New Orleans

We made it to New Orleans fairly easily and quickly. The city is on a kind of a peninsula, surrounded as it is by two lakes and the Mississippi river so there are very few ways in if you are coming by car. Eva and the rest were going to stay with one of her friends, but this guy was awful at giving directions and never answered the questions we asked him to help us get orientated. In the end Somair gave up and we just found a place to park and left the car. It was a nice warm day and I was glad to get rid of my jacket, I had had enough of the snow and cold. We had lunch, caught a parade and generally just relaxed. I had to say goodbye to them in the late afternoon and head off to my hotel to meet John and the rest of them. I still wasn't sure who had come with John, with the exception of Fumiko. It turns out that the group consisted of him, Fumiko, his sister Jess and his cousin Danny. We would be joined on the Monday by Fumiko's cousin, Misako who was flying in from Japan. She had already planned to come to America when Fumiko said that she was going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and she decided to join us. It meant that for two nights two of us would be sleeping on the floor as the room only slept four. Officially John had only made the booking for two people as that was cheaper. I wasn't complaining, at least I had somewhere to sleep for the festival and it was relatively near everywhere we wanted to go.
We got into the room and dumped everything, John went to university in New Orleans so he was going to be our point man for the weekend. He said that he had a place in mind to watch that nights parades and about 5pm we headed out to try and get a good spot to watch from. Mardi Gras is Fat Tuesday in French and is the last Tuesday before Lent begins. That said the festival runs for about six weeks in New Orleans culminating in the two big parades on the Tuesday morning. The place John had in mind turned out to packed already and we moved a little further down Charles St. to watch. The parade was supposed to start at 4pm, if it did I don't know what happened, we didn't see our first float until gone 7pm. It was a cold night and we had to pay to pee every time we wanted to go. I managed to get Fumiko a spot at the front by the barrier but had no such luck for myself. To compound my problem as well as being surrounded by my friends, who are all taller than me there was this really tall guy who insisted on standing in front of me whether I moved to wither side or not. I hardly caught any beads, Danny gave me pity beads. I did not have a good night. When the parade finished we all went back to the hotel, for John, Jess and Fumiko it was to drop Fumiko's loot. She had a really impressive haul, including soft toys, from the parade. John, Jess and Fumiko went out to party in Bourbon St., Danny and I crashed. I was cold and miserable and didn't need any more alcohol that night.
John and the others returned at 05.30am the next morning, I know because we turned on the light for them to stop them falling all around the room. When it had quietened down I couldn't get back to sleep and lay there until breakfast started at 06.30am. I went out for a walk down Riverfront walk and then on into the French Quarter, it was a lovely morning and not many people were out and about. I went to the House of Blues and managed to buy a ticket on the street for their Sunday Gospel brunch. I wasn't too bothered about the food, but the Mimosas went down well and the singing was amazing. It wasn't until I got to Memphis that I found out what the difference is between Gospel and the Blues, the Blues are secular. The group singing were from the Zulu organisation, they hold the first parade of the day on Fat Tuesday and they hand out painted coconuts. Apparently the coconuts are the prized items to get during the festival, I hoped I would get one. After my performance in not catching beads the previous night I wasn't so sure unless I could grow another four inches in two days.
After the brunch I turned back in the direction of our hotel but only made it as far as Canal St., more parades were kicking off and there weren't so many people waiting to watch. I thought that this would improve my beads yield. I was right, but not in the way that I had thought. I got talking to this woman, Frankie, she was in costume and everyone was giving her beads. She didn't want the beads so passed a lot on to me, so in addition to the ones I was able to catch I had loads of beads. It was great! I hung out with Frankie until the late afternoon and figured that I had better find the others. Thanks to our cell phones I knew what they had been up to, but as they had had lunch and gone shopping I hadn't felt like I was missing out. Also I am not used to tailoring my schedule to other peoples. I guess I have gotten used to travelling alone. We spent the evening watching more parades and I had much better luck than the previous night, I had quite a respectable haul. Danny and I peeled off before the end of the last parade and went and got something to eat before going back to the hotel. Danny and I seem to be on the same wave length when it comes to the amount of sleep we need and when we need it.