ELCA Youth/Young Adult Gathering 2024 – New Orleans Day 1
Our participants are teaming up all week long to present a series of blog posts about our experience in New Orleans.
Saturday, July 13, 2024
High: Today’s high was that we finally arrived in New Orleans after a good deal of traveling. Being able to explore the city was a great experience.
Low: The low point of today would have to be the combination of the heat and the rain which made wearing a rain coat very difficult as it would get very hot. This would make us decide to wear the coats and be hot or get wet through the rain.
My God Sighting was when we were on top the 4 Seasons Hotel during a thunderstorm. This hotel overlooked the Mississippi River and riding down the river and out of the storm, was a small steam boat. This called out to me as a sign to keep on going, like the small steamboat, despite facing an intimidating situation.
~ Austin Traynor
An EARLY start! We met at the Philly airport at 4 in the morning and getting up at 2:45 REALLY tested my want to go on this trip. But once we were all together and joking and laughing in the many lines it got better.
My favorite part of the day was when we got into Vue Orleans. (Which is an interactive museum all about New Orleans history.) With it being my first time in New Orleans hearing what they think was the most important people to help make the city what it was today was very cool.
On top of that! The paintings all of the walls inside was really amazing! And the lights changed color which changed how the paintings looked. So the longer you stood there you’d see something different.
Trying to take the trolley back to the hotel after sight seeing while maneuvering in a new city with a map that wasn’t very accurate. On top of that everyone had a different choice in how we should get back to the hotel (Walking or trolley). We (adults) originally thought the trolley would be faster because the idea of walking 25 mins back was not great. The amount of backtracking really pushed some buttons and we ended up splitting the group in half to walk or Uber back.
It being the first day and the biggest “problem” being trying to hear all opinions and pick the best for the group isn’t surprising.
Seeing God in our Day: It would have to be in Vue Orleans while watching the videos of the 7 people they picked to be the most important founders, specifically the women. All the stories were different but all impacted the community or US as a whole.
Henriette DeLille
Tillie Karnofsky
Marie Laveau
Micaela Almonester, the Baroness de Pontalba
~Madison Johnson
click to expand photos