Back to Germany, but with a Heavy Heart...

9/6 - I write this on the airplane from Austin to Atlanta on my way back to Germany for another 3 week stint. I was listening to iTunes on my laptop while reading through some work email when it started playing the song "Second Line" (the uniquely New Orleans song that you always hear around Mardi Gras or at any wedding reception in New Orleans) - I'm still fighting back tears as I write this - will there be another Mardi Gras as we knew it? The City I grew up in has been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The only good thing so far is that everyone I know had made it out of the city alive. My parents are living with me now, my dad will be able to work with the same company in Austin, and my sister was just able to enroll at Texas A&M this morning, so life is moving on. Questions of rebuilding and whether to ever go back are still up in the air. Many of my friends from back in New Orleans are spread across the country now - its just crazy. New Orleans will never be the same.