it sounds ridiculous to the outside world. how could i not want to be out and about during mardi gras? but if you ask any number of local new orleanians…you’ll find similar answers. sure there are the die hards who love it…but there are the rest of us who endure it.
this year it is frustrating because i have a good friend in town celebrating her birthday. we had plans to meet up but fat tuesday is not a day to do that. i turned on the tv before i was supposed to venture out and two things happened…1. the place we were supposed to go was closed and 2. i saw the chaos down town.
it seems strange to any business person that restaurants would actually close for mardi gras. this year is a smaller one but even so 700,000+ people who want to eat who need to eat – are all converged on a few square miles. but for some businesses like some people it just isn’t worth the hassle.
the other side of it is purely logistics. trying to navigate into the city is almost impossible. people set up camp days in advance to insure a good spot. and those that wander in just in time are forced to push against throngs of people.
so what you have in new orleans right now is too many people – half or more of them drunk, the good restaurants are closed, and the necessary streets have been blocked off…yeah…i’m going to get groceries and then i’m gonna stay put because this is not my kind of chaos.
Tags: neworleans