Mardi Gras baby!! HEY MISTER, THROW ME SOMETHING!!

Trip Start Aug 26, 2005

126

Trip End May 26, 2008

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Where I stayed

India House Backpackers Hostel New Orleans

(New Orleans hotels)

Flag of United States New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Saturday, February 17, 2007

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Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play the guitar just like a ringin' a bell

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Laissez Le Bon Temps Rouler
Let the good times roll as they say to start the Mardi Gras festivities - 3 weeks of parties through February

1.5 years after and look at it

. The main party time started a day after I arrived. The 16th of Feb is the start of the big parades and paries and the party runs 24 hours a day for the next 6 days!
A number of intricately detailed floats pass down the streets, 3 or 4 times a day. Some processions had as many as 100 floats!

The good times started at the India House hostel, which would be my mecca for the next 8 nights. The hostel was spectacular. Damaged in hurricane Katrina, they have done enough work to restore it and keep it opened and although basic, and pretty filthy, it had its charm and the awesome bunch of people staying there made it a pretty special place.
It was a good start to my time there when I walked in the door and was told they were putting ona Crawfish Broil. What the hell does that mean? I asked. I was then told about southern food and tradition and the crawfish was a big part of it. Crawfish are like miniature lobsters. They are tiny little things, smaller than an Aussie prawn, and extremelycheap. $2 per pound. I have no idea how many pounds the hostel bought but there were more than enough crawfish to feel the 50 people that turned up to devour them. They bought them live, and filled a huge boiler pot with potatoes, corn, onion, mishrooms, garlic, peanuts, asparagus and of course - the Crawfishies

Floats

.
The tabe was lined with brown paper and while we drank local beers and got to know eachother, they were cooked and finally the huge pot was poured over the table. A mountain of Crawfish and food filled with spicy cajun flovours was devoured. Twist the head, suck its brains out and then pinch and squeeze the tail and thats how you eat a crawfish. they were delicious and spicy but a whole lot of work. An Irish described it as 5 calories worth of work to get a 2 calorie piece of meat out of them. And it did feel like that when the third batch of them came out and were were all hungry and exhausted. But it was a good experience.
We formed a tight group and around 20 of us headed into the French Quarter to watch the Parades.
The parade we watched had 40 floats, in the theme of 'Endangered and Extinct Animals' The floats were spectacular. All had blinking lights and were covered in glitter and bright colours. The masked people onboard were wearing animal masks. (its a law that if your on the float, you cannot show your face) The floats came past and the crowd was jumping and screaming 'HEY MISTER, THROW ME SOMETHING' the official call to get beads. There are other ways to get beads during Mardi Gras, and as the night gets on, they get more creative. The simple 'Show us your tits' chant doesn't work and it takes more creative calls to get something

Girls gone wild

. Its common to see guys doing pushups or strange acts and girls doign even stranger wilder acts to get a big set of beads. As the Endangered Animals floats passed our group we had mountains of beads hurled at us and by the time the last one came by, I was barely able to walk. The weight of these beads is just insane. and I swear the rum I was drinking had nothing to do with it.
After the last float had passed, we joined the masses and fought our way down the infamous Bourbon Street. 10 blocks, or more, full of bars, and clubs of every description. First, second and third floor balconies were full of people all wearing masks and costumes, hurling even more beads and fluffy toys and random items to the screaming crowds below. It was absolute mayhem. Occasionally mounted police could come by and evreyone would stop what they are doing and wait for the police to pass before breaking loose again.
They dont really have any drinking rules in the French Quarter of New Orleans, which was more of less untouched by the Hurricane. People wander aroudn the streets and in and out of clubs and pubs with those red plastic cups you see in movies like american pie and road trip.

The next 6 nights or so followed pretty much in the same way. Food and drinks and teh hostel, then parade watching, bead collecting and partying!
Ill be back.

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random Shiite
From CNN:
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (Reuters) -- Mardi Gras revelers packed New Orleans Saturday as large crowds turned out to watch parades and fill the French Quarter in what many viewed as another step in the long recovery from Hurricane Katrina

Is that a Mexican hiding behind the mask?

.
Parters, most with drink in hand, lined the sidewalks along parade routes, shouting and dancing while masked "krewe" members on passing floats tossed out beads and other trinkets in a celebration now 151 years old in New Orleans.
Local officials said hotels were near capacity and flights into the city full. Bars and restaurants reported strong business while streets in the city center were jammed with traffic. (Watch how throwing beads is a form of therapy)
All in all, locals said, it looked and felt more like a normal Mardi Gras than the 2006 scaled-down version, which was the first after Katrina flooded most of the city and killed 1,300 people in August 2005.
"I had a friend who rode on a float last night, and she said looking down at all the people and the fun they were having, she felt like it was back," said Joi Manthey, a chaplain for riverboat pilots.
Attendance this year is expected to be above last year -- when estimates ranged as low as 400,000 -- but still below the pre-storm level of about 1 million people.
Numbers do not tell the full story of Mardi Gras, locals say. More important is its role in the self-image and psyche of the city.
Mardi Gras has a local roleDespite opposition from some who believed the citywide party in 2006 was inappropriate amidst the devastation of Katrina, many locals viewed it as a way of showing the world New Orleans would survive.
They said Mardi Gras played a vital role in reuniting a population that had been dispersed by the storm

Shinnanigans

. Much of New Orleans is still in ruins and less than half of the pre-storm population of 480,000 has returned
But many people came back for Mardi Gras in 2006 and again this year.
"Last year was like a group therapy session for everybody from New Orleans, it was a way to reconnect," Manthey said. "You could go find your friends because families watch the parades from the same place every year, and you could find out how they were and where they were."
This year, said graduate student David Parker, it looked like more non-New Orleans people had come back to Mardi Gras, too.
"Last year, it was more intimate. It felt like 'our' party, this year it's 'a' party again," he said.
Attorney Donna Fraiche, standing in front of her genteel Uptown home, said Mardi Gras this year represented a return to "the new normal" in the still-damaged city, and was a precursor of better days.
"Last year was about survival, this year it's resilience," she said. "This city will come back."