Grab your beads and order up a Hurricane – SMU is headed to New Orleans!
New Orleans is an enchanting city full of booze, live music and no inhibitions year-round. But every year Mardi Gras draws over a million people for the weekend to celebrate the New Orleans Carnival Season. Mardi Gras, which is French for “Fat Tuesday”, culminates in, what some may see as, a final chance to let all the sin out before the beginning of the Catholic season of Lent. Come the following Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, many Christians will begin 6 weeks of faithful fasting of the sort.
Bourbon Street is the perfect place for people watching. Brace yourself for some seriously disturbing, yet intriguing displays of human nature. Famous concoctions like Jesters and Hurricanes help the po-boys go down. Make sure to catch a parade or two and, if you can, make your way up to one of the balcony parties that line Bourbon Street. Life is always better boozin’ from a balcony and liberally tossing beads at the lucky few below.
An intense police presence but last of rules makes you wonder what kind of civilized American city consciously decides to abandon open container laws? The kind of city that attracts only the most committed party animals.
Mardi Gras is something that everyone should experienced at least once. But if you do venture in “The Big Easy”, make sure to write important phone numbers on your forearm (if lost please call…), wear clothing you don’t mind being dosed in strange colored drinks and know your limits. Not everyone survives New Orleans, so don’t be that friend puking in the streets before noon.