Day 2: Sunday, July 12th

We started off the day with the continental breakfast provided by the hotel and then Russell and I headed over to the Voodoo Museum. We opted for the tour and learned a ton about voodoo, the city of New Orleans, music, well just about everything! The tour guide walked us around to the oldest cemetery in the city and then we ended the tour at a voodoo priestess's spiritual house. We learned so many interesting things!

We got back to the hotel just in time to meet up with everyone else for a tour of the city. There were two major highlights for me. The first was in the Garden District when we got to see the house that the Manning brothers grew up in. (Gorgeous house by the way.) The second was seeing the areas hit hardest by Katrina, especially the 9th Ward. It was still so devestated. But then he started talking about Habitat for Humanity and the good things they were doing and we came to the Musician's Village where we are going to volunteer in a few days! Tears seriously came to my eyes. Both guides that day had such amazing, positive things to say about HH and to see the place and the progress was just so inspirational! We all got really pumped for our volunteering to begin.

Once back at the hotel, we headed out to Acme Oyster House, which had been highly recommended to us by many people. It was so good and we had crawfish, oysters, catfish, jumbalaya, gumbo, sausage, geeze just about anything you could imagine! It was quite a feast and so fresh. Then we headed back to the hotel by way of Bourbon Street. Bourbon Street was seriously the craziest place I have ever seen. There were so many cabarets that were quite vivid in what they were selling. And so many bars with live music. And just tons of people walking around, many with drinks in hand. (The street was closed off to cars.) I even had beads thrown to me from a woman up in a balcony! (And no I didn't have to do anything to earn them.) We ran into a bar we had wanted to go to to try their famous "hurricane" drinks, Pat O'Briens. The drinks were tall. I had a sip for a photo opp but everyone else enjoyed their drinks and mine and Cassie's. We continued walking back to the hotel and only made one other quick stop: a "handgranade" drink to go booth. It was such a fun night. Lots of good laughter. Once we got back to the hotel, we sang happy birthday to Barbie and ate a delicious cake that Kim's family had picked up earlier: strawberry shortcake and white chocolate!! It was so good with a unique flavor and taste to match.

This vacation has seriously already been so much fun. Today I even think I might have started to adapt to the heat a little. I'm so excited for tomorrow. :-)