Day 1 of Mardi Gras

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We woke up at 7 a.m. to hit the streets for shopping cart day with Dylan’s fraternity Zeta Psi.  Our first stop was McDonald’s for breakfast, and our second stop was the fraternity house for the shopping cart.  Basically what happens, is that each big/little/grand little trio (or something similar to it) decorates a shopping cart and fills it with alcohol to walk the five mile parade route.  Dylan is the president of his fraternity, and his little is the president of the student body, so we got to walk with the presidential cart.  I thought that was fun.  There were about 15 of us walking with the cart, including the Miami of Ohio guys, a few Tulane people and a few of the fraternity guys’ girlfriends.  Brendan and I bought shirts that the fraternity was selling that said, “Consumption, junction you won’t function.”  It was a play off of the school house rock videos everyone watched in sixth grade language arts.  I thought it was clever.  The parade of shopping cards started at about 10 a.m. with a humorous prayer and a toast of mimosas.  From there, we were allowed to drink anything in our cart as we were walking.  We eventually got to our first stop and stood front row to catch the beads being thrown for the parade going by.  It was so much fun.  Everyone was pretty friendly, and I definitely got a neck full.  I even managed to trade a vendor a beer for pink, sparkly bunny ears a little later on.  After our first parade stop, we walked at least another mile to get to our second stop where we stayed for the rest of the day.  I caught more beads and made more random friends.  We chatted with the police officers, and I even got a picture on one of their motorcycles.  For lunch, Brendan and I shared a $7 Domino’s personal pan pizza.  At that point, I didn’t even care.  We just had to eat.  At four, we decided enough was enough and thought it would be a good idea to walk back to Dylan’s house.  The walk was significantly longer than I remembered – significantly.  I thought I was going to die.  OK, that’s a little dramatic, but really, it was awful.  I was feeling sick; we hadn’t eaten; and we had barely slept not only the night before but for basically the last week.  We got in a taxi at one point, but the traffic was so bad that we ended up paying the guy $7 to drive us a block in ten minutes.  We obviously decided to walk back after.  When we got back to the house, we went to the bathroom (because, I mean, port-a-potties are fine, butttt), ate a small snack and fell asleep for the next two hours.  When I woke up, I felt so much better.  Everyone got back about a half hour after we woke up, and we just hung out for the night.  Everyone was tired, sunburned, and hungry.  Right now the boys are playing video games, and I am enjoying just relaxing for the first time for what feels like forever.  I’ve forgotten how good it can feel to have nothing to worry about.  Oh, and as a side note, I tried the king cake and voo-doo chips.  The king cake tastes like an extra-glazed donut with sprinkles and chocolate pudding filling, and the voo-doo chips taste like a mix between BBQ and salt and vinegar.  Needless to say, I loved both.