Friday morning we all dragged ourselves out of bed, climbed in the cars and drove out to East New Orleans without saying a word. The morning continued in silence as nursing hangovers and sleep deprived we continued to build houses. I moved on from painting things blue to painting things gray and then cutting J channels for vinyl siding. I don't mean to sound like Ms. Dudley can't-Do-Right but it involved geometry skills that I lack, or rather that I have to work super hard at. The day picked up when our fellow workers from a church outside Philly bought enough ice cream pops for everyone. Appropriately refreshed we took one last group photo and skedaddled into the sunset.
As much as I love people I am a big believer in me-time so that evening I splintered from the main group with Laura, a colleague from Parks, to seek out Mexican food. It was an interesting experience if only because they sold the nacho cheese and salsa separate from the chips. My face expressed a confusion evidently previously unseen in New Orleans when asked "You want chips with that?" I was tempted to respond, "No, just a spoon will be fine."
Switching gears we walked along the ole' Miss and stopped in at Cafe du Monde to sample beignets. They're open 24 hours a day! I would guess that the French donuts (fried dough smothered in powdered sugar) are one of the more unhealthy foods of the world but Cafe du Monde was opened in 1862 before the advent of cholesterol. Tradition calls for blowing the sugar onto a friend but Laura politely declined.
The next morning (day 6!) I decided to take full advantage of the day and go on a bus tour of the entire city. We stopped at St. Louis Cemetery. Built over an old leper graveyard (heck yeah, I'm composing the all-singing all-dancing leper musical in my head now) it is built with walls of niches. The bodies are laid there, do their thing, and then are transferred to ossuary buildings. During yellow fever, graves couldn't be reopened until a year and one day after the bodies were interred. I would love to share more fascinating information about the cemetery and new Orleans but I fell asleep on the bus waking up only to note where the Ann Rice lived and the Manning family lives.
Ok, I'm less than inspired tonight...blame the chocolate so I shall end with the flight home. It was the bumpiest, scariest landing I have ever endured and I did think that death was a possibility. Compounding my anxiety, there was a woman on my flight who was super afraid of flying...to the point that up until the minute we took off she kept asking her companion if perhaps they could drive. I am a super low key flyer but it was a rough landing.
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