Rebuilding Week: Day 1

On Tuesday, we were up bright & early to get to work. Our team of 30 was split into three groups with one student leader per group. My team was Team Mike and we actually worked on two sites over the week. Our first day was finishing a dining room for a man named Isaac. The roof has been ruined during the storm. It wasn't fixed properly and every time it rained, his dining room would flood. A team had come in to fix the roof & the ceiling. Now, we went to finish the molding and paint the ceiling.



Beth & Grace( a fellow Theta) staining the molding


The owner had a dog named Caramel, which you know I played with during the day.


Beth & I working on the molding



Me, Grace, G, and Taylor

We worked all day 830-4. Afterwards, we took turns making dinner for the group. The first night was our team night to cook. We made pasta, salad, garlic bread, and had cookies for dessert!





Team Mike dinner, a success!

After dinner, we all just hung around in the big room. We played games and talked. It was like summer camp! We also gathered every night to discuss how well the day went, our thoughts on rebuiliding, the people we met, etc. There are a lot of mixed feelings in going down there to rebuild. A lot of questions like why are people still living in trailers 5 years after the storm? Can this happen again? Why are we rebuilding if this could happen again? Why do people still want to live down here?

Rebuilding Week: Ready to Go!

On Monday evening, we met up with our team. W
e worked with the LA Methodist Disaster Response Group & stayed in a rebuilt church. The Church is now used to house all of the build supplies & also a big area for groups to meet. They also had rooms with bunk beds for all of us to stay in. On Monday night, all of the alumni went out to dinner. It was great to meet everyone!

When we got back from dinner, the students had arrived from PA. We all did a 'meet & greet'. The students were very impressive. They are all super smart & really interested in giving back. They have been on a few of these type of trips and were excited to start a new one.

This was the first time the school had invited alumni on this type of trip. It was so great to be a part of this. Everyone on the trip was amazing. We all felt like we were truly supposed to go on this trip and meet one another.

After dinner & meeting everyone, we all went to bed in our bunk beds. There were 6-8 people to a room. We were ready to get up at 7am the next day to go to work!

New Orleans: Cemetery & French Quarter

On Monday, we spent our last day seeing all of the last minute things to see. Amy & I were scheduled to meet up with our team on Monday evening. We toured the French Quarter, the French Market, got Beignets, & walked through an old cemetery!



Jackson Square







The street plaques reminded me of Old San Juan, PR.



We hit up the famous, Cafe DuMonde for beignets aka friend doughnuts!







We went to the French Market - A big outdoor market with a ton of vendors selling stuff from sunglasses to tshirts to alligator heads!











The Mississippi River

We then went to the oldest cemetery in NOLA.





Above ground graves are made so that families can be stacked on top of each other.

This is the tomb of Voodoo Priestess, Marie Laveau. If you knock on her grave & ask her for a favor, she will grant it!

New Orleans: Plantation Visit

On Sunday, we drove out to visit a Plantation. We toured one and drove by a few more. I love doing historic stuff on trips so this was awesome!







A sign outside showed the slaves that had worked on the field & how much they cost

Gorgeous old oak trees


One of the bedrooms

Mattresses back then were stuffed with moss & horse hair! They had to use a rolling pin to roll out their mattress lumps every morning!

Expected scary photo in the house




In the gift shop, there were scary dolls like this one!

After the Plantation, we took a drive through the Lower 9th Ward. I will save that for another post. We had dinner & then went to bed a reasonable time, considering the crazy night we had beforehand!

The waitress lit the plate on fire and then twisted the sushi roll through it to heat up the oil!

After dinner, we went to Lafitte's Blacksmith Bar. It is the oldest bar in the country! It is lit by candle light. Very fun!

New Orleans: Party All Night

Last Saturday, I flew down to NOLA. I stopped in Minneapolis and then flew down to NOLA. Weird. Anyway, I got there around 5pm. Greta & Amy picked me up and we immediately went to the drive thru Daiquiri stop. These are all over New Orleans & are very fun to stop by!




We went back to the hotel to relax and then we met up with two of their friends, Rachel & Tom, for dinner. We went to this awesome restaurant, Bayona.




After dinner, we hit the town. The French Quarter & Bourbon Street are rockin'. It is crazy. The streets are shut down & everyone is just walking around, in & out of bars. The bars are all open and you can carry your beers around outside.

Now, everyone knows that I go to bed early. I can't stay out late. Well, guess what. We stayed out ALL night. I don't know how we did it. We had Hurricane's around 2 am or something and we swear there is caffeine or something in them. After the Hurricane's, we were good to go.





Things going down hill at this point!

We bar hopped all night. I also rode a mechanical bull and sang karaoke. Both were completely hilarious. So funny that we took video! hahaha






The night ended at IHOP around 7am. Amy & I had a lovely breakfast of chicken tenders, onion rings, and french toast. We got back to the hotel and went to sleep for a few hours. We couldn't waste the whole day sleeping!