My Mardi Gras...

I had an awesome Mardi Gras. I imagined it to be completely crazy, with boobs everywhere and all the other stereotypical aspects associated with Mardi Gras. Thankfully, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. I saw more of a family oriented side of it than I had expected. The highlight of my long weekend was Saturday night. After spending my day at very culturally rich places across New Orleans that Professor Hunt recommended (I’m not being sarcastic, I went and heard live music and everything at Jazz places and ate at a few very authentic restaurants), I was at a lovely establishment on Broadway commonly called “the boot”, some of you may have heard of it. When I turned around four of my best friends from home, twelve hours away, were standing there. It was a complete surprise and all of my friends from Loyola knew about it and were treating me so weird all day because they evidently knew it was nice to figure out why. Another highlight was when I was at Endimiyon on Canal street, I caught the huge beads bigger than my fists (maybe I am easily amused but I thought it was exciting). On the LONG walk home from Canal street, I glanced down at my neck which was coated with beads (almost to the point of strangling me) and wondered why the heck people, myself included, value these so much and get so excited about them. Throws like beads have been around since the 1800’s when floats traditionally threw things like bon bons and other candies. There isn’t much reason as to why other than it enables the crowd to be interactive rather than just watching the parade go by; it brings an entirely new level of entertainment to the audience. The most prized throw in the Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans is the Zulu coconut and after that is a shoe from the Muses parade. Neither of which I caught. The most valuable lesson that I learned over this long weekend is that Mardi Gras is not a totally immoral event and can be celebrated by all ages. The picture above I took and thought (and my friends thought this was creepy of me to take but I asked the parents and they were just so cute) that it shows how Mardi Gras is a fun but tiring time to all ages .