bacchus parade.
ernest and i had a fabulous weekend, enjoying the mardi gras festivities and four days off from work.
as i mentioned before, we had a surprise house guest, ernest's friend, will, from ernest's old squadron. will has orders to new orleans, and came down for a week to find a place to live. he stayed with us, sleeping on our (horribly uncomfortable) couch.
anyway, we wanted to show him a good time while he was here in new orleans, so on friday we went to a local sports bar (our usual, spanky's) and played some pool. i came sooooooo close to beating ernest, only to scratch on the 8 ball. urgh!
our original plan for saturday was to go downtown and walk around until the krewe of endymion parade at 4. mother nature had her own plans, however, and so the parade was cancelled. because it was will's last night in town we decided to go ahead and go downtown anyway, meeting up with our friend's, the escalante's (fellow-texans) for dinner at mulate's! ernest and i shared the ribs (again!) and they were awesome (again!). after that, ernest, will and i decided to walk around downtown and get some beers on bourbon street. BAD IDEA.
bead-throwers on the balcony on bourbon st.
i don't know if any of you have ever been to bourbon street during mardi gras, but if you ask me, it's NO FUN. first of all, i am traumatized from all of the things i didn't want to see, that i can't un-see. plus, it was incredibly packed, people were throwing beads off of balconies (which would have been cool, had you not had to show your boobies to get some) and basically it took us an hour to get halfway down the street. needless to say, i did not get many beads that night, just a few that we managed to catch randomly. i tried to get ernest to flash for beads, but...haha!
yeah, right.
instead we found our way to another bar we really like, bootleggers, (okay, they have blue moon) and had a few drinks there before calling it an early night. will's flight left at 6 the next morning, and we wanted to make sure he didn't miss it!
sunday morning, we woke up late (will had already left, and made it to his flight on time) and i made us breakfast around lunchtime (haha, i just love eggs and could eat them all day. ernest hates that.). we played with riley and ralph a little bit. then we got dressed and drove downtown to go to the bacchus and endymion parades.
riley with some mardi gras beads.
can i just say, that i really don't like big crowds? and we planned very poorly, because by the time we got the parade, there was a huge crowd. HUGE. and there were drunk people everywhere. it kind of put me in a sour mood, which i'm sorry about, but i was also starving, so it was unavoidable! to make up for it, ernest bought me cotton candy (which i devoured, even though it wasn't satisfying my hunger) and he caught me some beads. i feel bad i was kinda mean to him, but in my defense, i warned him.
soooooo many people!!
on monday, ernest, meany that he is, tried to trick me by telling me he didn't feel like going to any parades that day. but he only made me pout for about half an hour before letting me know he was just playing a trick on me. we were a little more prepared for this parade, packing plenty of beer in our ice chest and snacks for later on. we decided to try for the same area we watched the bacchus parade out the year before, which was less crowded, got there about an hour early and found a spot right by the fence, in a perfect area for catching beads. last year, ernest caught one handful of beads, most of which we handed out to the kids around us.
ernest setting up our chairs and cooler.
this year, ernest and dexter caught tons of beads (no seriously, when we got home, i weighed the bag of beads and it was 20 lbs!!), most of which they handed over to me. about halfway through the second parade (both proteus and orpheus were on the same night) i had to tell them to stop putting them on me, and start wearing some themselves! we also caught a few cups and coins, a stuffed animal and a bow and arrow toy. fun! it was definitely a blast, but it would've been so much fun to have a larger group there, like the kids next to us, who must've been in college and came to nola from florida.
dexter seriously caught all those beads at once.
after the parades we went and picked up another of ernest's co-workers and i played designated driver while the guys barhopped near tulane. aside from being crowded and people smoking indoors (ugh, why can't the south catch up to the northeast??) it was a lot of fun, and made me miss my girls and our grand adventures in college. i even danced to some salsa music with both ernest and dexter, and watched the guys try to teach people how to dance "like bernie" (haha). ernest and i got home late, but safe, and after a late-night snack, we were out like lights.
you should know that this was a posed photo.
that i did not drink that beer, because i was DD and had already had my one allotted beer for the night.
and that those were the first of MANY beads ernest caught for me.
and the next day (mardi gras, or fat tuesday) we spent lazing about, watching tv, relaxing, and playing with riley and ralph. it was a good four-day weekend, with time well-spent. although, i don't think i'll be going to another mardi gras anytime soon, i sure i hope i get to enjoy one again one day, when we're older and more of our friends can come!
1 comment:
Kid, you are a gifted writer...you really should try your hand at it.
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