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New Orleans
Now that I've had a few days to recover... thought I'd blog about my recent trip to New Orleans. Just to warn you, it may be long and boring... proceed at your own risk =)
My brother moved to New Orleans a few months ago, and still had a few things left up here in Ohio. I'm only working part time, he's got stuff that needed moved down... so I sacrificed a few days of my time to drive his stuff down to him. The fact that Mardi Gras was going on at the time had absolutely NOTHING to do with it ;)
I left at about 10:30am on Saturday Feb 13, drive through the day, and arrived at the bar my brother is working at about 10pm. I hung out at the bar for a little while, and then a some of his friends showed up (Dave, Jessica and Laura), so I took off with them to another bar across the street. We stayed there for an hour or so, then the girls left, and Dave and I went to his place to unload a couple expensive things out of my car into his place, and we walked down to another bar for the rest of the night.
The next day, we headed around 11 to head to another one of Joe's friends, Ron's, house. He lives a block away from a lot of the parade routes, which was very convenient. My first Mardi Gras parade was the Thoth Krewe parade. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was a lot of fun. The floats were really fancy, and the riders threw out anything and everything. As a float goes by, everybody sticks their hands in the air trying to get the attention of the riders, and stuff just starts flying... tons of beads, stuffed animals, footballs, doubloons, and just about anything else you can think of.
After the Thoth parade, we went back to Ron's place, as he had cooked lunch. Brisket... ribs... jambalaya... sausages... oh man, it was a GOOD meal! The next parade of the day was Bacchus... the biggest parade of Mardi Gras. I'm not sure how it is normally, but this year, Drew Brees was the King of Bacchus, so the crowds were CRAZY! We got there about an hour and a half before the parade, and Joe and I found spots where we could kind of see the parade route and waited. When the parade started, we think the first float had the Ying Yang Twins on it, singing their song "Stand Up & Get Crunk"... but we couldn't see well enough to be sure. The next float was the King float. When it came up, the crowd went absolutely nuts! Drew Brees was at the front of the float, throwing out little footballs. Joe and I weren't really close enough to see the floats very well, so we decided to walk along with the parade behind the crowds and try to catch a football from Drew Brees. We followed it for maybe a mile or so... EVERYBODY wanted those footballs. Every time one came within 20 feet of us, there was just a jumbled mess of people grabbig and pushing and pulling for them. Joe and I have some mad skills... and we were able to get 3 footballs! One for me, one for Joe, and one for Dave... worked out very nicely! The Bacchus parade started about 5:15... and we got back to Ron's around 7ish I think... and everybody went out to the bars for the rest of the night.
The first parade the next day wasn't until 5:30pm, so we were able to sleep in, and then met up with Dave and got some Po-Boys for lunch about 2:00. After lunch, we went and got some spots for the first parade... Proteus. After Bacchus, the crowd for this parade was like nothing. We had some pretty good spots and got a lot of beads and other stuff (I caught Ramen noodles at this parade... hehe). When Proteus was done, the Orpheus parade started. This parade had some celebrities (Sean Payton, Harry Connick Jr, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, etc) in it, so the crowds were a bit bigger when it started. Sean Payton was signing hats and throwing them out! He threw one to a group of girls in front of us, and some guy reached over and snatched it right out of a girls hands and ran off. People were grabby at all the parades... but that was a bit much. At least he dropped and broke his Blackberry in the process... karma's a bitch! After this parade, you guessed it... back to the bars!
The next morning we had to get up early for the Zulu Krewe. Zulu is known for painting and decorating coconuts to throw from their floats... they're some of the most sought after throws of any parade. I'd been hearing people talk about getting coconouts since I got there. The Zulu parade started at 8am. We left Dave and Kristen's (Dave's wife) around 8 to head to Kristen's brother's house. He lives in the Garden District, which is the nicest part of New Orleans. He actually lives just a few houses down from Sandra Bullock! We walked from there to the Zulu route, and gradually worked our way up in the crowd. Every time a coconut was tossed into the crowd, everybody went crazy... people REALLY wanted those things. People were literally taking each other to the ground to get the coconuts! My brother got one, but it broke in the scuffle. A few floats later, I caught one! As each float passed, the crowd shifted, and we eventually found ourselves in the very front of the crowds, close enough to touch the floats. As the floats went by, our hands were up and we were each lucky enough to get another coconut. Both of Joe's were painted... one of mine was painted, and one was carved out to look like a monkey! When it was handed to me, someone tried to rip it out of my hands... but luckily for me, he wasn't successful.
After Zulu, we went back to Kristen's brothers place for an early lunch, and then back out for the Rex, Elks, and Crescent City paradees. We didn't make it all the way through, we were pooped. We walked back to Dave and Kristen's, got Joe's car, and he and I headed back to his place. We just hung out there for a few hours, went out to have a few more Po-Boy's for dinner, and then he had to go to work. I was kind of wanting to go experience Bourbon street, but I was worn out, so I just sat in his apartment and relaxed.
The next morning, I took off, drove through the day, and got home about 11:30pm. In the 3 days I was there, I think we walked between 12-15 miles... which may not sound like a lot, but for someone as lazy as I am, it's a ton! That's probably more than I've walked in all of 2010 combined!
For those of you who have thought about going to Mardi Gras, I highly recommend it! It was a lot of fun... I'm hoping I can make it back down next year! Although I think 3-4 days is about the longest I could handle it... not the full 2 weeks, or however long it lasts.
And I knew there would be beads everywhere, but I was surprised at the amount of beads that were thrown around at every parade. My mom's a teacher, and asked that I bring some beads back for her to give to her students... I brought back just a couple days worth of beads... 65 lbs worth! No need to buy beads if you're going to a parade... you'll have enough to give you a sore neck by the end of the parade.