Late start today on Lundi Gras, as we had a big day ahead of us and a big Mardi Gras tomorrow. We had tried to go to Juan’s Flying Burrito last night but had just missed it – so the first thing we did today was head back to the creole taqueria for some crazy fusion mexican food. Last night I had thought it would be a hilarious joke to call my friend Juan (in Australia) and yell at him for his flying burrito shop being closed. He was at work at the time, and found my ridiculous tirade hysterical – so I may have had to buy him a Juan’s Flying Burrito shirt as a souvenir (yes, Juan, it is coming your way!).
I ordered the El Pastor Burrito, with slow cooked shredded pork, pineapple, sour cream, pickled jalapenos, cilantro, pinto beans and yellow rice. They also have quesadillas with blue cheese and bacon, or goat cheese and adobo chicken.
We wandered Magazine st for a while, stopping in at a few stores and checking out all the Mardi Gras paraphernalia.
We stumbled across the most amazing donut store EVER, District Donut. I saw their list of amazing flavours and headed in for a Vietnamese Iced Coffee donut, filled with cream and sago pearls. It was literally the best donut I have ever eaten.
Anthony was pretty excited about the donut.
The also sell croquenuts, which are croque monsieurs made on a griddled donut.
We came across a pub with a beer handle fountain. They also had a pretty cool bike parking sign.
We walked the streets a bit more, heading back towards St Charles for the evening parades. On the way we checked out some of the gorgeous southern houses here in the Lower Garden District.
A couple of people came around to meet up and head down to the parades – as Anthony is right on the parade route it seems his house has become the meeting point (and bathroom, and warming place, and beer storage place…) for Mardi Gras. One of Anthony’s friends had decorated her bike Mardi Gras-style.
We went down the the Protheus and the Orpheus Parades, and managed to get right up the front. The best part of the first parade was when Edward dropped my light up sword, that I had been so happy to catch on my first night here, and it shattered into pieces. Everyone looked at him in shock, I screamed ‘Noooooo!!!’ and just then another parade float came past and a light up sword flew straight towards Edward’s hand.
We heard fairly early in the first parade that Quentin Tarantino was heading up the second parade, and that they were throwing out Quentin cups with his face on it. We all discussed how we would kick each other in the knee caps, punch each other in the jaw etc… whatever it took to get a Quentin cup.
As his float arrived, I ran up close. He was tossing beads out, looked me in the eye and tossed a strand of beads straight to me!
We all made out pretty well – the weather had gotten significantly colder today, so there were less people to fight against in the crowds.
After the parade it was time to go home and sort out our beads – Anthony had managed to get onto a float in Rex, the oldest Krewe in the city and one of the best known parades of Mardi Gras. We all donated our beads for him to re-throw, and we ended up with A LOT!
Bed time – up at 6:30AM tomorrow for the big day.