Hey ya'll, this is Charlie. no one else wants to write the blog tonight, so the lot falls to me, as it were...

Day Six: Magazine Street & Sushi
Number of Pictures taken: 70
Quote of the Day: "Now would be a good time to start praying for us, since we have spent 6 days constantly being together, and we're about to start in on 2 days in the car together on the way home." - Jenn, to YOU, RIGHT NOW :)

oh, and leave comments so we know we're still loved by our friends back home :-) (because, of course, we base our self esteem on how many comments and props we get on our blogs. lol.)

ah, the beads from mardi gras hangin' in the trees.


pizza place on magazine street that we ate at. i (charlie) was the only one who ate pizza. weird.


beads and shoes hanging around the telephone wires. maybe they need to make a phone call.

jenn's lunch at the pizza place.
"y'know, i think i'd like a salad!!!"


the cool thrift store we went to; i almost bought another pair of plaid shorts. and no, they don't buy or sell buffalo. of course, i didn't ask them if they would buy my buffalo, that is, if i had a buffalo. but then again, i might have a buffalo and have just never told you about it. none of you, ever. i probably keep it in my room, under the mattress. or on the bookshelf. but, which one of the 3 mattresses is it? or which of the 4 shelves? you may never know. isn't that miserable and depressing?


after much agonizing study, thought and philosophical debate, i have come to the conclusion that this picture is of a car underneath a crooked magazine street sign. thrilling!


aww, jenna with her daddy.
(i was going to write: "i don't know who these guys are. probably weirdos from another planet." but i didn't :-)


this is Jenna, stealing beads from the bushes.


cool colors! i like colors in the city.


i think this says everything about me that needs to be said.


lindsey is still with us!


cool trashcan!


FLAMINGOS!FLAMINGOS!FLAMINGOS!!!


sushi.


jenn with erin, a friend of the O' Connors.


Jenn and Erin and Linz


me and Adam


adam and jenn



Today was fun. we slept late. i ate frosted flakes and fruit loops for breakfast. VERY NUTRITIOUS!!! and then we headed down to magazine street. ate lunch, and shopped. we didn't really buy anything, except food. i think linz bought a shirt for a buffalo. i mean, not for the buffalo, at the buffalo. or was it with a buffalo?

adam met us in the city, and me and linz and jenn headed out to pick up erin who jenna knew from online. and adam knows them. so then we all (adam, erin, jenn, linz, and my illustrious self) went to eat dinner. we ate sushi. i had never had sushi. i never plan on having it again. i ate it though. it really wasn't the raw fish getting to me, it was everything else in the stuff. i gagged twice, but "once you suppress the gag reflex, you open up a whole new world of culinary possibilities." including sushi.

then we came back to the hotel (after getting lost more than once, and driving through da hood (yes kevin, we were keeping it one-thousand gee!!)), and we packed up. tomorrow we will see the D-day museum, and begin our trek home.

so now i sit here in the dark, thinking of all that we have done. we graduated, well, jenna did anyway. we ate craw fish. we met new people, saw new places. (or, as i almost just wrote: we met new places...) somethings that we brought to do, school for instance, we have not done. but others we have. we listened to some books on tape. we have read books we brought. i read the far side, i read On the Run, i finally even wrote a few pages in the brink of delirium. but of all the things we did and saw, it's the people we will miss the most. for me at least.

there is something God put in us, which lets us know that even the importance of the seven wonders, pales to the importance of the people in our lives.

i don't know how better to end this post, which comes on the brink of the voyage home, than with a few lines by a fairly well known guy ;-)

I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that i have seen
Of meadow flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
In autumns that there were
With morning mist and silver sun
And wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That i shall ever see

For still there are so many things
That I have never seen
In every wood, in every spring
There is a different green

I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago
And people who will see a world
That I shall never know

But all the while I sit and think
Of times there were before
I listen for returning feet
And voices at the door.

-J.R.R. Tolkien


a very contemplative "cheers"
-Charlie