mardi gras!

This post has taken a while to write – especially since I've been giving the blog a mini make-over instead of typing posts :)

Anyway, Mardi Gras was last Tuesday the 16th. It was also the day after President's Day, so Jon had the Monday AND Tuesday off work. Gotta love long weekends and three day weeks. On Saturday, we went to the Spanish Town parade in downtown BR. It was great to see so many people around, having a good time. There have been a couple of times we've gone in to the city and seen hardly anyone else around. On this day though, the streets were lined with happy people! We found lunch soon after we got in, then spent a while walking through parts of the parade route. The parade was fun, with lots of floats and bead-catching.

(I actually weighed our beads the other day, and we caught about 2kg each! Pretty heavy weight around your neck, I can tell you!)

We decided we'd head over to New Orleans on the Sunday too. We were a little worried about how crowded and crazy it might be, but thought we really couldn't not go. And we were so glad we did. The atmosphere was great. It was like a massive street party, with people drinking, BBQing, cheering, celebrating. There were lots of people around, but we still had plenty of room to move. We ended up walking along a large section of the parade route, and on our way back, ran into a friend (and New Orleans native) from Jon's work. We spent the evening in their tent (more like a marquee though, in case you get confused) watching the Krewe of Bacchus parade. The floats were much more elaborate than the ones in BR (some of which were trailers with a portaloo in the middle!). Each of the floats had themes, and all the people on them wore costumes and masks. There was also music, from marching bands. And plenty of beads, again! Such a fun day!

There are more photos on Flickr too.

lovely snow

We were getting special winter storm reports on TV last night. Nothing exciting happened though, it was just COLD! More wintery weather was reported this morning. They predicted a cold day, and a chance of snow. Unlikely, I thought, but I peeked through the closed blinds and saw beautiful, light snow! Twice in one winter – may be a first for this place!

who dat!

Last night the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts to win the Super Bowl! We watched the game at a friend's house, with a few other friends from Jon's work. The Saints didn't get off to a great start, but the game got pretty exciting in the second half, with the Saints coming from behind (10-6), to win 31-17.

I must say, I'm not really into sports. I don't know American football very well either, having never seen a game until college football started last September. Football is huge here though, and for the Saints to win – it's a pretty big deal.
So, I'm excited to be here for their win, and excited for New Orleans and all the Saints supporters. It's also Mardi Gras season here, so I'm pretty sure New Orleans will be partying like crazy! Speaking of which, these are some fun photos I found of people celebrating the Saints' win in the French Quarter:

(All photos are from the Times-Picayune – NOLA.com)

If you are interested, you can read more about the game on the NFL website.
Go Saints!

sounds of louisiana

I came across this clip as a featured video on Youtube:

I looked around for some more Cajun and Zydeco clips. Found a couple of old ones, including this, of Buckwheat Zydeco (who won the grammy)...

... and this one of Dewey Balfa and his nephew, Todd Balfa, on the fiddlesticks (!)

It's been raining all day here, and I've been watching water run down the walls in our living room. It's actually starting to drip from the ceiling on to the carpet now. Let's hope the wall doesn't collapse or anything. Anyway, I'm going to put some cups on the floor to catch the drips, and bake some of these...