Pre NOLA Thoughts Blog #1

Most of what I know of New Orleans has come to me through movies and television; either visions of the French Quarter during Mardi Gras or post-Katrina footage of the ninth ward.  Somewhere along the line I had put it together that New Orleans was an inner city made up primarily of the 18th century Spanish structures that the French Quarter is so famous for, bordered by areas much like the Ninth Ward.  My imagination of the city was a limited combination of scenes from Double Jeopardy and Live and Let Die smashed along side footage of a post-Katrina Ninth Ward.

As we reached the end of our arduous journey to New Orleans I realized just how wrong my original view of New Orleans was.  For one thing it was much larger than I had anticipated, and while the areas around New Orleans were no longer disaster areas, they were far from being back to the state they were once in.  All around New Orleans signs of flood damage can still easily be seen.  I hope that in the coming weeks I will gain a greater respect and understanding of the whole city.  The projects that we have to complete will help us learn more about New Orleans, and while the regular school work that I will have to do on top of the community service projects will make for a tough challenge, I feel that by the time I leave New Orleans I will be able to know the city in a way that few outside of the city do.