Hey Girl, What Yo Name Is?!?

Noooo! We lost. But that's the only bad thing about this weekend.

When Dennis told me about "the little gymnasium" at Tulane i was wondering why he used the word "little". To me it looked like the real big gyms at home: A basketball field and space for maybe 1.000 people. Now I know what he was talking about.

I cited Katie's mail in the last entry so here is what happened: Tulane Basketball Girls performed pretty well in this years NCAA championship which seem to be something like the official league for University team-sports. As there are not sooo many Tulane-fans in Arizona for some reason they needed support and that's where Soundwave comes into the game. It's not a real official Tulane band but it's the musicians who really like playing music and it looks some way as if it was Soundwave that made Tulane Marching Band happen again after there hadn't been any official Tulane Band for years. However - Tulane chartered a whole BOEING, paid for our food and booked rooms for us in the Hilton. We even got some per diem just for supporting our team. And when I say supporting I mean really supporting. You'll see it later in the pictures but there's a big difference between support in Austria and support at Tulane. It's like there is the whole stadium filled only with a few people and it's of course the band that makes all the stuff happen. It's loud, it's colorful and it's of course a lot of fun.

To tell the truth I felt a little bit misplaced the first times with the Marching Band. I'm used to seeing a band as "the band" which includes not only music but the whole social stuff. To me it looked a little bit like people are attending a course and don't feel as a part of the band. However, after that weekend I know that Soundwave is way more than just some people playin' music at some sports events.
Unfortunately we lost the game and so we had to travel back on Sunday. This time it was only a DC9 but not a bad experience once again. Actually the food was better than in the BOEING.
I think that's all for now. I posted some pictures below (ooop, I didn't) and if you're really interested you can have a look at my Picasaweb-Album. It's a lot of pictures and I think Soundwave hates me a little bit for taking photos all the time. I'm sure it was kind of annoying.

Happy Spring Break,
Rödel

PS: Did I mention that I got one more real N'Orleans experience now? Somebody stole my bike on Sunday so I had to take St. Charles on Monday. Needless to say that someone else stole my wallet there. Not a big deal as I still have all my documents and financial stuff but it sucks a lot. However - got a new (crappy) bike and wallet now. It's just a bad feeling of missing my good stuff. But back to the basics: Life's beautiful and OZ Radio still keeps rocking my days here. That's the important stuff.

Good Evening from the Hilton!

Ooops. Things are happening pretty fast here. As the last entry happened to be interrupted by that amazing e-mail from Katy I'll give it a second try. Thinking about the right words made my mind confuse like crazy so I decided to find another way. - Voila! - Here are my instructions:

1. Don't wonder 'bout the BOEING.
2. Make sure your work is finished. If not: Make sure you don't give a s**** for it. 
3. Amp to the max. If you don't own an amp: Buy one! Life's too short for listening to crappy music.
4. You can't afford an amp? Sell your TV and go to cinema with your friends. Everything else is waste of time.
5. OK. I told you you're wrong but you still wanna listen on your crappy laptop-speakers? DON'T DO IT! At least: Use your earphones.
6. Go to New Orleans Moonshiners Website .  Select Baby Face in the Playlist on the right side of the Website. If you're in New Orleans right now: Go to Frenchmen Street. Just anywhere. 
7. Maybe have a short look at my Pictures...
8. ...and enjoy this awesome feeling of joy and fun. You know, that's what this city is all about: amazing people, joy, and of course: the music that makes you feel that way all day! 

Hope it works for you!

PS: Did you read the Title of this posting? Have you ever enjoyed lying around in a BOEING that has been chartered just for you and your band? It's great fun!

~*~* AWESOME! ~*~*

Oh wow! Explainin' this is gonna be a hard job...

I already mentioned that I got in contact with some local guys. To be exact they're the Ball Brothers, two guys of roughly my age, both looking pretty the same and both working as a cook in different bars. Now that we've been around for a while it's AWESOME!

Ohhh stop. No more own word now. I just got a message I wanna share with all you guys:

SoundWave,

I have finally gotten some details on our trip, as I just came out of a
meeting with Athletics.  I've attached a tentative itinerary to this email.

PLEASE NOTE: THE TIME AND MEETING PLACE HAVE BEEN CHANGED!
*We are now meeting at 5pm in front of Fogelman Arena.*
This is a time change that was made literally an hour ago, and I apologize if this screws anything up for you.

Here are some highlights for tomorrow:
- we will depart from Fogelman at 5:30pm
- we will be fed Quiznos subs before we board the plane at 6:30pm (flight leaves at 7:30)
- we will have pizza when we arrive at the hotel at 9pm Arizona time (11pm our time)
- we are staying at the Hilton Phoenix Airport Hotel
- there IS free Internet and a pool
- our game will be broadcast on ESPN2 on Saturday at 9:30pm, if you have people who will want to watch

Check out the itinerary for more info.  Either Athletics or I will talk to
you about details tomorrow so everyone will be on board.

Also, Athletics wants us to be completely decked out for this game.  We're
talking face paint, feather boas, wigs, Mardi Gras beads, pom poms,
sunglasses...whatever crazy stuff you can think of!  I have face paint and 2
very full bags of beads that I will be happy to share with everyone.  Get
creative and show 'em Where the Green Wave At!  (RIGHT HERE, RIGHT HERE).
 Yeah, that's right.  I went there.

Remember to bring:
- a swim suit
- GREEN Tulane shirt(s)
- some extra money
- your license/passport
- your Tulane student ID
- your instrument/music and reeds/mouthpieces, etc.
- any schoolwork you might need to catch up on

*PLEASE HELP ME SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE TIME AND MEETING PLACE CHANGE FOR
TOMORROW*!  Thank you!
If there are any other changes or developments, I will be sure to let you
know.

Hearts, flowers, & Tempe, AZ,

 Oh Wow! U know what this means? It's such an unbelievable good Feeling to be here!

roommate #4

hooh! Met some great guys on Wednesday. 1 musician, 2 wakeboarders and 3 guys having some metal in their shoulders. I think there isn't much left to go wrong anymore.
I don't wanna go into detail as it is 1 a.m. now but we had great times: Goin' to a private party, sitting around the fire and on the rooftop; having some musician singin 20s' songs there. Goin' to a house that was left after Katrina - Big fire and 50+ locals that meet there maybe once a month. Live Local music and a feeling that you won't ever experience as a tourist. Having had my first Burrito and enjoyed it. A great day and a great week!

Not to forget: We've got a new roommate: Nola!

PS: Did I mention that we found a sofa on the street?

Happy Mardi Gras!

Where are all the other pictures? - on the way!

In fact this is the reason for this entry being written so late. Although I had the time to write some news about Mardi Gras I decided to wait untill we get the "tons of pictures" we were assured of. Last Monday Bandleader Barry told us that we will get them within the next days. I'll post them as soon as the next days are over, for now you'll have to content with text + a few pics.

So - what's Mardi Gras about? To make it simple, it's just Carnival - but New Orleans people take it serious when it comes to celebrating anything. In Austria a handful of people celebrate and most just attend Carnival. Take it exactly in the opposite order and you may be able to imagine what is happening here. Within the vast majority celebrating Mardi Gras two groups can be identified: Amateurs and the real Pro's.

Mardi Gras - The Professional Way

The professionals don't wait for Mardi Gras, they create Mardi Gras. By the way, that's a good moment to explain some things: Although the city as a whole is in a state of craziness there is an official and central element of Mardi Gras: The parades takin' place from Friday 'till so called Fat Tuesday (some people prefer to say Shrove Tuesday but Fat Tuesday hits the nail on the head). Organization is not centralized but managed by so called Krewes, voluntary groups that organize "their" parade. They are the ones to stay for weeks in their garages building the floats, they are the ones to do all that administrative stuff and of course they are the ones to throw the beads at the parades. All that just for doing it - they don't even get a Penny for it. As there are only 5 days but more than 30 Krewes running Parades, time and spare place on the streets are rare goods. Most of the parade-routes start uptown, run through Garden district and end in the French Quarter which normally sums up to 6 to 8 miles or 5 to 7 hours. Every parade has a specific leader and style which derives from the Krewe's character. Our four parades were lead by Kings, a Zulu Queen, Olympus and a Great Dictator.having attended 4 parades in the Marching Band also means that there was only one day left for watching parades. Out of three opportunities I missed two and so attended just one of the smaller parades. However, some of the pictures taken at this small parades may give you a little impression of what happens at the big parades:

But back to structure. We had the Pro's so it's time to talk about the others:

Mardi Gras: The Visitors

 To sum it up there isn't much to say. They're not as professional in it but they do the same thing as all the N'Orleans people: Goin' crazy for Mardi Gras. It's a little bit like prejustice about our German friends and their bath towels in holiday clubs. When I came home Saturday at 6 a.m. the first ones had already taken the best places along St. Charles Ave. However, some people just have some refreshment drinks with them, most of them come there prepared with equipment for a whole weekend chillin' on the street: Coals and grills, drinks and burgers, power-generators and refridgerators. Some groups suffer from the allmighty ubiquitous toilet problem, some have their private toilet on the street but the real professional visitors have their own toilet-truck: A chemical toilet mounted on a Pick-Up. 

Last not least some words about the kids: People really take care of them. Not only everybody on the streets is very cautious, it's also a matter of course that they get the best places around. 

I think that's all the general information that had to be provided about Mardi Gras. As stated above there's a little problem with providing the tons of pictures I will get from Tulane Marching Band. But as my roommates took some pictures on their own it's at least possible to give a little preview of my own impressions. Have a lot of fun! (thx, Chaotix)

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Lukas and all the others who can see the problem: No word about it! It took me 10 minutes just to take the publish/no-publish decision. 

 

 

 

stay tuned,
redel

PS: 

+: (woohooo!) the first video!

+: some birthday-pictures on the way...

[UPDATED] Superbowl Mambo!

For all those that still do not know: New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl. In NOLA's words: "AMEN, after 43 years, our prayers are answered!"

The whole city which is normally located some feets below sea level has elevated to some feets above and people are going completely crazy about the Saints one week before Mardi Gras. As there is only one person not going crazy around here (Charly), I decided one more time in my life to follow the crowd and tried to freak out as hard as possible. It seems to be impossible to reach the average level of craziness here but at least everything is on the way.

Theoretically the Great Mardi Gras Parades will take place next weekend, in fact the Greatest Parade took place yesterday: The (new) Saints Parade! We started from Louisiana Superdome with Quarterback Drew Brees on the top of the first parade car followed not only by the National Guard but by nearly every Marching Band, all the leading cars of Mardi Gras Parades and obviously every group or organization that managed to have good reasons to be allowed to march on that Parade. Tulanians and the Tulane Marching Band were right in front of a New Orleans Fire Fighters car in the first Quarter of the Parade. We started at 5 and had the route finished at 9:30. OK, there's virtually no part of my body that didn't hurt from playin', dancin' and singing and I couldn't speak or hear anything afterwards but that was a new definition of a New Orleans Parade. Even bandleader Barry was kind of ecstatic when we finally reached our busses. The only picture I have for now was taken in the bandroom some minutes before departure but we will get some more after Mardi Gras. By the way: Tulane President Cowen cancelled every event including courses on Tuesday just to allow all Tulane students and staff to attend that parade.
UPDATE 1: First impressions of the Saints Parade online!
UPDATE 2: + some pictures of the very first Parade warmup in Covington, LA

 

Over all that Saints, Tulane and Mardi Gras News I shouldn't forget to to give extensive information about Tulane studies and apartment life: It is still a massive load of work and we're going to repair the glasses Charly broke up today.

praise the Saints
Rödel

PS: Today I got in contact with a great quartett playin' fine Dixie. The cornet player turned out to be Duke Heitger and he will play in Jazzland Vienna from February 16 to 20. Don't miss that event! And by the way, maybe you'll get some TUMB fan stuff straight from New Orleans on February 16.

home improvements part X

Denon DRA-35V

 

tuition fee for one credit hour at Tulane: $450
total fee for a bunch of party hours at home: 1hr credit x 0.05

Norleans X-Ray Rallye 2010

Just a minute ago I realized that the first month is over. Only four more left. That's the bad news for today. Good News? A lot!

Let's begin with Tulane. To tell the truth I was not completely confident when attending the first MBA courses here. As I had done economics and not business all the time before I expected myself to miss some basic knowledge in business. Fortunately the basic knowledge in business seems to be way easier to understand than it is in economics. Nonetheless it's a lot of work. At the moment we're working on a project about heating Tulane's swimming-pool solar powered instead of doing it with the old conventional system. It's exciting to work on it especially because there is a good chance for that project to be realized.

Other projects are an analysis about clean-coal technology and the X-ray of my shoulder which may also be realized within a finite time frame. To be on the safe side about my MTB-crash-upgraded shoulder I was told to get an X-ray by the end of January. As there is no opportunity to do this on-campus I did a little research about Hospitals in New Orleans and started into the great "Norleans-X-Ray Rallye 2010" today. Now - at least - I know three adresses that may help me. And I know, that the American health care system as a system is at least as good structured and well designed as Obama's final draft for health-care after having introduced all the private insurance-corporations' good ideas.

But it's nice to know that I'm not only the passive subject when it comes to having administrative fun. As sketched in my last posting I got two instruments from the Department of Music on Tulane Campus. I don't want to get in detail but here is a list of things that are working now. Michael Batt, the local facility manager loves me for every line.

• I've got access to a little room beside the band room where my instrument is stored.
• I've got access to the practice rooms. 
• The practice rooms are at the other side of the second Newcomb-building. There is one more room where I can do practice. 
• I'm registered in the Newcomb Department of Music IT-System.
• I got a new Tulane ID-card. Now it works with that IT-System.
• I retrieved my mouthpiece after having it locked into a room unintentionally.

Orchestra rehearsals are held every Monday from 8 PM to late PM. The marching band does practice every Monday and Wednesday from 5.15 to 7.15 PM. Needless to say that we had heavy rain from 5.30 to 7.45 today. I thought that my Austrian band doesn't care that much about music when it comes to marching. Here I found out that doing long marching practice is possible without caring in any way about the music. After marching for two hours the only musical statement was "Hey guys, have a look at your music sheets 'till Wednesday. Our sound was crappy today". The other side is that they really care about the show. That's not only marching here, that is screaming, that is running and that is dancing. At least the Sousaphone section has one more time the easy part which really doesn't mean that we do nothing. Christoph asked if it is possibly to throw Mardi-Gras-Beads when playing the Sousaphone. Yes. It is possible and, of course, it is part of the choreography. Fortunately positive prejustice about bass players' natural manners was validated one more time which means that I really feel as a part of the Tulane Marching Band already after a week. I think Greg Tacconi, the other guy in the picture and my section leader at the TUMB should manage to meet Andreas Fleißner, the Tuba-section leader in my hometown. Today he killed some serious bandleader's comments by playin' the first four notes of "(The Saints) Go Marchin' In". But he is serious. And he is good on the Tuba.

Last not least there's one more bad news today. Our neighbours two blocks away had some serious conflict the last week and it seems as he had to leave the house. The positive thing about that is that I've got a Ghettoblaster now. And our kitchen looks way more homelike with the new pictures.

best regards from Crescent City

I'm marchin' in!

Wow, Life is Great!

This is how the day started: 

 

This is how the day went on: 

 
 
And this is how it ended: 

+ I'm in the Tulane Orchestra

+ I've got a Tuba

+ I'm in the Tulane Marching Band

+ I've got a Sousaphone

+ I'll march in Mardi Gras!

+ There's a hidden detail

fix that bike?

Two days ago I wrote something about a little upgrade to my bike. OK, to tell the truth I didn't only fix something, I built my new bike from scratch.

That flat-tire problem was on Sunday. "No Problem", I thought "Great Rödel is not a virgin when it comes to fixing bikes". In fact it really was no problem to fix it but I also found out that my Huffy-bike has something common with an SUV: It's built for some demand on special markets but it's really not built for it's original purpose: Biking and (unfortunately sometimes) repairing.

As Cebrt's garage is just a little walk away I decided to talk with him (better: with his mechanic who is that Tulane-guy) about bikes and about tools. Although we had spent more time talking about tools than about bikes my next day's decision was one of the easy ones. I sold that great looking Huffy bike to Cebrt and got components for another bike that would better fit my needs. The frame is way more aestitical; It's bigger (28'), it's better (everything, every screw and every bearing), and last not least: It's faster!

Bike information finished for today. What else is goin'on?

• The old fridge was never working so we got a new one from our landlord yesterday. The new one is painted black and big. It just has one little problem: It doesn't work. 
• We had an one-hour bike-ride to and from the end of the French Quarter. Now we've got much more furniture, we just have to find a way to bring it to our apartment. 
• Today's temperature: 84.2°F. Humidity: High. 
  

stay tuned,
Rödel

Finally it's done

When I woke up after the weekend Dennis was not at home. But there is some kind of relationship between Dennis and the first two inches.

I started into my Tulane-Semester early monday morning and it was a good decision to do it that way. As told before I had expected more work per credit hour but it took me just one day to find out why they call you a full-time MBA student for (just) 9 credit hours. I'm registered for 15 credit hours which sums up to 113 pages just of syllabuses. But at least it's clear to me now why most of the people here pay $20.000 per semester only for being here. Professors are excellent, all the courses are designed and held for just the right size of attendants and infrastructure is perfectly fitted to a student's needs. And, last not least, people really care about you here. But it's still a massive load of work. Any Questions why it took some time to write that blog entry? None? Good so. Second two inches.

We also had three international meetings which all had their specific highlights. The first one took place at the Freeman School of Business. All in all we didn't hear anything we hadn't heard at least three times before but I found out that there are 6 other Austrian students just at my department. After speeches were finished we left the room with at least one more hour of administrative paperwork to do. Orderly and brave I had filled out some online forms at the International Office the day before. That was really no good idea. Two more inches.

Columbia Business School and the Freeman School of Business are running a graduate exchange program that allows Columbian students to live and study here for the last two years of their studies. If performing well they finish with a double degree not only from the Columbia Business School but also from Tulane University. Why do I tell you that? Because the Columbian guys already had organized a party just for the new internationals on Tuesday and although I really didn't want to go there I decided not to miss that first international evening and showed up together with my roommate Charly. Over there I also found out, that Austrians seem to be the vast majority within the international exchange students at the Freeman Business School. 17 Columbians at that party, 12 Austrians, 2 Germans and around 10 more people from other countries. We ran out of beer at 10PM and out of other stuff at maybe 11PM. Thanks to Boot, the local 24/7 student-supply-shop this was no problem for us but I lost Charly on the way home. Fortunately he was already in when I came back to our apartment. That's the fourth couple of inches.

Why do I mention that this one time I lost Charly? That's because this was the only time when Charly himself got lost. Normally he loses things. Here's a little list of things we had to recover the last 9 days:

• keys
  
• jacket
• again keys
  
• his passport
• my Tulane campus map
• passport again (OK, he just forget to take it with him at his first attempt to leave the office but at least he tried to forget it once again)
• my New Orleans city map
  

4 inches. Two for me and two for Dennis. No more words.

On Friday there was one more international meeting. This time it was held by the people running the International Office and it was quite informative. I won a portable DVD player and for normal I would have to pronounce that as this evening's highlight. But there was really more: We had the great opportunity of getting in closer contact with the famous New Orleans cuisine when we were offered local specialites after the meeting: fried chicken, french fries, fried rice, some green salad and a piece of cake. It really wasn't bad but it's a little bit the same as with the beer here. Some kind of meaningless. Needless to say that that was not the highlight. The (mostly unnoticed) highlight of that evening was the local police-officer's lecture. I can't remember his full name but I'm pretty sure that it is somewhat like Pepper. Sheriff J.W. Pepper. I think that's it.

It was the next day for Charly and me to have a bicycle ride to Cox Cable, the local cable- and internet prividing company. It took us about 3 hours, we had a scary mile beside the freeway, I had a flat tire and Charly forgot his passport at the office. But all in all everything went pretty well and we had internet up and running from Friday to Monday morning. On Monday morning not only the internet connection wasn't working anymore but also the oven, the chargers, the water heater and central heat. In other words: We had no electricity on Martin Luther King's Day. As we found out later our landlord wants us to run the utilities in our own name but as it is really hard to understand their english speech we hadn't recognized that. The day was stressful and the night was really cold - 2 more inches - We made the best out of that situation and had a great Austrian evening with MaChlast, Wiener Schnitzel, parsley-penned potatoes, chicory-enhanced espresso and selfmade cookies.

Today was a great day. After the first course I got an email that there might be a possibility of getting an instrument, I got a free lunch from strange people grilling on the football field (unfortunately, one of Tulane's fraternities has my phone number now), and my bicycle eperienced a fantastic upgrade. Electricity is working, it's nearly 3AM and I want to sleep now. Finally, it's done.

Cheerio!

PS: I know i'm pretty late to contribute to The Days of Film and Beer. But I do my part.

PPS: Pics?

gettin' into local life

Dennis hadn't told me anything that 'crazy thing' on the phone but I didn't wonder seeing a possible roommate in our apartment when I came home. His name is Charlie Gu (ya, Charlie is the best name for him) and Dennis had picked him up right at St. Vincent's. He was wondering about that guy looking around a little bit disorientated and asked if he could help him. He could.
Charly is a guy from China who is here to undergo a 2-year PhD program at Tulane University. He had came to St. Vincent's that night but when arriving he locked himself out and his only chance (at least he thought so) was to get another cab and go to another hotel. So Charly had a very cheap $300 night at Hilton - "good breakfest" he said.

We bought one more bike at Cebrt's little garage and afterwards Dennis went to Walmart to buy some cheap kitchen-stuff. We decided to get most of the things (including matresses for Dennis and Charly) at local garage sales. They are usually adverted in Friday-Picayune and held on Saturday and Sunday so I had much better first nights with my airbed than the others had without that equipment. On Saturday we got up pretty early (8 AM I think) and started riding around to get some furniture. We didn't find the first garage sale but the second one was kind of one to us. We got matresses, pillows, slides and even beds (!), kitchen stuff, tools, dishes, a Senseo-coffee machine, and even a great blender. It would take a little long to list all the other things we got there but you can't expect to get all that stuff for almost $50, so we paid them $48. Wow.
The only problem was how to get all that stuff to our apartment. Who appeared that moment? Yes, once again Cebrt the bike guy with his pickup-truck. He had bought some old bikes at that garage sales and we agreed to meet at 12 AM at his garage. So we had some lunch and went to his garage a little late. We helped him to get his "new" bikes out of that pickup-truck and stood there joking around for almost an hour. Later we went to that garage sale and picked up our things. It was the last day of garage sale held by a couple moving over to garden district. The husband turned out to be an old major of the US army who had been to Germany for some years. As he found me out to be an Austrian he kept talking in a pretty-funny German language. Finally the pickup-truck was filled to the top and we had gotten some more things just for free.

Although we hadn't found any furniture like working tables or so we decided to take that day to an loose end. Dennis cooked somewhat he calls "his famous kitchen soup" and we had some beer and wine. As I couldn't find any more clean shirts in my room I took the whole bunch of clothes lying around in my room and went over a place called the 'Laundromat' but had to find out that it already had closed. I can't understand that: 10 PM on first Mardi Gras Season's Saturday in New Orleans and the laundry is closed - What's up with 'em? Right on the way back I made an horrible discovery that may impact my whole life here in a really negative way. I don't want to talk about it but you may have a look at that pics. Has to be told that in turned into a really great evening at that local bar afterwards. There was already live-music when an old man arrived that seemed to be a really famous local musician. He took some shots, then he took an instrument and played together with that band. Suddenly a really big black man who had stood around for maybe hours before got on the stage and began to perform some song. Hey, that was kind of awful! When we got home our new old radio showed a time around 4 AM. As I said: An awful day.

Now it's Sunday, 7 PM. I am sitting here in a well furnished kitchen and Dennis is heating up the coils for that big steak he's goin' to grill for us. We have found a local radio station playin' that great New Orleans style Jazz I never would have expected to be just on the ether. Who would have thought?

Ya! Big Easy. That's it. There's a reason for New Orleans people to be the 2nd happiest all over the US.

PS: all the pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/stephan.schiffleithner/GettinIntoLocalLife?feat=directlink

...and its goin' on!

At Tulane I first met the other two exchange students from Vienna. I forgot their names but at least I've got their local phone numbers somewhere in my phone. When I was there, Dennis rang me up and I was a little bit scared when he told me "Hey, Steven, I have to tell you that something crazy happened". He told me that he had talked with that bike-guy, I think his name is Sebrt, about some things and some other things and when it came to that housing in New Orleans topic, Sebrt told him that there was an apartment for rent just two blocks away. Normally, it would sell for $700 a month but - maybe - if he talked to the landlord we could get it  a little cheaper. We had a short look at the apartment and I think decision was already taken when we opened the door. As you can see on the photos, it's a big 3-room apartment with toilet bath, kitchen and a little backyard. OK, it's unfurnished, but what do you expect for $500 plus utilities a month? We talked a little bit to our landlord (It's a Vietnamese guy running a little grocery attached to our apartment) and when we told him that we would like to move in as fast as possible he went out of the grocery, screwed in a fuse and turned on central heat. That's it.
I went to Walmart to get an air-mattress the same day and had a pretty good night. Dennis meanwhile had one more night in his apartment at St. Vincent's. I think I forgot some of all the things I did the next day but it was kind of stressfull. At least we had something to eat and I had set up an ad for one more roommate in the evening.
Next day I had to do some paperwork at Tulane. Needless to say, that once again "something crazy" had happened to Dennis when he rang me up at 3 PM.

work in progress...

OK, it took some time to write the post. But here it is.

I spent my first couple of nights in an hostel that is called St. Vincent's Guesthouse. It's an old orphanage and rooms are pretty cold. That wouldn't be a problem but it has to be said, that also the beds are ones of the worst I've ever slept in. The 24-bed dorm I had booked turned out to be an 8-bed dorm. The first night I had to share it with some Tunesian guys but they didn't seem to be very happy with St. Vincent's and so they left after the first night. Great for me - Now had a big room, 8 beds t choose from and a shower for my own. I've taken some photos you can find at http://picasaweb.google.com/stephan.schiffleithner/FirstImpressionsOfNewOrleans?feat=directlink.
Right on a new year's day I went to Walmart, got something to eat and that great 'huffy-bike' you can see on some of the photos. Later I got in contact with some Australian students and spent new years evening together with them in that French Quarter which is by the way the touristic heart of New Orleans. We had some fried calmars and a great cigory spiced coffee at Café du Monde. We went into some of that great Jazz-bars, listened to some of those brass-bands on the streets and finally watched the great fireworks again from somewhere around Café du Monde. Unfortunately the Australian guys left one day later in the early morning but it still was a great night here in New Orleans.
What's next? Housing. People at Tulane University had already told me that they could help me with that but as the office was closed until Jan 4 I began to search on my own pretty soon. If you're willing to pay around $700 a month plus utilities you can find housing pretty easy here in New Orleans. As I had some budget-restriction it was a little more complicated for me. After having talked to some people renting rooms for around $600 a month I decided that it would be the best to get housing together with other Tulane-student to live in a shared apartment. So I spent the next couple of days riding around with that great bike, calling landlords and taking photos of possible apartments. All in all I wasn't much in St. Vincent's but as there is a small WiFi-internet enabled restaurant called 'Gardens's Edge' right in there I was there for some hours a day browsing craigslist and some other stuff. Other than the guy running the guesthouse the people running the restaurant are pretty nice people and helped me with some stuff. I also met Dennis there. He's a (I think) 34 year old guy from Chicago who is writing on a novel at the moment. He had decided to move to New Orleans for a year or so. Later I found out he also had been a Tulane student for some semesters. By the way telling people you're a Tulane student opens doors here. Maybe there's some relation to the financial situation of people being able to pay that some-thousand-dollar-a-semester fee but at least it's good to know that.
Garden's Edge is closing at 10 PM and so I went out to a local bar with Dennis one night and as he was also searching for housing we had some knowledge-exchange there. He was doing it the old-school way looking at the ads in 'New Orleans Picayune',  the local newspaper and had already found an maybe great opportunity: A small 1-2 person apartment for $700 (utilities included) given for rent by an old and probably trustworthy man. We went there to have a look at it the next morning and it was looking pretty good. I think Dennis would have taken it immediatly but I had to think about it and went to University. Meanwhile he got his bike fixed by the local bike guy at Magazine Street.
At University...

everything's on the way

Just a short post today:

Got in here, got registered at Tulane and (most of the) things are working. Housing is right on the way and I'm searching for roommates. That's it for the moment.
Detailed information, photos and all that stuff will follow soon.

stay tuned