Well, Mardi Gras has been fucking amazing! I knew it was a big party and there was a reason why it is such a big deal, but nothing prepared us for the indescribable atmosphere here. Everyone is out to have a good time and there is a palpable air of excitement eminating from every person you meet. There is so much drinking and dancing in the street… the ladies *are* actually all flashing their boobs in the streets and in the bars to get beads from people on balconies or from the next table! And they are soliciting the exact same types of beads they were all catching off the parade floats earlier in the day, and the same types of beads that are littering the streets if they wanted to reach down and scoop up a handful (if you could find a clean spot that is). I have to tell you, there was also more than one man in the street flashing his goodies to get beads too… equal opportunity exhibitionism is what it's all about. 🙂

There are fishbowl sized cocktails on sale from tiny hole in the wall bars, there are people walking around with huge adult sippy cups full of grog, and loads of people with cups of beer – made for pretty interesting manouvres when jostling to get past the hordes at the intersections on Bourbon Street… it was about 6C last night and I really didn't want to end up wearing anyone's cocktail! Most of the French Quarter is bars and pubs, and jazz clubs and some adult entertainment with a pile of souvenir shops in amongst it. Everything was open and the whole place was buzzing. There was a noticeable police presence – mostly the New Orleans Mounted Police (they snuck up on me at one point quite late in the night when I was taking a photo of one of the gothy looking chicks above, and I got trod on by a horse… thankfully he/she seemed to sense my little foot there and didn't put its whole weight down, and I got off lightly!) which actually made the entire night feel really safe and comfortable.

We found some great bars, had some jalapeno poppers and ciders and beer… and some crab stuffed mushrooms and ciders and beers… and went to a jazz club and listened to an amazing horn player and had more ciders and beers. With Mr K nearby, I was well insulated from drunken advances – however, the minute he head to the bathroom or the bar, I had strangers coming up and hitting on me… flattering on one hand, but on the other, they might just have wanted our bar stools! 😛

And everyone is sooo friendly! Everyone we met (and you meet heaps of people thanks to the bump and grind of huge crowd squished into one narrow street) was in a fun mood, wishing 'Happy Mardi Gras' to anyone within ear shot. We found ourselves having this conversation over and over but somehow it was fun and interesting anyway… it went something like this:

Us: Hey, Happy Mardi Gras!

Them: Happy Mardi Gras to you, too!

Us: Where are you from?

Them: We're from Minnesota/Iowa/Florida/California/Wisconsin etc (anywhere but here it seems!). Where are y'all from?

Us: We're from Australia.

Them: Holy shit, that's insane! (or similar exclamation, swiftly followed by) We've always wanted to go to Australia… (or words to that effect).

People were so friendly and I had such a good time. Would definitely recommend to anyone – add 'Go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras' to your Bucket List, you won't be disappointed… I seriously can't believe I am ticking it off mine!

 

One of our hosts, Ronnie was riding in the parade for the first time this year and he gave us a little insight into how these things get off the ground. I never really thought about it, but I guess I assumed the floats were paid for by big corporations or had large financial backing coming from somewhere because they're so damned expensive – some of them cost up to $1million USD to create and there are hundreds of them going down the street over the course of the Mardi Gras festival (which led me to asking, 'What? Don't you have people living in poverty in New Orleans?, but that is another discussion).

So with that much money flying about to pay for this visual extravaganza, I assumed that it was corporate funded somehow… but then I found out most of the floats and parades are sponsored by large not for profit clubs, some of them very exclusive in their membership, and people have to pay to ride on the floats. Some of these costs can be thousands of dollars per person – as there are costs involved in decorating and outfitting the floats, hiring portaloos for the floats, and no doubt costs to the guy on the tractor pulling the float and other untold hidden expenses. Which kinda explains now why none of these floats are covered in corporate branding – not even the sign with the name of the float and it's number in the parade has a logo on it, there are no logos anywhere.

 

But, on top of this 'get on the float' fee, the people riding the floats often PAY FOR THEIR OWN BEADS to toss to the crowd. The individuals riding the float, after securing their space to be a part of the parade, then turn around and spend over $1,000 each on beads, toys and trinkets to throw to the parade goers… which makes the piles of trash and wasted beads and loot, so much more heartbreaking.

Now various floats in the different parades operate different ways, no doubt down to the vagaries of the clubs organising them. Some may charge big bucks up front so that the rider will have their space, a matching costume and parade specific beads to throw (many of the beads have designs and names of them 'Thoth, Bacchus, Orpheus, Perseus, Rex, Zulu, etc.), and others may charge a more moderate amount to get on the float and then the rider has to cover everything themselves. Some floats are a family affair, and the tradition has been passed down over generations and each year, the family and friends of an individual, will gang together to cover the cost of keeping the float in the parade. Either way, it seems that it is a helluva lot of expense for the citizens of New Orleans to be shelling out of their own pockets, for what is effectively a major tourist attraction and money spinner for the entire city – the hotels and restaurants, taxi industry, bars, nightclubs and everyone makes a motza when Mardi Gras is in town, and they don't need to do much other than be open when the people start rolling in to empty their wallets. Hopefully the City (TM) is putting more back into these parades then it seems.

The other thing that happens all behinds the scenes that both fascinated and horrified me was the rubbish, while I have alluded to already, but which was so much worse than I could possibly describe. I heard on the local tv news channel they they used to judge the success of the Mardi Gras parades based on how much rubbish was generated.. but they stopped doing this a few years ago when it came about that they hit 9,000,000 pounds of garbage! Someone apparently thought it was not a good plan to determine success based on waste, and now they don't publicise how much garbage is collected anymore.

The clean up crews do an amazing job. They come through night after night, clearing the streets of beads, cups, trinkets, food wrappers, bags and even busted lawn chairs. We even saw teams going by in cherry pickers pulling down all the beads that had gotten stuck in trees when being tossed from floats. Walking around Bourbon Street the morning after Fat Tuesday, it was hard to believe the streets were in such a mess the night before. They sure have this down to a fine art.

And to think, they'll do it all over again, albeit on a smaller scale for the Easter Parades…

 

It occurred to me tonight that Australian's don't really do parades. We don't have the big Thanksgiving Day parades, we don't have huge St Patrick's Day parades, we don't have local parades and we certainly don't have anything that is even remotely like a Mardi Gras parade. Nearest thing we do at home that has a similar organisational theme is the ANZAC Day parades every April 25th, and those are a tribute to veterans, fallen soldiers and our fighting forces, often marked by solemnity, thankfulness and recognition of sacrifice… not exactly the stuff huge city wide parties are made of.

Tonight, watching the Perseus and Orpheus parades, we saw some amazing floats, very impressively designed and full of lights and gold leaf and glitter and people in more amazing costumes, and yes… you guessed it – MORE marching bands!

Did I mention that every one of these umpteen marching bands is also accompanied by a handful of baton twirlers, some standard bearers, a gaggle of dancers and a team of cheerleaders? Every single one of them. Even the primary school age kids. And it's so easy to tell the public schools from the Catholic schools… the band kids look the same, the standard bears looks the same, but the baton twirlers, dancers and cheerleaders couldn't look more different if you tried. The Catholic school girls are in modest skirts and often long sleeves, whereas the public school girls are in sequins, fringed 'skirts' (and I use the term loosely!) fishnet stockings and bare midriffs and have dance moves that convince you that they are training to be strippers in the future. It's no wonder they all need so many chaperones walkign alongside when they're all underage and getting their sexy on! O_o

Something else we noticed were that the participants on the floats are throwing so many beads and trying to get them to the back of the crowd, that sometimes I don't think they realise just how hard they are pegging these things at the people. Beads are coming at you so hard and fast, a lady sitting behind us had her crystal sapphire Longines watchface smashed by some by some beads that she was trying to catch. Whoops! Hope she had good travel insurance.

One thing I noticed tonight compared to last night is that the drop in temperature made it even harder to catch the beads. Not because we were all rugged up in jackets and beanies, not because the guys on the floats were cold and throwing poorly… but because when something moving that fast hits your freezing cold hands you've been waving in the air, holy shit, it stings like a bitch! Reminded me of my Dad telling us stories of how the Christian Brothers used to give them the cane on the hands on a cold Toowoomba winters morning… but I digress.

Mr K had downloaded some apps onto the iPhone that allowed us to see where the parades were at. They had a lead car that was basically the GPS track car and you could tell how far away the parade was. I thought it sounded rather twee, but what it actually did was allow you to plan your waiting time. If you knew how many blocks away the beginning of the parade was, then you knew if you had time to pop away from your seats for some snacks (like the awesome Southern friend Chicken-On-A-Stick that we had yesterday), or go grab a monster sized beer, or even if you have tim to go out and find a not too feral portaloo.

Time turns into quite a big factor in this gig, they tell you that the parade starts at 5:30pm or 11:00am and many people are out well before this to stake out a good vantage point, but what you don't realise is that even though you might only be a mile and a half from the beginning of the parade, it might take nearly two hours for them to make it past where you are sitting if you are where we were in the reserved seating where we were. No one tells you how many stoppage there are in the parade route, you find yourself frequently waiting for the next lot to come past. According to some Californians we met, 'The parades is so much quicker on teevee than in real life!' Which pretty much sums it up really. 🙂

These things are bloody weird – there is a rental company that hires out these huge sky effects things. They light up the sky like huge searchlights and rotate around all over the place, and there are many of them attached to the back of various floats and some like this one which is just attached to the back of a pick up truck… both Mr K and I saw this one go past, and simultaneously wondered out loud 'just how much demand is there for a mobile Bat signal round these parts that you can make a whole business out of hiring them out???'

One thing I didn't know about (because my research on this element of our trip was a bit haphazard to say the least – I was busy focusing on accommodation, Mr K was researching the 'what's on' element for New Orleans), is the toasts that the various Kings, Queens and Captains of each parade make. The King of the Bacchus Parade last night was Hugh Lawrie and he made his toast, various other Queens and Captains had stopped out front of City Hall and made toasts too. Tonight, the King of the Orpheus Parade was none other than Quentin Tarrantino, who said that 'this was the most exciting night of his life, and he's 'had some pretty exciting nights in his life before!' He's quite the local down here and considers New Orleans a 'home away from home' after months of filming Django here, he has spent a lot of time here. Another thing I didn't know they did was, after making their toasts, they each smash their glasses from the top of their floats down onto the pavement out front of City Hall… and right at the feet of representatives of local law enforcement officers from the local Sheriff's Department and eveyone cheers! It's just that kinda town! 🙂

After reporting on last night's mess, we were wondering how on earth they get the steets so clean after such an unholy debacle night after night for the duration of the holiday. Mr K went out for a walk late tonight and saw the clean up crew in action. Just after the parade passes through a section of town, he said there are about half a dozen Mexicans (his words, not mine!!) going along the street with rakes scraping all the plastic, food containers and wasted beads into the centre of the street from the gutters, roadwave and footpaths. Then about three guys driving bobcats come along and scrape it all up and throw it into the back of a dump truck until it is full and it is all whisked away. Sounds pretty efficient and explains how they manage to cover the entire parade routes by morning, because things looked pretty clean when we went out this morning compared to last night's war zone. 🙂

Should be tired, but it's quite hard to wind down and get ready to sleep after such huge exciting nights. 🙂 AND, we have two more parades we want to see tomorrow and then it's onto things like French Markets and Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras World!Also as a huge bonus of having spent quite a bit of the last two days at the Mardi Gras parades – I am now completely cured of the unfortunate Miley Cyrus/Robin Thicke, Blurred Lines association! Yay!