June 6, 2011

12:45 a.m. -the girls in room A6 were quietly playing rummy, and listening to the infamous “Black and Yellow” on Emily’s iPod. And we repeat, QUIETLY. Well, the walls in this upscale shack happen to be quite thin; and there also happened to be a grouchy ‘traveler’ in the room between ours and another group of our girls. Now, we will say it one more time… BOTH rooms were being very QUIET. The irate lady comes knocking on the door of the girls in room A8, saying that “travelers are trying to sleep, they need to shut up”, then, she knocks not on the door of A6, but the window (we have windows that look out into the hall, which is kind of scary because you can see the shadows of the people walking by). She tells us that she can hear our noises in the hall and we need to shut up and go to bed. But in the process of her telling this she scared the b’jeezus out of the girls (the ones who weren’t sleeping…). I mean, come on! Who knocks on the window that you can see the shadow of the person through, after hearing ghost stories about the hotel, and the window also happens to be RIGHT BY OUR HEADS!! So, trying to calm down, we all lay down, and in the midst of twirling her hair, Emily feels a foot under her pillow. She almost screams, and so does Megan, except for the small fact that we were still quite scared because of the lady. Then, it dawns on Megan that Julia had put a plastic dinosaur under Emily’s pillow! Wow, we felt stupid…

Flash forward to 8:00- there is nothing but poptarts for breakfast, We guess that will have to do; but what we don’t know is that we wouldn’t get to eat again until around 4:00, when we ate fast food.

The first adventure of the trip (besides the previous long bus ride) was to the WWII museum (on D-Day). The museum was really interesting, especially the speakers, who had had personal experiences. Everyone had a great time, especially in the 4-D movie, recounting the War. However, it was very obvious that Coach enjoyed it the most (he asked every day if we would get to go last year, and got autographs of veterans that he talked to).

Adventure #2- Swamp Tour. The tour guide that our group was assigned had a very dry sense of humor; but threatened us with the fact that if we didn’t laugh at his jokes, we would be fed to the alligators. The alligators in this swamp are used to coming to the tour boats, so we saw a lot of them. The highlight of this trip for most was holding the baby alligator at the end of the boat ride (not to mention the boat ride was cool, and we had just taken a long, hot walk).

After the tour of the swamp, we took the streetcars (like a trolley) back towards the Guesthouse. On our way, we passed the one and only all American hottie---JAMES MARSDEN! If you don’t know who this is, think 27 Dresses, The Notebook, Hop, Hairspray, & Zoolander. He was filming at a park along the road and waved at the swarm of squealing teenage girls on the streetcar, then flashed his million dollar smile.

After a much needed break in the pool, the NOLA students set out for the Rock ‘n’ Bowl. Where we ate an amazing meal of Jambalaya, Fettuccini, and pizza. And, in a competitive spirit, everyone set out to bowl. The highest scoring student was to win a Strawberry Daiquiri (Virgin of course). Natalie was the lucky winner, and will receive her ‘prize’ on the Natchez Steamboat. However, everyone else will HAVE to have one by then, they will just have to pay for it.

So all in all, it was a fun packed, but tiring day. And our ONLY full day of touring the city of New Orleans. In the morning, we get up early and are off to work.
Blog by, Megan Bockitng, Emily Thompson, and Julia Whitthaus