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