Day 1 - Travel Day: Sunday, April 1, 2012

Greetings from New Orleans! If you are reading this, then you are successfully subscribed to our blog for this year's immersion trip. Sorry about the glitch with the Google Group. I seem to remember having the same problem last year... Travel Day - Sunday began with everyone at the airport at 6 am for an early flight down to L.A. to catch our connector to the Big Easy. After we said a group prayer and our goodbyes, we had a very easy, uneventful flight to L.A.. One note: we ran into Riordan alum and former student of mine from Mr. Jeff Isola's class, Roman Rios! The second leg of our journey was almost four hours, and two time zones later, we landed safely at Louis Armstrong International Airport (I personally love that their airport is named after one of the all-time great Jazz musicians!). We got our luggage in literally 30 seconds and made easy transfers to the rental car place and then to Annunciation Mission, our home for the next week. We were greeted by seriously muggy, 85 degree weather and Noel, longtime resident and volunteer at Annunciation Mission. We ate pizza and settled in with down time after a somewhat long travel day. Thankfully, there were no hitches today. New Orleans is such a beautiful place, whose people embody an incredibly unique culture and spirit! In so many ways, it is the most American of cities and is so much a part of our national identity. Now, six and one half years after Katrina, it still needs help rebuilding so people can continue to come back home. That is what we are all about this week. Thank you for all of your blessings, thoughts, prayers, support and gifts for our group as we come down for what is Archbishop Riordan's sixth trip to New Orleans to do Katrina relief. I hope you enjoy the blog and photos this week!