vodka in. We had many laughs making jokes about the many ways we could get ourselves kicked out of the building, and then we planned how many nights we were willing to pay hotel prices for so we could stay out past 10.

At one point as we were walking, Karen asked me if I'd like to go out to some blues club one night. I looked up, pointed, and said, "You mean like the House of Blues?" (which we happened to be right in front of).

So now I am back, locked in for the night. I really should get to bed since we are getting up at 6 tomorrow morning. Sorry about the no pictures thing. I'll have that fixed by the UK trip.