"It's only 90 degrees..."
...says Trish, one of the guests for tomorrow's New Orleans programme I just spoke to on the phone. After weeks of terminal grey and rain in London, it seems even hotter than that, but I've left the ferocious air conditioning of the hotel to type this outside in the courtyard. (Under an umbrella of course, let's just say I'm the freckly type)
I've been reunited with Peter van Dyk, who has been in Washington for the past three months but has returned to WHYS duties for a few days. He's melting so is about to return to the safety of the air conditioning. Lightweight. I find Corona works just as well as a cooling device....
I've started to build a bit of a reputation in the WHYS office for stating the bleeding obvious, and I haven't disappointed so far with the "it's really hot here" revelation, so let me carry on in a similar vein and tell you something else about New Orleans. It's a really long way from London. Yesterday's journey with technical and train specialist James was pretty epic, especially the hour and a half we spent stuck on a very small and hot plane on the runway in Washington for the connecting flight to New Orleans. We'll be meeting Mark, Ros and Rabiya after the same journey in a few hours time, I'm really hoping the two worst flyers on the team didn't experience the same joy.
Everything else is looking good - the ISDN lines are in, and shock, actually working (a first for me!), the conference delegates are arriving, and we have plenty of local residents lined up to to come and tell us their stories. We're particularly looking forward to catching up with some of the people we met last time to see if life has changed for them. Having been driven straight from the airport to the hotel in the thriving French quarter, I've yet to see any of the post-Katrina damage. I'll be able to tell you more about that after Friday, when we'll all be getting our hands dirty to help with the clean up operation.
Plenty more to look forward to I'm sure, if Ros Atkins doesn't come home with at least one new name (see Africa '07 - Rose Harkins) I'm going to be very disappointed...
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