Mardi Gras

For this blog, I’ll be talking about my experience of my first New Orleans Mardi Gras parade. I genuinely don’t even know where to start, so I guess I’ll start at the beginning of our weekend, which was our drive to Houston on Thursday. Since we were going to New Orleans, we decided to stay in Houston Thursday night to split up the drive a bit. Emmy, Tatum and I drove in my car while Kate, Scarlett, and Annie drove in Scarlett’s car. I was slightly offended and curious as to why Annie and Kate didn’t want to come in my car, but I moved past it. The drive felt short, and once we made it to my house in Houston, we were greeted by the menagerie of animals living there. We ate dinner, played with Toby (my chinchilla), went to Kate’s house for drinks and appetizers, then went to bed. We got on the road around 9:30 am the next morning. The five-hour drive mainly consisted of us trying to catch up with the others because they left 30 minutes before us, eye spy and traffic that made me wonder if we were ever going to make it to New Orleans or if I was going to die there. We finally made it and were delighted to see our beautiful four-person hotel that we would be cramming six people into. We waited a long time for you, Hampton Inn. We quickly got ready and ubered to Saint Charles Avenue. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we were surrounded by numerous flashing lights, people, cheering, music, beads and just about anything you can imagine would be at Mardi Gras. Holding on tight to each other, we began pushing through the crowd to get to the places we wanted to go. I hate pushing through people; I always feel so mean. Anyway, we spent the whole night watching different parades, finding people we knew and going to different bars and grills. I grew sad with how little beads I had because we got there pretty late, so I started picking up muddy beads off the ground and putting them on my neck. I had no shame. I came back with a ton of beads that night, and although I may not have caught them, I was still in New Orleans, and they were still Mardi Gras beads. At the end of the night, we went back to the hotel and attempted to get sleeping situations arranged. Tatum and I had one bed, Annie and Emmy had the other, and Scarlett and Kate slept on a queen-sized air mattress shoved in between the four-foot wide doorway. We made it work. The next morning, Tatum must’ve really wanted to get our day started because she had a seizure that woke us all up (she’s ok she just didn’t take her epilepsy medicine). After her seizure, I was a little frozen and didn’t know what to do or say, so I offered her some of my oatmeal, which she did not want. She then slipped on my sweatshirt that pictured a selfie of Troy Bolton captioned “Get your head in the game,” and then went back to bed. Pretty solid way to wake up. We got ready, and this time we went to the infamous Bourbon Street. As soon as we got there, I felt right at home. These were my people. We walked around, met some pretty interesting people, got cool beads in NORMAL ways, and had a blast. I was on cloud nine. No one told me Bourbon was so fun. It was also very magical because one second later I looked down and my phone had poofed away. It was stolen in broad daylight. Of course. Once I realized this wasn’t actually a joke and my phone really was gone, I initially started to laugh because this would happen to me. My smile slowly faded once I realized I had every form of ID and payment in the sticky wallet on the back of my phone. I called my parents, and they didn’t really seem surprised. I got the usual “I’m just disappointed” talk, and I am now having to use my computer until my new phone comes on Tuesday. Although I had just gotten my phone taken, I reminded myself that everything is replaceable, and I wasn’t going to let it ruin my time. Tatum and I also agreed that if she had gone out that day, she would’ve gotten her phone stolen, too. She didn’t get it stolen because it was simply never an option. We spent the rest of the day buying random stuff, embarrassing ourselves in the middle of the streets, and hanging out with other college friends. We then regrouped at the hotel, got Tatum to come back out with us, and went to dinner. Everyone wanted crawfish besides me because I don’t like seafood. No one cared that I didn’t like seafood though, so we tried for about an hour to find a place with crawfish. It was around 10 pm, most restaurants were closed, and we couldn’t get an uber anywhere. We ended up eating at “Jaegers Seafood,” which was walking distance from our hotel. They didn't even have crawfish. Honestly, I’m happy we went because I ended up having the best gumbo of my life. 10/10. After dinner, Ubers wouldn’t pick us up, and we were already drained from the weekend, so we decided to end the night a bit early so we could get on the road in the morning. When morning came, Tatum was the only person that wanted to drive in my car with me. Emmy claims she didn’t come back with me because I play my music too loudly and it hurts her head. Sorry Emmy. The drive back was so much better than the drive there, and it took us around the same amount of time to get from New Orleans to Austin as it did from Houston to New Orleans. Overall, I had a great time. My few takeaways for next year are to hold onto my phone, drive there earlier, bring cash and stay closer to uptown. Even though Tatum had a seizure and I got my phone stolen, I still had one of the best times of my life and already can’t wait to go back next year.