Mardi Gras in New Orleans

I got to see my first Mardi Gras parade about a week before Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras refers to a day, Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, AND to the period between the end of Twelfth Night (pagan Xmas) and Fat Tuesday. New Orleans' version of it (parades, crowds, beads, chaos and drink) runs from roughly late January but begins in earnest the last ten days before the actual day. The days of the Mardi Gras festival are witness to multiple parades. Each separate parade is hosted by a "krewe," a social organization much like Kiwanis, Rotary or Elks, but smaller. There are scores of krewes in the area. New Orleans plays host to two to four parades each day in the Mardi Gras festival. Even my little city of Metairie hosts maybe ten before Mardi Gras.

Parades early in Mardi Gras are evening events, except for the weekends. They run rain or shine. Mardi Gras' biggest parades, those on Fat Tuesday itself, are daytime affairs that last into the evening. A Mardi Gras parade will consist of anywhere from ten to thirty or more floats, designed by subgroups within the sponsoring krewe. Krewe members ride on the floats, masked, and they throw beads (necklaces made of cheap plastic beads) to the crowds, often to individuals with whom they have made eye contact or whose looks they like. The quality of the beads goes from ridiculous junk to really impressive junk. The interaction between the masked revelers and the crowd is the stupidest thing you've ever seen. Everyone gets into getting more beads and better ones than his fellow. I was not an exception. It is utterly stupid and without redeeming social value but it IS loads of fun and each parade seems to last forever but not long enough.