Last day in LA

Sadly, I have reached the end of my time here in New Orleans and must begin packing and getting ready to move back to Denver. I have to admit that I am not looking forward to the trip back. Our van is a 12-seater and the 12th is half a seat in the way back of the van. The problem arises with our cargo van- they forgot about us and so now, last minute, we are sharing a truck with another team. We have to fit three people to a bench now the whole way back. Hopefully no one explodes. There will be tension in that van, that's for sure.

On a lighter note, we have been told that our next project will be somewhere in Texas, working with FEMA. We do not know yet where we will be staying, but at least we know the state!

It snowed last Thursday, and so I thought it would be appropriate to have some pictures of the craziness taking place in Louisiana. It was so amazing that we all jumped out of bed and rushed outside with our cameras.


It really was sticking to the cars!

Here is Jack saying, "What is going on?"

New Orleans

Sadly, there is still a lot of damage here, and a lot of houses that are so damaged that they are going to be bulldozed soon. It is sad to look down a street and see that all of the houses are empty because they are uninhabitable.



The parking lot and the sign were part of a mall that is now completely empty.



These are some among the many destroyed houses I have seen that have not been cared for since the hurricane.

The real KaBoom Build

The other weekend, my team and I did some ISP- building a playground in New Orleans. It was a lot of fun and we got to be pretty creative. The next day, we went back to the playground and took pictures of it without all of the people there. It looks amazing!

KC and I painted this pole! It says New Orleans spirling around the pole and LSU at the bottom with the S as the S in New Orleans too. Also it has the fleur de lis.
Some people got to paint this mural, which we all sat in front of and got a picture because it was pretty neat and very brightly colored.

KC and I got to put this sign together!

The finished playground!

KaBoom Build!

football game!

The football game was lots of fun, and of course, the Saints won!




The crowd was so big- there were almost no empty seats! We were the second to top row, but it was still a really fun experience.

I can't even believe that three years ago, people were evacuated into this building after Hurricane Katrina. It's hard to imagine people living there and the roof being torn off.

New Orleans

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving, which was full of food at the community center, which one of the locals at Camp Hope cooked for everyone. Today is Pizza Friday, which means that we get out lots of tortillas and put sauce and toppings on top, cut them in quarters and serve them! It is a pretty easy day, and last week, we managed to watch two movies while making the pizzas.
We have put out a list of all of the food we have made over our month here and are having people vote on which meal was their favorite. The idea is to go out with a bang and to make the last week of food the very best we possibly can.
I can't believe that we have been here for almost a month now! As a team, we went to see Hurricane on the Bayou on IMAX last week, and Amanda Shaw was in the movie playing with her band. She was very good, and we wanted to see her play. My team leader Elizabeth, KC and I went to see her in concert on Friday in New Orleans. This weekend, we are going to see a New Orleans Saints vs Atlanta Falcons football game at the Superdome, which should be fun.
Some of my teammates have been seeing ghosts at night in our room, which is pretty freaky. The first incident was when KC and Sierra saw a bright flash of light from a camera that woke them up. Then KC saw someone standing at the end of her bed and when she looked away and back, the person was gone. Last night, Elizabeth said she saw someone standing at the end of her bed in a white tee-shirt, who bumped her bed. The weird part is that we went on a ghost tour a while ago and were taking pictures trying to find ghosts. Now it seems that the ghosts are coming back to find and take pictures of us!

New Orleans!

So today, my team and I went to the French Quarter in New Orleans, which was lots of fun. There is a big flea market and a lot of shops and cafes along the roads. We have been visiting a lot of places around the city and also looking at the damage still present from Hurricane Katrina. It is very sad to see all of the houses that are still boarded up and uninhabitable even three years after the hurricane.
So on a happier note, our cooking is not going unnoticed by the volunteers and locals who eat at Camp Hope. Everyone is saying that our food is amazing and that we are the best AmeriCorps
team who has come to cook for them. So far, some of what we have made is chili, meat loaf or rice, beans and cheese for the vegetarians, and every Friday is pizza day. It is fun to cook for everyone, just the cleanup part is not so much fun! But we have a schedule down so that everybody gets their fair share of the fun part, which is serving the food instead of dishes!
There is one local who likes to take people on ghost tours of nearby buildings! He claims that the buildings are haunted and that if you take pictures, sometimes you can get ghosts to show up in your pictures. However, I have now been on the tour three times, and nobody has found anything strange in any of the pictures or even heard or seen a ghost! Hopefully by the time we leave, there will be at least one story because I am sure we will go looking again soon!

Halloween

And finally, Halloween! There was a party the night before Halloween, which was fun. I was Hannah Montana because a girl in Walmart while we were here saw me and said, "Mommy look! It's Hannah Montana!" That was the first week, but ever since then, my plan was to be her for Halloween.

My friend Julia was Little Red Riding Hood.

On the way here, there was not much along the road. Most of the highway in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas looked pretty much like fields with no trees whatsoever. When we got into Louisiana, there were some trees.

Louisiana



Also, I just had to take pictures of the price of gas in Kansas and Oklahoma. I felt as if I were going back in time!


Oklahoma


Kansas

My team!

My team is pretty much amazing! We went to a park one of the first days as a permanent team for some bonding time. We really had lots of fun and were already psyched for our spike!




In this picture, you can actually see everyone. In the back, from left to right, there is Jack, Kimmy and me. In the middle, there is Kari, KC, Lauren and Sierra and in the front row, there is Becky and Stephen. Kari, KC, Kimmy and Sierra are in the morning crew and the rest of us work in the afternoon shift. The one bad thing about having two different crews is that we do not spend a lot of time with the morning crew, except for the weekends.

More!!

Also on the hike there were lots of cute animals.



This chipmunk got a little snack!! He was so cute I had to get a picture of him!

YAY!!!

So I am finally uploading pictures from forever ago. We are now in New Orleans, which is pretty awesome. We started work in the kitchen today- my shift is noon to 8:00- however, I feel that when we get the hang of the kitchen, we will be out of there before 8 because dinner is served from 5:30 to 6:30. We learned all about the kitchen and also that we will be getting to make anything we want starting this Monday for dinner! The breakfast crew has to get up at 4:30, so they are all asleep in the room now, getting ready for an early morning tomorrow! There are some pretty sad and intense stories people have here who lived in New Orleans during the storm. However, everyone has done a really good job of fixing it up and Saint Bernard Parish, which is the town we are in is looking pretty good now. Today, the dinner crew and I went on a run/walk to the state park nearby. We spent about 2 hours running and looking around at the park, which was pretty fun.


So first, I have pictures of hiking in the Rocky Mountains. It was so pretty and even though the day was really warm, there was snow on the ground. The sky was bright blue and the views were amazing.

New Orleans!!

We found out our permanent teams on Friday and mine is amazing! We are going down to New Orleans and working at Camp Hope, which is a place that volunteers coming to work on disaster relief can stay. We are going to cook for all of the volunteers- there are two shifts- 4 am- 12 pm and 12 pm to 8 pm. Our team leader is going to change the shifts every week so that we get to know all of our teammates. We are working Monday to Friday and getting off the weekends which should be good. It also means that there is plenty of time for ISP, or Independent Learning Service, which is basically volunteering for hours. We all need to have 80 hours of ISP for the end of the year. Luckily, we will have lots of time off and will be able to easily do ISP. We are counting down the days now until we leave Monday morning. We can drive 8 hours per day and are staying in hotels Monday and Tuesday night. People who are the drivers for the team can only drive for 2 hours at a time, so we will be making many stops along the way!
We went to the air force academy yesterday, which was difficult because there was a lot of physical activity involved, which included having very good arm and upper body strength. There were some who were really good at this and others who could not do many of the activities because they didn't have the strength. It was overall a very fun day and also a good way to bond with the team.
I went to the Obama rally on Sunday, which was really fun. There was about a mile long line to get in to the park where it was and there were tons of people. There were snipers on the roof with huge guns, watching people the whole time.
I also have pictures of this but I forget my cord for the camera in my room, so next time!!

training!!

So everything is going pretty well here... it feels like these past weeks are flying by. I am still training, getting ready to go on spike and going to many in-depth classes. Some of the classes are hard to remain awake for though! We had a training today on media representation- what to say if a reporter wants to interview you. We've also had classes on how to have a healthy living style, and how to handle different situations when they arise, all in preparation for going on spike.
We are going to find out who is on our permanent teams this Friday! I am starting to get a little nervous because those are the people I will be spending the rest of my ten months with. We will most likely be going down to the Gulf Coast. Many teams will be placed in Texas for Hurricane Ike work and a lot will be stationed in Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina.
I have heard that we are going hiking in the Rocky Mountains in a couple of days with my unit, so that should be pretty amazing. I am going to go to Boulder this weekend with some friends, so I will get to see some more of Colorado.

Since I couldn't fit all of the pictures onto the same blog, here are more!!!


The rooms are really nice and pretty big. My roommate and I have a huge desk complete with drawers and shelves above it!!

We have our own sink, so that way there is no line in the bathrooms!

My roommate and I each have our own closet and pull out beds that are on wheels, so it is easy during the day to push the beds in and have more space in the middle of the room.

The buildings here on campus are so beautiful. The top one is the tower, which is really pretty.

The backpack is what we have to bring on spike (each project we go on). They're pretty awesome!!

the sites in Denver

Tonight, I thought it would be fun to go outside and take pictures of the sunset because there's a really pretty view of the Rocky mountains and the town right in front of it. It's so amazing here... the computer lab is on floor four, and let me tell you- the walk up to the fourth floor is very tiring to get to because of the altitude, which also means that I am constantly thirsty!

packing

It's harder to pack for 10 months than I thought! I just don't know how I will be able to fit this all into my suitcase... and... I already sent a box to Denver!