NOLA! NOLA! NOLA!

Picture: This was on a sidewalk in Baton Rouge, LA, where we stopped for lunch during our roadtrip.

Hey everyone!

My blogs are really becoming few and far between... Oops. Well, as many of you know, Friday, April 16, 2010, Blue 6 arrived in New Orleans, LA. The five-day road trip went by with very few wrong turns. It was pretty smooth sailing. I was able to drive everyday, so it made it much more enjoyable. I can now add New Mexico and Texas to my list of states having spent the night in! I have to admit, though I hear rumors about Texans being, let's say, extroverted, it's a beautiful state!

Our apartment is in Mid-City which is, you guessed it, in the middle of the city. It's recently renovated with wooden floors and granite kitchen countertops. The only thing missing is furniture... We have a table and a chair. We all sleep on army cots that double as couches! How convenient. It's two bathrooms, one shower. So far, it hasn't been much of a problem. We shall see.

Saturday, unfortunately, despite being told we would have the day off, we had training from 9 to 5. This was somewhat irritating because I invited Dan in town for the weekend and he ended up walking around by himself all day! I felt pretty bad, but we both knew it was out of our control. Luckily, he's a big boy and found ways to entertain himself. Not too hard when you're in an awesome city! So, that was Dan, now for the AmeriCorps Saturday. Our boss's name is Andreas, from Switzerland. He's this hip-looking middle-aged man with a curly grey fro who rides a scooter around. He came to the city in 1993 and founded GreenLight New Orleans in 2006, after Katrina. The office is this bright, old, purple house with turquoise shutters. The right side of the house is where Andreas lives, and the left side is the office. (Doesn't have much of a scooter commute now does he.) Now Bernie is the program manager who is 26, very energetic, and used to be a science teacher. He was our trainer all day. We learned that the basic goals of GreenLight is to reduce energy usage in the city while decreasing electricity bills for low-income houses and educating the public regarding climate change and saving the planet. We learned how to train volunteers for installing lightbulbs, as well as how to enter and search for information in the computer database. Happily, it was all pretty interesting and we were able to take a few breaks, so the day went by quickly.

Today, Dan and I had the whole day together, so I went and showed him my office and then had lunch at this sweet Mediterranean restaurant on the corner called Lebanon's Cafe. Then we walked around the Carrollton area (which is where the office is) and checked it out. There's a main street with some sweet stores and restaurants. It was nice to walk around a non-tourist-infested area! Then we had some gelato and drove back to my apartment and took the streetcar to City Park. It's a giant park in the city. Clever name, I know. The Louisiana Museum of Art is located there, and it has a free sculpture garden which was awesome. There was a giant safety pin by Claes Oldenburg. Awesome! And then we sat on the grass near a pond. There are few better ways to spend a Sunday!

Tomorrow we have more training. It's Earth Day week (as well as Mom and Dad's anniversary!) so GreenLight is super busy.

So far, this place is awesome. Already I definitely feel more on my own rather than in AmeriCorps. It's a nice change.

I hope everyone is doing well!

<3 anne