Mardi Gras season is one hell of a party down here in Louisiana. It kicks off in early January and for the next month there seems to be endless parades and parties all throughout the state. All classes at LSU get cancelled for the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday during the main Mardi Gras week and the population of New Orleans doubles as people come from all over the United States to party! Doing a bit of reading on Wikipedia, I found that the holiday was first celebrated in Louisiana in 1699 and was known to be established in New Orleans by 1743. Since then, it has been a virtually annual event of parades, masquerade balls, and general partying, even surviving through Hurricane Katrina.
This year I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras weekend again, staying one night at a friend's house and one at a hostel with my friend Bjornar who was visiting from Norway after studying at LSU last year. Lots of other friends were also in New Orleans where we all met up, watched parades, danced in the street (check out the video below), went to parties, collected beads, and of course went down Bourbon Street; it was an awesome time! The only negative was a shooting about two blocks away from us on Bourbon Street on the Saturday night. The rest of the street descended into chaos as the police moved everyone away from the block of the shooting, making Bourbon Street even more crowded than it already was.
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| Bourbon Street |
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| A New Zealand float in the Bacchus Parade! |
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