Over the previous two days, we put on many miles. We walked by the Mississippi and watched the ships come and go. Lunch was sometimes missed because we ate a late breakfast. Dinner was always at a different place. Art and culture were everywhere. Painters, sculptors, jewelers and textile artists sell their wares on the sidewalks near St Louis Cathedral every day. Horse drawn carriages pulled by mules wait for lovers and sightseers along Decatur. Mules are used because of the heat and humidity, an apparently all to common occurrence during the late spring, summer and even early autumn.
During the mule drawn carriage ride we took ( doesn’t have the same ring, does it? ) we were told of the history of the city, why street signs are in three languages, French, Spanish and English. We rode by such things as the self proclaimed “oldest bar” in the United States and a wrought iron fence fashioned as corn stalks. We found out Rue Royale is closed to vehicles during the day so the street performers can draw crowds in safety while Rue Bourbon is closed in the evening because of the party goes who throng there. Most never leave the quarter sober and it appears to be some kind of badge of honor to get completely inebriated and not remember a thing about your visit. What I saw was a Bourbon Street with countless massage parlors, adult shops and tiny little hole in the wall bars.
Yes, New Orleans is a city of excesses. People eat, drink and enjoy music to excess. They live, love and laugh to excess and when the time comes, they throw a party like no one else in the states. Carnival season starts on January 6th, the official end of the Christmas holiday. It runs through Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, the Christian beginning of Lent. Most years, this time frame covers roughly 56 days. The carriage driver suggested that after 56 days of parades and parties with the grand daddy of them all on Mardi Gras, most people of New Orleans have a reason to take Lent seriously.
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