We did a little of both.
My first stop of the day was to have lunch with my wonderful friend, Sharon, at our favorite Restaurant, the Bon Ton Café. They have the BEST salad (ironically) called Debbie’s Salad and the best Bread Pudding, eva! It was great to catch up and see Sharon. She is one of the sweetest, loving people I know. She also gave me this wonderful coffee cup for my birthday:
I LOVE IT! Thank you so much, Sharon, for the wonderful gift, wonderful food, and wonderful friendship we share!
After saying my hello’s to several of my friends at my former job, Ray and I headed to celebrate Lundi Gras.
Lundi Gras is "Fat Monday," the day before Mardi Gras "Fat Tuesday." Over the last twenty years, the celebration of Lundi Gras has blossomed. There is live music in the afternoon, several parades that evening and a spectacular fireworks display on the river at night. The party starts at 3pm along the Mississippi River with music until 6:30. There's a fireworks show, and two of the best parades roll on Lundi Gras: Proteus and Orpheus.
One of the artists who’s a regular during the Lundi Gras festivities is Charmaine Neville.
We also enjoyed one of our favorites: Big Al Carson.
He has a wonderful soulful voice. He’s a regular at The Funky Pirate on Bourbon Street.
I enjoyed some of the Mardi Gras hats being displayed:
At 6 p.m. Rex, the king of Carnival arrives on the river by boat and meets with the King of Zulu. They are greeted by the Mayor. It now becomes official that Rex rules over New Orleans for the next day. It's quite a ceremony if you've never seen it, it's worth a view.
We walked over to St. Charles Street to catch the parades of Proteus and Orpheus.
When the parades were almost over (we did not stay the entire time) we strolled over to Bourbon to watch the madness. Oh, and to catch some beads – respectfully, of course!
After the beads were getting slightly heavy, we decided we’d had enough of Bourbon. There was a club we used to frequent when we lived in New Orleans on Frenchman Street called Club d b a. Frenchman Street is the place to go to get away from the Bourbon Street madness. It’s more of a relaxed Lundi Gras atmosphere and we truly enjoy it.
On the way back to the Hotel, we spotted a Brass Band playing in the middle of Frenchman Street. Sounded GREAT!
Earlier in the day, Ray and I were looking through some items at the French Market off Decatur Street and found some awesome, scary masks. We bought them and were the hit with the people on Bourbon. We had more pictures taken with the tourists on Bourbon than ever before. Here’s what we bought.
LOL – I swear I look like Joan Rivers. So did a few others . . .
Mardi Gras morning brings 2 of the largest parades - Zulu and Rex. I love Zulu, Rex is good too, but today we just stayed for most of Zulu.
But first, here are some of the “pre-parade” folks. There are some extremely interesting people AND costumes to come out on Mardi Gras day!
A few of the Zulu Parade . . .
Zulu started on time, but ended up at our location rather late. After 2 hours of waiting and watching the parade trickle along, Ray and I bailed out early and went over to Bourbon Street to check out the costumes. If you’re a tourist – this is the place to go during the day. Between Bourbon Street down to Decatur Street, you’ll find some amazing costumes. Later in the day and into the evening, well, you’re on your own. Ray and I don’t hang around into the night time on Mardi Gras. It’s just downright crazy. Here are some costumes we found in the French Quarter.
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We see this guy every year – and Ray grabs a picture with him every year.
Back to the costumes . . . Warning – image overload. But you gotta love ‘em!
Ok, whew. Enough!
At the end of the day, the rain started coming down and we headed over to the Brewery to have a beer and some oysters. Well, Ray had the oysters. I didn’t. Yuck.
It was a fantastic birthday weekend. And . . . . .
2 comments:
Looks like you both had a fantastic time....Great looking costumes too.
Did you see Gabby?
We did - it was fun! We did not see Gabby. I don't think I've ever seen her during Mardi Gras. We used to see her during French Quarter Festival, which is third weekend of April. We won't be going this year.
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