Wednesday (Nina)

I'm in New Orleans!

After teaching my pronunciation class this morning from 10 - 11:30, I headed for BWI Airport with my colleague Ray. Our flight left at 2:29 p.m., and we actually landed in New Orleans early (about 3:50 pm local time, which is an hour behind our home time of Eastern Daylight Savings Time).  There were many TESOLers on the flight, including four of us from the Maryland English Institute (MEI) and several others whom I know from the DC area.

I took the airport shuttle van to the Springhill Suites on St. Joseph Street, where I am sharing a very nice room with webhead Veronica Baig from Alberta CA.  Veronica was already there when I checked in, so as soon as I threw my things in a drawer we walked (about 3 minutes) to the Convention Center. I registered and collected my program book, convention bag and EV schedule. Then we went in to hear the rest of the opening plenary session, Thelma Melendez, but she was talking about the new K-12 law in the U.S., so neither of us was that interested. Instead, we went looking for the Electronic Village (EV). We finally found it on the second floor, far, far away! We found Andy Bowman and Christine Bauer-Ramazani and some other people whom I did not know. Everything looked ready to go. Andy said they had been there three days, setting it all up.

Vance, Veronica, and me outside the Convention Center

It was colder than I had anticipated. 

Veronica and Vance

Aiden and me

No one else had signed up to go to dinner with us, so we were about to go with two friends of mine when we ran into Aiden and Vance, and the four of us ended up walking to the French Quarter (in a very circuitous way, checking various restaurants' menus and wait times), where we finally ate at Pierre Maspero's restaurant (at least I think that was the name of it). The food (mine, at least) was delicious.  I ordered crabcakes, which were very different from Maryland crabcakes but really tasty, and shared a bread pudding with Aiden. Yum! We had a lovely time, and then Vance walked Veronica and me back to the Springhill Suites.

Veronica and Vance in duplicate

Now it's after 11 pm and I am volunteering at the EV at 8 tomorrow morning, so I think I had better get some sleep. Blogger has changed its image procedures and I can't seem to get the pictures where and how I want them, but frankly, I am too tired to fool with them anymore!  Goodnight.

Waiting to be seated at the restaurant