Here for the Party
New Orleans is city full of history, great music, and no shortage of a good time. My first trip to this wild city was for Marti Gras during my senior year of college. I drove west from Tallahassee to meet up with Eddy and some other friends that traveled from the University of Central Florida. We chose to split an Air Bnb and were all curious how sharing a strangers home during a notoriously famous party weekend would be. It’s safe to say that that Air Bnb made our weekend. The home owner was a single man in his late 40’s that had more halloween costumes than everyday clothes. Each morning we woke up to a different costume laid out to wear. We dressed for bourbon street as hotdogs, leprechauns, gorillas, and even Pooh Bear. This guy had 20 years on us but partied like he was our age.
Drunken Parades
We started our Saturday at a drive through frozen daiquiri bar on out way to bourbon street. Never did I think I’d be picking up a drink through the window of my Uber. This drive though set the tone for our day. We arrived down near Bourbon Street just before the parade began. As the crowd filled in every open spot on the sidewalk, we could see floats appearing in the distance. All types of usual floats passed us, every kind, from guys in motorized lazy boy chairs to elaborately decorated crew floats. We collected so many beads during that parade that our necks began to tire. We were more than happy to toss them at other parade goers at that point.
Boozing’ on Bourbon
After the parade it was time to hit Bourbon Street. The sea of people that crowded the bars and street were not easy to carve through. We chose the upstairs bars at most places to avoid the crowd and enjoy the view down on all the people. The balconies offered a cool look down the french quarter so we could appreciate how many people turned out for the festivities. The sun went down and we were probably out longer than we needed to be. We enjoyed the jazz music as the group hoped from one bar to the next. We knew the ride home the in the morning would be miserable but we soaked up every bit that we could that night. Sure enough, the 6 hour ride home was as bad as we pictured but it was all worth it.
