South East In The Big Easy

“Welcome to Narlins y’all!” our burly bus driver bellowed in a husky southern drawl as he closed the door on our monstrous bus from Louis Armstrong International to our hotel on the fringe of the French Quarter. South East Consortium participants and staff had arrived in New Orleans for a week of adventure, fun and discovery.

For the fourth year in a row South East has been spending the February break exploring different locales across the U.S.A. Previous trips include Las Vegas, Niagara Falls and Disney World.

While in the Crescent City the group took a horse drawn carriage ride through the French Quarter, rode along a steam powered ferry up the Mighty Mississippi, took a trip across Lake Pontchartrain to see snapping gators in a swamp and took a haunted walking tour of the city at night.

As one passerby put it “We in N’awlins live to eat, not the other way around” and boy was he right. Among the delicacies devoured by our sight-seeing crew was po boys, fresh craw daddies, beignets, muffaleta sandwiches and of course, the pride of New Orleans, gumbo.

The group arrived safely home to a much colder New York a week later but the sweet sounds of jazz floating through the humid air will not leave their ears soon. 

- Jack Reisman