Mardi Gras

My husband and child are addicted to beads.

Mardi Gras season has been going on a for a while and its loaded with King Cake, bright colors and lots of drinking and food but the real party started on the fourth of March.

I was really tired and we decided to watch How to Train your Dragon together, I fell asleep whilst watching and woke up alone...which was really weird. I naturally assumed the worse, that my family had been kidnapped by pirates and was never to be returned to me, so I did what any victim of pirate napping would do, I shut off the last few minutes of the movie and went back to sleep.

I wake back up to Steve and Charlie hovering over with me insane looks on their faces.

Me- Where have you been? I was a little concerned.

Charlie- We went to the Mardi Gras parade and it was amazing. Colors and lights everywhere and all the floats were bumping club bangers out of their speakers and it was packed and everyone was having a great time and look!

This is where is I started to grow concerned that something abnormal did indeed take place, like pirate napping, because he thrust at least five hundred strands of colorful beads into my face, with a look like he had just won the lottery.

Well all our money woes are over, for we have plastic beads.

Steve was running around with tons of beads and stringing them all over the house, he was recovering from bronchitis so all he could squeak out was, "Look!" as he gestured to all the strands around his neck.
I was a little disappointed that I didn't go to that parade but there were like, thirty more parades that week leading up to Fat Tuesday, so I wasn't that worried. The next evening we ventured out to the next parade of the day, the entire main street was shut down. There were food vendors and beer vendors lining the streets along with people who had obviously been sitting there the entire day because they were barbecuing on little barbecues for themselves; everyone had on crazy clothes and hats and everything was brightly colored; it was pretty awesome.

The only lame part about the entire Mardi Gras season was waiting. We arrived at the first parade a little early thinking we would get a good seat and not really have to struggle to find parking. Wrong. We did get a good seat the first parade but parking each time was like finding a needle in a haystack, it sucked. Charlie also wasn't about to pay for parking either, which made it even more difficult. We drove around for a total of seven hours the entire week of Mardi Gras trying to find parking and then trying to get home.When we finally did find parking, for free, we would get out and find a nice little spot on the dividers and wait. The first parade we went to, we waited for two hours after the parade had officially started, we were kept entertained however, by all the increasingly inebriated people around us. So, I guess the lame part wasn't really all that lame.

 When the action finally started it really started. Colors and lights and music and everybody flipping out for a cheap strand of beads. The floats are pretty sweet and the thing that makes them even more sweet is the fact that the people who are on the floats flinging beads are wasted. They are up there with cigarettes and beer cans throwing bags of beads out directly at your face.

Our second parade was called the Queens Parade, I believe. It started out lovely with princesses and queens all in white dresses and ended up like a trailer park mess. The women on the last of the floats were so drunk up there, that they were throwing out one bead at a time to no one but the street in front of them. They were stumbling around up there with beer cozies giggling at each other.

I want to be in the Queens Parade next year. 

 The next couple nights we went to most of the parades but it was getting a little old, so on Monday we decided to score some real Louisiana dinner and went to get some po'boy sandwiches. Charlie has been talking about them since the day that I got down here and we just haven't went and done it and that night seemed like the perfect night for it. We went to Julians Po'boys and had some pretty delicious sammys.

Apparently they serve Cat sandwiches in the South, which I frown upon, but really what can you do?

 

I had a shrimp po'boy and Charlie had a catfish one, they weren't that great. I don't really see what all the fuss is about with the sandwiches, but they have like, 30 different places on each block so maybe we just went to a bad shop? I wont give up, Ill keep sampling until I find a good place... and my butt is the size of Mars.

The last parades were on Fat Tuesday and they lasted all day.

We started of the day with some Meches donuts and kolaches. I always thought a donut was just a donut until Meches. They were gooey and glorious and the kolaches were to die for, ill definetly be going back there whenever I need a donut. We also went to Starbucks for a little coffee, which was when I decided to tell my loving husband and adorable son that I was giving up caffeine for Lent.

These were his exact words, "Wow, are you serious? Way to warn your family!"

I have been drinking coffee and Red Bull multiple times a day for several years, please pray for my family, its gonna be a long 40 days.

Fat Tuesday was basically a lot of waiting, a little rain and tons and tons of beads and floats. We got there a little late and this woman took us in and let us come up to the front with her and her family. She gave us an umbrella, offered us lunch and chairs and gave Steve suckers all day. The atmosphere for all of Mardi Gras was a reoccurring theme in the daily lives of the people of Louisiana-

Food, Family and Fun.

Everyone was happy to be around each other and all the people surrounding us were all so nice. Most of the people you meet want to help and bring you into their dining room and feed you immediately after meeting them. You make friends fast in the south and they soon become family, especially if your a transplant without your own family around. 

I guess its that Southern Hospitality.

Cheers.