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NEW YORK!

We just found out that out next spike will be in NEW YORK CITY!!!!!!!!!!! Well, more like Yonkers, but its only 20 minutes away, so its more like a New York minute. Anyway, here is the link for our project sponsor: http://www.groundworkhv.org/

This coming week is our last week in the wonderful NOLA. It is pretty bittersweet; I love this city, but I am SO excited to move on, and finding out we are going to amazing New York couldn't have been better news. (well Puerto Rico wouldn't have been too bad...) This past weekend we volunteered at the Jazz Fest. It wasn't as great as I had hoped- MUD MUD MUD, and I didnt get to leave my volunteer post to see Simon and Garfunkel. I did however get to see Drake as we were leaving- not terribly exciting for me, but I guess it was cool...

On Friday we went on a volunteer guided tour of the 9th ward- and all the other parts of New Orleans that are hidden from the tourist eye; Treme, Mid City, and like I said, the 9th ward. Its amazing all the horror stories that Katrina caused- who would have thought something like that would happen, you loose everything, and when you try to get back on your feet, there are so many obstacles in the way to break your spirit that you don't even want to try anymore. My heart and soul goes out to these people, and I want to do anything and everything I can to help them. I dont know how, and I dont know when, but I will come back here..

Ok, well things are going as expected, learning a lot, having adventures, and optimistically looking forward to my future and the future of my teammates. Ok, well I have to go, I hope your lives are going well, good luck, and much love.

Lily

Fun times winding down.

Hello,

So we have about 2 weeks left in this lil' ole town of NOLA. It rained REALLY hard last night; complete with thunderous thunder and striking lightning. We got yet another batch of volunteers- YAY teenagers! Not really, this should be interesting...

Tomorrow we start a new project, and I am supposed to be leading it. We are going to this place where people with mental illnesses live, and we are painting 4 housing units. I just hope we can do this in a timely order, but something tells me it might take a while.

We are volunteering at the Jazz Festival this weekend, hopefully I can sneak away from my shift to catch Simon and Garfunkel, I love them!! I hope we get free food and swag; one good thing about being a volunteer is that people like to give you treats along with lots of praise, its lovely. I found out I gained 5 pounds, some people guess its in muscle, but my guess is jambalaya and desserts.. Oh well.. This past weekend we volunteered at the Iron Man race, I gave the athletes their packets and swim caps. It was nice, they gave us sandwiches and drinks! (see, that 5 pounds just snuck up on me!)

We are just watching movies after work, but I think the anticipation of leaving soon is looming in the air, so I have a feeling I will spend as much time as possible outside and spending as much money as sanely possible, which is about as much as a non AmeriCorps person would spend on a lunch.. but anyway... Yes, yesterday some of the girls and I just laid in Audubon Park for a few hours, it was lovely. I cant complain about too much, except we have to wake up at 5:30am 2 times a week to do stupid physical training.. ARGGHHHHHH you do NOT want to mess with me this early in the morning as I have learned from my team mates. RIDICULOUS!!! I will NEVER let anyone forget how much I hate working out that early, I must prove my point!!!

Ok, I will try to write soon!

Check out our pictures!!

http://s838.photobucket.com/albums/zz305/badger4xvi_album

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Badgerfour-ameriCorps Atlantic Region

Love,

Lily

Spring Break??!!

Hey hey!!

Its been awhile, I know. I'm sorry!! But I couldn't possibly explain what I have been up to. Lots of working, which is making me so incredibly tired during the week, but the weekends are a different story... Lots of walking around, exploring, eating and all that good stuff.. Everyday I find something new about this town, and everyday I fall more and more in love, and become more and more comfortable living here.

We had beignets and smoked some real Cuban cigars yesterday with some of the other team mates that are in the area, it was so nice seeing all of them, they are really cool people, and I missed them more than I realized.. And now we know that Zais can't handle cigars too well..

Tonight we are going to try to go to French Street and hang out there, its a really cool little area. Ohhh man I love this place.. I will really try to add more fun pictures up here really soon!

Love,

Lily