What do I know about New Orleans?

Simply put:
I know what everyone knows. I know the contents of the Wikipedia page; I know what my high school textbooks had to say; I know what made it into media scrutiny over these past four years. I know a fair amount about the practice and history of creole cuisine. I know precisely as much as the average 21-year-old does about Mardi Gras, and then perhaps a little more; I know the New Orleans that shows up in movies and comic books. To Anne Rice and the creative staff of Marvel Comics: y'all left some very large holes in the telling of the story. To Charlaine Harris: if your storytelling is more complete, then I think I'm going to curl up in the bathtub and hide.

What do I hope to learn?
I want to learn how to live in this city. I want to see where people live, where they shop for groceries and secondhand appliances, where they go bowling and where they drink beer. I want to see and experience ground-level reality in New Orleans, post-Katrina. If I only see what the tourists see, and never interact with real people and real places, then I will leave disappointed and embarrassed by myself - and I may need to return, because for some reason, struggling to understand this city is important to me.

How will my learning be impacted by my time here?
I'm never sure how to address this sort of question. I hope to both learn and teach while I'm here; I don't expect that my learning style will change, particularly; and I can't predict whether my learning will be slow and easy in the coming, or uncomfortable and abrupt, because it hasn't happened yet. What I find challenging won't necessarily be the same situations and facts that worry the rest of the group - we'll just have to see how it goes.