Experiencing Mardi Gras 2016

Blake Gomez, Writer

Beads that landed on the Street signs during the parade.
Beads that landed on the Street signs during the parade.

 

Last weekend, the city of New Orleans began to prepare their yearly annual celebration of Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday which reflects the practice of eating foods rich with fat before Ash Wednesday, a day dedicated to fasting. The food that is normally associated with this holiday is King Cake. As someone who hasn’t experienced Mardi Gras since I was a very young boy living in New Orleans, I was very excited to go see it this year. Not surprisingly it didn’t disappoint at all. It was the most fun experience that I’ve had in my life in a long while.

There would be plenty of people set up with tents and chairs waiting for the parades to begin. There were also concession stands that would roll on by and had plenty of delicious sugary treats to enjoy. Some examples are candy apples, caramel popcorn, and cotton candy. The parades would start off with marching bands and cheerleaders of several different schools walking by and then floats with all kinds of different themes and decorations would be right behind them. The people on the floats threw a variety of presents at us such as beads. bracelets, toys, Mardi Gras cups and even plush dolls. Everyone in the crowd would scream and wave their hands in the air to try and get their attention. Even I was able to catch some things!

However, the true majesty of Mardi Gras came into play with the night parades. This was when the city of New Orleans truly became alive. Lights would shine everywhere and floats would glow with a stunning array of colors. They would be so bright to where they would illuminate the streets of New Orleans with dazzling colors of light. Floats would also be even bigger and better than in the day parades stretching across as far as the eye can see.  These parades would last really late until around midnight where once they ended everything would quiet down and everyone would go their separate ways.

Overall Mardi Gras is something that is extremely fun to attend. With the music, atmosphere, and the excited cheers from people it was something that kind of changed my life. This is mainly because I was experiencing something from my culture, something from the past that I’ve forgotten all these years so seeing it again in person was really special to me. I loved it and going to it with my family was even better since they were able to relive memories of their time in New Orleans again before Hurricane Katrina.