Halloween on Bourbon Street

Exhausted after putting together a huge event for my job, my partner and I decided to get away and have some fun in the Big Easy. By coincidence, it was Halloween weekend, so our trip would be capped by a big costume party on Bourbon Street. I had been to New Orleans before--it was the starting point of a cruise I took with my friend Diane--but Jerry had never been. It really is a unique city in the US. Very relaxed and casual. These people have a party at the drop of a hat. In addition to the bacchanal known as Mardi Gras, they have parades on St. Patrick's Day and then so the Italians don't feel left out, another one a week later on St. Anthony's day.

I bought a Superman costume in New York before leaving (I had a layover in the Memphis airport which looks like a bus station). We had a wonderful time, had dinner at some great restuarants (Arnaud's, Pauline's, the Gumbo Factory), listened to jazz at the Maison Bourbon, took a walking tour of the Garden District, a bus tour of the whole city including the Ninth Ward still dealing with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, walked around the French Quarter, visited the Confederate Musuem, and dressed up for Halloween. I had my Superman outfit, complete with muscles. We bought a funny hat for Jerry which he wore with a mask and a feather boa--he was a sort of a generic Mardi Gras person. We ran into lots of costumed revellers on Bourbon Street including a group of superheroes consisting of Captain America, Batman and Robin. The photo above is of our meeting plus one non-costumed partygoer. One man was dressed as a priest with a doll of a young boy strapped to his groin. He was a big hit. There were Halloweeners as beer bottles, traffic lights, Sumo wrestlers, Jesus Christ, and lobsters.

The whole city was beautiful and fun, smelling like sweet blossoms and beer. Wonderful food of which I probably ate too much. The famous cemetries were interesting. They bury whole families in one crypt, above ground. When a new body needs to go into, they just sweep the remains of the old one to the back of the crypt. This saves lots of space. Our guide also told lots of fascinating stories including one about Edgar Degas and his brother--who lived in the city. The brother left his blind wife for the younger woman who was hired to read to her. "You can't make up a story like that for Days of Our Lives," the guide laughed.