Winter trip 2014: Day 2 in NOLA & Mardi Gras: Krew of Alla

Freaky Fast Delivery - Free Smells

Date: 23.2.2014

Today started with rain, last night there were big thunderstorms and our apartment got really cold. Unfortunately there wasn't enough blankets and Timo didn't want one when we went to bed, so he ended up sleeping with a sheet and with a hoodie, while stnz hoarded all the thick blanket they had. I don't know why he didn't wake stnz up and took some of the blanket, but it was an amusing site in the morning when one looked like frozen burrito and another looked like he had hoarded all the blanket in the other side of their bed.

It was time to go somewhere and find breakfast, and we headed to the street where the party was yesterday, because we remembered there was a cafe serving breakfast until 3 pm :D. The food there was awesome and from basic ingredients (which start to feel like rarity in this country of processed food) so it lasted us the whole day.

The not-so-alive people

mmmh, sweet elixir of life

You should hire Topher, he takes care of trees.

Real Skunk-skin bag

My pretty awesome breakfast: turkey bacon omelette (with spinach), grit and toast

Our car and the mess left after yesterdays party

Because of the rain, we first started the day by crossing The Causeway. It's a 38,5 km long bridge, the longest bridge over water in the world, crossing the Lake Pontchartrain which is 1600km2 in size, but average depth is roughly only 3,5 meters.

Bird next to a gated community, getting his lunch, don't know what bird it is though and it annoys me.

Stnz in a Teavana, shop exclusively for tea. He found a tea blend he has been loving and saying he loves it every day he drinks it. I'm glad I spotted the store for him while walking by.

This whole neighborhood was being demolished, it was a really big area next to the old cemetary, I really wanted to go there and check it out but the warning signs of guard dogs were enough to keep me out :D

Yay a parade

Mardi Gras: Krewe of Alla

After an unsuccessful trip to a local mall to find a prepaid sim-card with mobile data, we decided to return back home. Fortunately the guys were lost again in the city and we stumbled upon the Mardi Gras parade, which we were sure we missed. They were running late because of the rain, for our luck.

We found ourselves a parking place as a stroke of luck and got ourselves to a waiting place of the parade, so we had time to take some photos, even though the participants weren't putting on their best performance. In a way, it was nice because I had the chance to talk with the parade people. Many times I was asked where the pictures were going, and once again I remembered why it would be good to carry around a business card, with my website and Flickr account..

We had the chance to take photos for like an half hour before it started pouring rain again.Fortunately I had two rain sleeves with me for a camera, so me and Halen could photograph in light rain.

This guy asked me over and handed me a crown head piece - and asked me to wear it through the Mardi Gras. Thanks, sir :)

If you ever wondered what the beads are for, some say they have no meaning, but some sites give the different colors a different meaning. All in all - they are there to remind you to have FUN. The krewes also throw toys and other stuff which you can collect, and the crowd should make themselves seen to get those collectibles instead of the beads.

I got like 30+ beads, and had to start to decline more, because my neck started to hurt because all of the weight. It's a bummer that I couldn't get all of them with me to bring back home, but I tried to collect all the colors into my suitcase :).

We had to leave the parade early because we were just uncomfortably wet because of the best shower of the trip, rain, so we packed ourselves into the car, happy.

Sunset and Bywater

The day changed to 24th in Finland and I was starting to get some birthday wishes, it was really heartwarming :).

We got dry clothes on and continued on foot to do some neighborhood sightseeing and visiting a nearby market. Stnz took his time again getting ready so Halen and I decided to use the time and go outside already, because the sun wouldn't wait for stnz. On the street we saw some guy who told us that the views from the nearby bridge were awesome and we should go and check them out. One thing I love this part of the city was that the people said hey to everyone passing by, and started to talk with each other "just because".

The bridge across the railroad tracks was pretty beautiful, it led to a park next to the Mississippi river. For our bad luck, the park was still closed (it was supposed to be opened in "Winter 2014") and there was a huge steel gate in the middle of the bridge. I started my 30th year of living by breaking the law and climbing over the gate :D. Unfortunately, there was a park security personnel right in front of the bridge so we couldn't go down in the park. There was several other people with the same problem, so we ended up admiring the view from the bridge.

The whole Mississippi river was covered with thick mist, it was really odd looking sight. It would've been fun to see it more closely by, but the closed park took the whole water front. And the officer didn't move away.

There were some graffiti around, and they were pretty beautiful and styled in a different way. I always love to photograph beautiful graffiti just to show that they aren't all ugly and spoiling the view. Here they were somewhat surrealistic.

We spotted a local iron workshop which had a long miniature railroad track at the yard. By looking at the buildings, this city is a great place to be an iron worker - I truly loved the steel railings and other metal work all around the city, new and old. I'm pretty bummed that same kind of stuff isn't seen in Finland.

There were still some visible x-code spray paintings from Katina (2005), most of them original which weren't painted over, but this one was made of steel. The X-code is drawn in partitions: first comes one line when the search and rescue crew was inside, then the second one when they got out (X), and after that they filled the information: top quadrant - date, left quadrant - crew visited, right quadrant - hazards, bottom quadrant - injured or bodies inside.

We also found a house which had two cherry trees on it's yard, and the flowers were just starting to bloom. This was a huge luck, because they bloom only for a short period of time - so I consider this my one and only birthday present - I've always wanted to see a blooming cherry tree <3

When we crossed one of the bigger streets so we could get to a local store, we clearly entered into a neighborhood (St. Claude) which wasn't filled with young, laid back people. First car shop had a sign which started: "We don't sell the Cat, we don't sell Crack" so I knew enough to put my camera away.

The store didn't have any fresh food, only some canned / processed stuff. Everywhere was notices with printed images of people who had shoplifted. While at register there was a broadcast reminding people that there were security on ground and asked if the cashier was all right, which the cashier replied yes, and they reminded again about the security on site. Such Fun.