New Orleans, Day Three

New Orleans, Day Two

From Nick the Intern:

Day 2 in New Orleans consisted of an array of activities. It all started at 7:30 in the morning when Brett (our resident long-distance runner) dragged me out of bed to run 5 miles with him down the streets of New Orleans. Best part of the run? We discovered a Burger King! It was an exciting few seconds for us as we passed it and we made a vow to come back and visit the dollar menu. Fast food restaurants are not allowed in the area that we are staying. Depressing huh?

After the run we went to the conference that we came for. The technical name is National Fall Leadership Conference and I am here with Phi Beta Lambda (PBL). There is about 1000 people attending, which makes for a great time. Ms. Bristol and Nebraska State President Jen Roeber presented a workshop about 5 key professional skills and we went to a couple more. One in which yours truly, won 25 push pops by coming up with the best way to get us out of our economic woes via an impromptu speech.

After the first part of the sessions were over, the group decided to hit up the Riverwalk, which is home to about 130 stores filled with everything New Orleans. The girls bought more stuff, and we tried some authentic New Orleans cuisine. Overall, a good time shopping. Can’t believe I just typed that.

Following the shopping we went to the keynote of the night, Joe Martin. He talked about how he came out of Liberty City (bad part of Miami) to be the only student of color at University of Western Florida AND graduating in three years at the top of his class. We got some laughter in and then headed back to our rooms to prepare for Saturday’s full slate of activities.

Brett can run, I’ll head out to the Cafe du Monde for some piping hot, fresh biegnets, thanks.

Still, sounds like an exciting trip for the PBL entrepreneurs.

Video report from New Orleans

Intern Nick brings us his first video.

I think Nick secretly, deep down, loves shopping.

PBL reporting in from the Big Easy

Master Sports Marketing Intern Nick Shreck is down in New Orleans with the Phi Beta Lambda business organization. Hopefully, we’ll have some video up from the group soon.

Nick reports:

Day 1 ended with sore feet and tired bodies.  After getting up at 4 a.m. to leave for New Orleans from the Kansas City International Airport, the group hit the ground running in New Orleans by shopping the day (and night) away.

We arrived in New Orleans with about 80 degree weather and palm trees swaying in the wind.  As we drove in our taxi to the hotel, we passed the famous Superdome (home of the Saints) and saw some of the destruction that Katrina had caused.

Upon arrival at the hotel, we dropped our bags off and hit up the French Quarter. The ladies quickly found a jewelry shop featuring some exotic jewelry and discovered their cash decreasing rather rapidly. The shops in the Big Easy are really quite unique.  They feature everything from the Venitian masks to Mardi Gras beads to the Fleur de Leis on every wall.

For dinner, we stopped at some cafe (my apologies, I don’t remember the name) that featured burgers for like $6 (fairly cheap down here) and they ended up being about the size of my head.  Brett Adkins (standing about 5’3″ 105 lbs.) and I were the only ones out of the 11 of us here to finish our meals completely!

After dinner the group split up to see different sights and sounds.  The group that I was in headed off to the Hard Rock Cafe to have some dessert and the girls in our group also happened to find MORE SHOPPING! I’m pretty sure I’ve done more shopping today than I have in the last 6 months.

After dessert, we headed back to the hotel for a little R&R and called it a night.  Tomorrow we will be starting the conference (the whole reason we are here) and prepare our feet for a little more walking as we tour some more of New Orleans.