Day 1: Sunday, January 11, 2009

Day 1 in New Orleans was very interesting, and hectic to say the least. Today is the day that we began our journey to New Orleans! Some of the girls met at BART at 11:00 am, and we all met at SFO at around 12:30. After being on public transportation (BART, shuttles, planes) for around ten hours, we found out that the van that we had hired to take us to the hostel was a bit smaller than we had hoped... but, eventually, we squeezed thirteen women, a driver, and almost 30 assorted pieces of luggage into an 11-seater van.





The arrival at the hostel was just as great as we had hoped! Our dormitory is adorable - just six sets of bunks beds sporadically arranged in a big room. We also get lockers, which is really nice, so that we can keep our valuables safe.



After dropping our stuff off at the hostel, our fabulous driver Mario drove us to the Clover Grill at the end of Bourbon Street to get some burgers. The Grill, which attracted many interested characters, played songs over the loudspeaker like "I Will Always Love You" and "I Don't Want No Scrubs." The menu told us that we could dance in the aisles, but nobody danced tonight!



To get to the street car after the Clover Grill, we walked down Bourbon Street, which was a sight to see! Even on a Sunday Bourbon Street was bustling with cat-calling drunken sailors. As a Women's Studies class it was interesting to witness the atmosphere that tourists usually see as "the heart of New Orleans," but Cynthia assured us that New Orleans is about so much more than Bourbon Street. We are trying to experience New Orleans like locals do, and Bourbon Street is the tourist's vision of New Orleans!



On our way home, we made a disheartening discovery - the street cars weren't running that late at night! To avoid having to walk home in the cold weather, we all piled into two taxi cabs and drove back to the hostel.



After our long and interesting day, sleep came easy in The Big Easy!