Mardi Gras: Yesterday and Today

Translated from French to English, Mardi Gras means “Fat Tuesday”. It is the final day for Catholics to celebrate and let it all hang out before Ash Wednesday when fasting begins for Lent. In New Orleans Mardi Gras is a tradition of celebration and festival ending on the midnight before Ash Wednesday.

During the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebrations there are parades, parties, and raucious fun on Bourbon Street. The streets are filled with revelers and millions of visitors come from all over the world each year to celebrate with the locals. The rowdy crowds can sometimes get close to the edge of all out mayhem but crowd control is a particular specialty for the New Orleans police department.

The Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans has a long tradition of parades, masked balls, and open air parties in the French Quarter. Marching bands, colorful floats and local citizens participate in the famous Fat Tuesday parade that kicks off the week long party. Jazz music fills the streets and century old bars along Bourbon Street and the surrounding blocks. If you happen to get yourself into a jam with the local police for public intoxication or urinating in public (they Really frown on this), you will find yourself cleaning the streets after Mardi Gras is over along with the other misdemeanor jailbirds, as is the tradition there. While pubic intoxication is generally ignored for Mardi Gras week, fighting, stealing, and public nudity are not tolerated by the police there, and do not ever, ever, shove or resist an officer there, you will regret it.

Mardi Gras since Hurricane Katrina has brought this resilient city together each year and proves you just can’t keep a great city and people down. What makes this year very special is that the New Orleans Saints NFL football team has won the Super Bowl. As a nation we cried in sadness as Katrina devastated New Orleans and surrounding areas, at the end of the Super Bowl we cheered and cried for joy as we knew this heartbroken city needed a break. Hopefully this will be the catalyst for the Crescent City to get the help in rebuilding that has been slow to come .

Mardi Gras in New Orleans has been a happening for hundreds of years and will continue to be a rich tradition for many more to come. For one week out of the year this is the place to forget your troubles and let it all hang out!