Mardi Gras Madness

Back from the Bayou, we continued our exploration of New Orleans. First up was lunch - our stomachs (or at least mine) were grumbling by now. We decided to go to the Central Grocery, an Italian grocery store/sandwich shop down by the famous French Market.

The reason to come here - the famous Muffaletta. The muffaletta is basicallya sandwich made in foccacia-like bread, filled with a whole bunch of delicious ingredients: marinated olives, mozzarella, provolone, salami, mortadella and ham. The sandwich was, in a word, delicious! And the shop itself is just how you would imagine an Italian grocery store from the 60's. Loved it!

While we were at it, we decided to check out the French Market. It's a place steeped in history, as this is the oldest market place in the US of A. It started as a native American trading post, before the Europeans came over - and it used to be the only place where meat could be bought in the French Quarter. Unfortunately, it's developed into a complete tourist trap which mostly sells trinkets for tourists. A bit of shame...

Next, it was time to try another New Orleans culinary speciality, a beignet. So what better place to have that, than at the New Orleans famous beignets & coffee ? The most famous place to have it is Cafe du Monde, but the queues were just ridiculous, so we gave that a miss. And the beignets (which are kind of like munkkis in Finland) were excellent, and quite easy on the wallet as well.

We spent the rest of the afternoon soaking up the Mardi Gras atmosphere - one could tell that people were getting ready for the real party, which was tomorrow. We of course checked out Bouron Street - THE famous party street in the French Quarter. It was very busy indeed - filled with people in various degrees of intoxication and undress (the two phenomenon go hand in hand, I do believe!). What's kind of funny is that in addition to all the crazy party-goers in Bourbon street, there are a fair amount of religious loonies too!

Having done Bourbon Street, we decided to head over to THE other famous street in New Orleans, Frenchman Street, located in nearby Faubourg Marigny. As I'm sure you are aware, dear reader, New Orleans is famous for its Jazz music. And Frenchman Street is THE place to hear live music at, including jazz. We went into one of the most famous ones, the Spotted Cat, and there was indeed a band on. We spent a couple of hours there, chilling out, and trying some of the American craft beers that I'm growing rather fond of (I'm happy to report that there is much more to American beer than Budweiser and Miller lite!).

We had dinner at the Camellia Grill, a kind of classic American diner-type place. The atmosphere was very lively, and the service was very friendly. I had fried catfish with fries (another New Orleans speciality), but was a bit disappointed, I have to admit. Kind of like your average fish and chips, except that the fries/chips were not all that great.

The next day, it was time for the big party then! We got off to an early start, heading off towards the French Quarter, stopping by on Frenchman Street for  breakfast. We could tell people were already in the mood for a party right from the start - loads of people already drinking in the streets, dressed up as everything imaginable (video games characters, cops, prisoners, monsters, nurses, you name it...).

We started off by checking out the mad action in the French Quarter. It was pretty crazy, already at 10 AM in the morning (especially, of course, Bourbon street!). We decided to start by checking out the parades, so crossed Canal street, and made our way to Downtown. It was actually pretty hard to get a spot from where to see the parades, as there were just so many people! But we eventually found a spot.

It was kind of the same as on Saturday, fancily decorated carts, with people throwing bead collars, plastic mugs, and loads of other goodies at people down in the streets. There were street bands. There were strippers. And a few cops trying to maintain order (and preventing people from crossing the street - which was a bit of a problem for us a couple of times when we wanted to get from one point to another in the street!). The highlight for a Finn like me was, of course, the Angry Birds cart!

It was actually pretty hard to find a place to eat, as most places were either shut down or insanely busy due to it being Mardi Gras. But a bit off the beaten track, we were able to find a BBQ joint, where we grabbed a bite to eat, before joining the fray again. We decided to head overt to the French Quarter (which wasn't easy, considering we were in Downtown, which meant we had to cross the parade to get there!). I managed to buy myself a Huge Ass Beer (which is so much better than a Big Ass Beer, which is what they sell in most bars) in a bar off Bourbon Street (it cost me 20 bucks, but at least I got a really cool "Huge Ass Beer" glass as a souvenir!).

We headed over to check out the Mississippi river (seeing somebody nearly get cut in two as he crawled under a train that started to move), it looked rather beautiful in the early-evening light. We then headed back to the madness of the French Quarter - especially Bourbon street resembled a happy mad asylum by now with people partying in the street, on the balconies, all over the place.

We headed over for dinner to a seafood restaurant in a slightly quieter part of the French quarter. I tried oysters, another New Orleans speciality. It was pretty good - but not maybe quite as good as what I've had in France.

After dinner, we had strolled around the French Quarter for a bit more, enjoying that unique Mardi Gras atmosphere, before heading back to the flat. The next day it was time to say good bye to New Orleans, and continue our adventures! All in all, New Orleans was a real revelation. Of course I'd read and heard about what a cool place it is, but the place still exceeded our expectations. We initially hesitated about whether going on Mardi Gras is a good idea (as prices for accommodation shoots through the roof) - and I can confirm that the hesitation was needless!