Lundi Gras

Our last shuttle experience and our last visit to the French Quarter of N’Awlins. Also, happy Lundi Gras my peoples. Dad had booked a steamboat jazz ride on the Mississippi, so we headed in that direction as soon as we removed ourselves from the shuttle. We made it over to the dock with plenty of time to spare and we noticed some music coming from a nearby stage so we decided to head over and check it out. It turned out that it was a band playing as part of the Zulu festival, a Lundi Gras festival Dad had read about and had planned on going to after the steamboat dropped us back off. It seemed it was even closer than we originally thought. We watched the band for a bit. They sang a lot of gospel music

and weren’t exactly what you would call the best, but they were still fun to watch. Eventually we wandered back over to the dock to get in the rapidly lengthening line, just to make sure we’d get a table on board. It turned out we needn’t have worried since there was still tonnes of room on the boat. Dad had bought tickets for the buffet lunch and they sat us down to eat as soon as we walked up the gangway. The food was all very southern with a New Orleans touch; beans and

rice, dirty rice, pasta salad and fried catfish, which was my favourite. They had some commentary about the history of the city playing while we were eating and the live jazz band started playing after we had finished eating. The wind was a little chilly but it was enjoyable listening to the music. One things I’ll say about the Mississippi River is it isn’t exactly very pretty. I mean, it’s really big and all, but it’s really dirty and the banks are mostly obscured by the many

transport ships. The ride was about two hours long and it was about 1:10pm by the time we got our feet back on solid ground. We were all still pretty full from lunch so we went back over to the Zulu festival and watched some more bands. Isaac and I got a picture with the

Zulu King, which was pretty cool. There were four stages in the area, one main one, two smaller ones on the edges and one solely for child performers. My favourite performances were at the big stage when they had a little kid sing Want You Back by the Jackson 5, and he sounded just like a young Michael, and when a group of three women sang Dancing In The Street. It was fun to walk around there, but it was a little crowded. Mum and I popped into the outlet mall on the edge for about an hour and

then we walked back through the crowds before heading out. We walked up Royal Street for a while and watched a couple of street performers. One guy was singing Oprah on a bike decorated for Mardi Gras, which I thought was pretty great. Once the end of the day started drawing near, we found a coffee shop near the shuttle stop to sit and relax at while we waited for leaving time. All in all, I must say that our visit to New Orleans has been rather good indeed. Peace out m8s.

#camping #neworleans #louisiana