Last day

New Orleans build day #5

Today was a wonderful, fun day! We woke up at 7:30 and prepared for the day ahead.  Everyone rode their bikes to their build sites today because we needed to ride downtown for a safety presentation in the evening.  We split into our build sites and were on our way!  Half of my group got to the site before the other half, so we decided to play a game with Nathan, our site supervisor.  We each put on a name tag, then introduced ourselves as if we had never met.  We had to tell the other person 3 facts about ourselves, then switch name tags and identities and repeat with a new person.  It was kind of like the game "telephone," but with a twist.  It was really fun seeing what the facts became after a few rounds of introductions.  I went from having had 14 cats and a dog (fact) to loving cats and hating dogs (fiction!).  When the rest of the group arrived we got back to the projects that we had been working on all week.  I had been doing siding, but we had run out of siding the day before.  I ended up cutting "soffit," a roofing type material for the porch.  I was too short to help install it, but Brettly, Sonja, and Josh E put it up on the front porch.  I went to the back porch and did prep work for the next round of soffit installation in the afternoon.  When lunch rolled around a few of us crossed the bridge to go to an amazing BBQ place, The Joint.  I had a great beef brisket, then headed back to the site with Kristina and Galen.  When we got back it was time to get to work. Unfortunately, we ran out of soffit, so we only put up two pieces.  We were also out of flooring materials as well, which caused a lack of jobs for the last hour-ish.  So we did what we do best and entertained ourselves!  We had handstand contests in the big bedroom.  Alyssa won every single one, but Josh and Josh did very good as well :)  We cleaned up and I took some "after" pictures to go with the "before" pictures that I took on Monday.  The differences are amazing!  16 Bike & Build'ers working for 4 days can make a big change.  When we arrived the rooms where nothing but drywalled walls with unfinished floors.  We left today with walls and ceilings painted, flooring 90% finished and all of the window sills installed and painted.  Plus, Brettly and I did awesome work and finished lots of siding during the previous few days.  We had a quick debriefing with Molly and Sarah from the St Bernard Project, then headed out for a safety lecture and discussion.  To get to the place, we had to bike through the French Quarter and downtown New Orleans, which was a lot of fun.  I really enjoyed seeing all of the touristy sites from my bicycle seat.  On the way we also stopped at the "Before I die..." wall.  On a street corner not far from the French Quarter, there is a condemned house with a wall painted black.  Stenciled in white is "Before I die..."  and a bunch of lines.  People take chalk and write their dreams on it.  Some of our Bike & Build dreams ranged from "looking back and smiling" to "riding with the A team" to "making the world a brighter place." We made it to our lecture/talk at 5:45, where Peter, from Wisconsin, who happens to be a League of American Cyclist's licensed instructor, talked to us about safety on the road.  We went over some situations that we have encountered on the road that have made us uncomfortable and how we can make our rides as safe a possible.  We headed back to Camp Hope for dinner, but first I stopped back at the wall with Prachi, whose group hadn't seen it before the lecture.  We took some photos, then found our way back.  I've only been in this city for 6 days, but I already feel like I know my way around the place, which is kind of strange to me.  We had hamburgers for dinner, which were delicious!  While I was eating my dinner, Noelle surprised me with an early rendition of the the Birthday song and 3 cakes!  My real birthday is tomorrow, but they decided that it would be better to do the cakes tonight so they wouldn't melt in the hot van tomorrow.  They were super cute and tasted amazing!  Thanks so much to Noelle for making them!  Some people headed out to a bowling alley for a little while and the rest of us stayed to clean bikes, do laundry, and gather our very spread out stuff into bags and bins. We have an early wake up in preparation for our first century (100 mile+) ride tomorrow, so every one is turning in early and heading to bed!  I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!