Tuesday was a full day. We did the tourist thing. The gathering starts this evening in the Superdome.
Everyone's healthy, our group works well together, and we are having a lot of fun.
We started the day with a healthy walk to the French Quarter for beignet's and Chickory Coffee. It was one of the best combinations I have ever had. Powdered sugar all over us. See the photos.
Shortly after, we got Muffaletta sandwiches. This will be a regular stop for me.
We went to the Laura Plantation on a tour.
It was good for us. We got to see other parts of the Missippi River and the life outside of Orleans Parish proper. The small towns look very much like Iowa or Nebraska farm communities. The sugar plantations are very interesting. We also learned much about the life here in the early 1800's and about Creole life.
Also, it is refreshing to see a bustling port city.
Our group is very thankful. We wrote out Post Cards to the people we know who bought stock in our youth or contributed in a way we were able to recall. We appreciate your prayers.
I feel so blessed to be a part of this congregation.
In Christ,
Pastor Jon
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Tuesday July 21, 2009 10:57 PM
Hello everyone, it’s Laura,
We had a great and full day today. In short, walked a lot, sweated a lot, ate a lot, and ate some more.
We started with a walk to the French Quarter, where we experienced our first scam artist experience (Chelsy, Christie, and I got a ticket for looking at the boys too much :P).
We walked down Canal Street to get there, and found out that “walk”/“don’t walk” signs where not very common. We finally got the hang of the laid back system of walking just when you can. We ate at the famous Café Du Monde for breakfast. We had many beignets (French donuts), and frozen coffees, leaving with powdered sugar covering our clothes.
Walking through a flea market, almost all of the girls bought Mardi Gras masks, and gawked at the alligator heads. Haha. We three girls all got matching shirts for our dads, took pictures as cartoon pirates, and went into pretty much every gift shop in the French Quarter. We plan on going back and dragging the guys along. As we walked to our planned tour for the day, Christie and Chelsy were drawn to the street performers being “statues”, and gave tips to the talented performers. How sweet :P.
We stopped for mufulettas (sandwiches that are popular down here) at a quaint little deli, and I laughed as Katie cringed and picked off her olives. Haha.
Once on the tour bus, everyone sighed when they realized that it would be nicely air-conditioned on the hour and fifteen minute ride to the Laura Sugar Plantation. That’s right, the LAURA Plantation!! I obviously thought it was very awesome that the powerful and strong woman who ran the plantation for a long time shared her name with me. They actually have a Laura month there! It’s in August, and people named Laura get a basket and get the tour for free! That sounded really cool… *hint hint* you guys ;) not saying you should send me back here next month or anything :P.. The tour was very pleasant and empowering to women. I bought a book about the history of the plantation that is a compilation of the memoires of Laura herself (1861-1963). We were given fans to use for the tour that were MUCH appreciated. Louisiana sure is muggy!! After I got many souvenirs in the Laura gift shop, we departed for the hotel in the bus where we played one-card poker(for fun) very enthusiastically. We didn’t ever make it back to the hotel because we got distracted by all of the cool gift shops with air conditioning, voodoo dolls, and stereotypical t-shirts. We split up for dinner. Aurora, Eileen, Katie, and Al had a traditional “N’awlins” meal of gumbo, jambalaya, etouffee and the like…… Pastor Jon and the rest of us had Subway, Popeye’s Chicken (which was fantastic) and McDonalds. Aren’t we adventurous? Most of us headed back for the hotel, but Pastor, Chelsy, Christie, and I decided to go adventuring. We hopped on a trolley and rode the entire way to the end where we got off to buy assorted goods at a market for breakfast. It was an entertaining ride watching the fascinating people of New Orleans come and go. We stumbled back onto the train to come back with a huge pack of water bottles, two watermelons, milk, cereal, and a lot of things that we did not start off with, atop our day’s French Quarter treasures. On the way back a guy with a VERY interesting accent (Chelsy and I debated about what it was exactly) interacted with us. All of us tried to hurry up to our rooms to relax and end our day sweaty, piled with bags, and exhausted, only to be ushered into the lobby to play a game of “I Don’t Buy That” with the boys. We ended our day writing postcards to all of our sponsors (Thanks again all J) in the courtyard and are now departing for the comfort of our rooms. Hope you all are having as much fun as we are. Goodnight, write later!
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