Every single spring break idea we had didn't pan out. No one wanted to shell out the money to leave the country. Even free housing in Maui wasn't enough to convince us to purchase ultra-expensive plane tickets. Then it hit us: when, in the rest of our lives, would we be handed a week off during Mardi Gras? Clearly, New Orleans had to be our spring break destination. Apparently we weren't the only University students who thought so.
Road Trip
Those who joined us on the pilgrimage to New Orleans know that there are only two methods of getting there: mass transportation, ruled out by our pocketbook constraints; or driving, which requires more time than five friends should spend in a car together. Actually, we managed to maintain our friendships, which is an impressive testament to the amusing nature of car games.
Like any good college road trip, ours did not begin well. A potential early departure was foiled by wet underwear. The beginnings of a snowstorm necessitated a 25 mph crawl out of Charlottesville and a route which took us through Atlanta -- not the most efficient route by any means.
But there was more to come. Much like the saying too many cooks spoil the broth, too many drivers create dangerous gas station situations. For example, a confusion as to who is responsible for pumping gas may result in driving away with the gas pump handle still attached to the car.
The pinnacle of our tour of the gas stations of the southeast came, however, in Laurel, Miss., where two employees of Jones Co. Security seized on our obvious status as college students. They inquired as to our destination, then proceeded to tell us the urban legend of the guy who gets separated from his friends and wakes up in a bathtub of ice, missing a kidney. They assured us, however, that their story was not an urban legend but had in fact happened to an unfortunate youth of Laurel. As we smiled politely and tried to drive away, they shouted after us, "Have a good time!"
Arrival
We arrived in the Big Easy deciding that our experiences had made us closer. Little did we know exactly how close fate wanted us to become. And perhaps our college experience wouldn't have been complete without the events of our first night in New Orleans.
As we pulled up to our parking garage, via detailed instructions from our oh-so-helpful hotel, we learned that we lacked one piece of vital information: Parking is not free during Mardi Gras -- even at the hotel where you are staying. For two cars over seven nights, it would have been a whopping $308 had we not paid in cash, which brought us down to $280.
But the Crown Alexa wasn't done with us yet. Rather than keeping a room with two queen beds free for us -- which we naively thought was what happened when you reserved a room with two queen beds -- they had saved us a room with one king bed. That's one king bed for five college students. They were very sorry. In their defense, they did send up a cot.
This made for some interesting sleeping arrangements. We learned two things: two people sleeping in a hotel cot together will cause lifelong back pain in each. And overcompensating with four people in one bed means bad sleep for everyone but the person on the cot. Finally we hit a winning combination of three people in the bed and two people on the cot mattress on the floor.
Mardi Gras
We had heard that Mardi Gras is like a city-wide fraternity party. We were also under the impression that you had to give something up, so to speak, to get beads. The first of these impressions turned out to be truer than the second.
Like a University frat party, plastic cups abound at Mardi Gras. In fact, the city has an ordinance explicitly allowing any beverage to be consumed openly from a plastic container. From what we could tell, this policy did cut down on the amount of broken glass in the street.
But the street also contained a sort of toxic sludge not dissimilar to the standing filth on the floor of many frat houses after a party. We joked about bottling the sludge and selling it as a hair product.
Unlike a University party, however, the majority of the party-goers were not young. And not attractive. Not to be snobs, but the University spoils us in terms of potential random hook-ups. There wasn't a lot of incentive here.
And we got literally hundreds of beads -- with no flashing on the part of any of the female members of our group.
The parades were easily one of the coolest parts of Mardi Gras. The floats were amazing, and the joy of jumping up and down and screaming in order to get free stuff never ended. Not to mention that we saw Aaron Carter, John Lovitz and a number of the cast members from Days of Our Lives. Aaron even took his shirt off.
Of course, no University fraternity party would be complete without running into a bunch of people you know. Mardi Gras was no exception. We saw Carey Mignerey at a restaurant on Jackson Square, only to run into him later deciding between purchasing a pink or a purple polo shirt. There was a girl in a University sweatshirt at the Praline Connection, one of many standard-bearers we saw throughout the trip. We even ran into a few fellow Cav Daily staffers in the thick of Bourbon Street. Not to mention all of the fellow Cavaliers we undoubtedly passed without knowing it.
The police in New Orleans, like police at the University, held a friendly attitude toward party-goers. Mardi Gras night held the most impressive display of police force we saw the whole trip. At exactly midnight, police cars, mounted troopers and police on foot -- as well as a train of garbage trucks -- proceeded down Bourbon Street, clearing the crowds onto the sidewalk and spraying the sludge in some effort at sanitation.
New Orleans
After the parades and partying of the first few days, we took the two days after Mardi Gras to see some of the city outside of the French Quarter. We saw the Garden District, including Anne Rice's house -- after some difficulty with a guide book that apparently decided to label its pictures randomly. We also got to walk around a little at Tulane. Nice campus, but it didn't make us want to transfer to Louisiana.
The last day we took a cemetery tour, easily one of the most interesting ways to learn some of the history of New Orleans. We also got to see a voodoo temple, complete with a voodoo priestess who was apparently high on more than just her spirituality. We went out more mystified than when we went in.
Our last day was also the highlight of a trip that featured some of the best food we've ever eaten. Three things you must do in New Orleans: Order beignets and coffee at Café du Monde, indulge in a bucket of crawfish, somewhere, and eat at one of the many restaurants owned by the Brennan family.
We also ran along the river to buy tickets to the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, only to find that Louisiana's white alligators are not albino -- it's just a recessive gene. It was, however, the first time we'd used our knowledge of Mendel's methods since sixth grade.
After another grueling drive -- the non-Atlanta route this time -- we all made it home, kidneys intact. We probably carted home eighty pounds of beads and untold feathery products. And there's a king cake on our dining table, waiting for someone to find the baby.
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