My Mardi Gras Experiment
When I was a sophomore in college, I visited one of my best friends who was in school at Loyola New Orleans. I made sure to time my visit to him during Mardi Gras because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I can't think of worse accomodations I have experienced. They were cheap, because I was just a guest of my friend, but I was in suite-style dorm room of 4 college guys who lived in various states of filth. My friend, Brian, fortunately, had a girlfriend at the time so I got to sleep in his bed and he would stay with her. And he had a fairly clean room. But the common areas were...not great. What follows are bullet points I wrote down during the trip and I will try to piece together memories and stories from these bullet points and expand on them as I'm able to, decades later. Day 1 I arrive in New Orleans and take a cab from the airport. We all meet at Brian's dorm and hang out for a bit. Two other girls who we knew from high school were also com