Megan Singleton: BloggerAtLarge.com writer on her experience with Mardi Gras in New Orleans

BloggerAtLarge writer Megan Singleton has been spending the last few days in New Orleans - and she's made a few memories during the peak of Mardi Gras season.

She's been taking in parades and experiencing the city - full of beads and sequins and marching bands.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks, EDB and Travel.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
We are heading to Marti Gras in New Orleans. Megan
Singleton is with us. Good morning, Good.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Morning, Francesca. Yes, from New Orleans, where it's crazy Mardi
Gras season.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
So what's going on? What's taking place?

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Okay, so they're asking here for three days now, And
what I didn't realize is that Marti Gras runs for
a week and finishes on Tuesday, so they call that
Fat Tuesday. It's all tied up with the Christian calendar,
so it starts twelve days after Christmas, and we lead
up to this whole period before Lent, and on Wednesday,
supposedly Lent starts. So what we've got is this celebration

(00:52):
that started, you know, like years and years and years ago.
So anyway, there's seventy odd parades that are jammed into
these five days, and I'm here to get amongst it.
In fact, I've just gotten myself down off one of
the balconies on Bourbon Street because it was so loud.
I was going to talk to you from there, and
I just thought neither of us would hear each other.

(01:15):
And I've been throwing beads to people down on Bourbon
Street and then I went down and I got beads
thrown at me. So everyone's thressed up to the nines,
sequins for Africa, beads everywhere, and it's not it's quite
family friendly. I mean, I know what everyone's thinking. Oh, yes,
we've heard it all before. But the parades themselves, the
floats and the marching bands all actually goes through the

(01:38):
Garden District and the Uptown area. So we set off
last night and we walked out before the parade started
past all the families and kids are playing football on
the road while they're waiting. The parents have got chairs
that have been lined up all day, and some parents
have built ladders and they've put a box on top
of the kids will sit on there. And it was
just so much fun and everyone is just so excited

(02:00):
to catch the merch that gets thrown off these.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Float Megan, So why are people throwing beads at you?

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Because that's what they do here, right, That is what
Marty gruss about. The beads, the necklaces, and everyone's wearing beads.
Some of them are the size of ball balls like
even like some of them are size of footballs around
your neck or bitter than tennis balls around your neck,
all in plastic, the amount of crap on the ground,

(02:28):
the plastic that's everywhere. But they have these sanitation teams
that come through even picking all the beads off the
trees that are strung there all night and tidy everything
up and on we go again the next day. And
I'm told there's a whole recycling plan which I'm going
to find out about, and I think I'll write about
that for sure, because there's a lot of rubbish.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I was just thinking about our acc they'd begun might
be having a hym over that all those little round
beads that you could stand on and go.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
For fly you absolutely, and you can walk with your
beers these down Bourbon streets. It's all legal to walk
with drinks. So it's yeah, it's totally not friendly.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
So Meghan, you've got all these different parades, as you say,
you can walk around and watch them. Are they all
different or are the same sort of people just doing
the parades in different places.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
No, they're all different and each one has a different cruise.
So k rwe started from oldie worldy English, and I
will be riding on one of the floats on Monday,
your Tuesday. I am on the Orpheus float wearing a
costume that I have to pick up tomorrow and it's
full polyester, so yay for that. And I've got to

(03:40):
wear a mask, never to take it off even when
we end up at the soiree at the end of
the night, and I will be throwing apparently tambourines, not
just there's just toys and cups and everything throw.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
We could have it.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
We could have an international incident here as New Zealanders
throws a tamburine in a child's head or something. Megan, look,
you have got to get someone to video this for us,
so we can we can all take a look at
this next week.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
I shall well. Indeed, I have my husband here who
will act as videographer for you.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Now, are are you able to enjoy so many people,
so much happening? Are you able to still enjoy the
food and everything else that the region has to offer.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
We're just doing the just on the run, you know,
like Dumbo. We actually went to a beautiful restaurant last
night called Commander's Palace and that is famous for turtle soup. Yep,
real turtles, and the guy demonizes the turtle. For me, Tommy,
it's the nasty snapping turtles. They do breed them for
their meat. And I had turtle soup and it was

(04:39):
really It's just I love it. This is my ninth
visit to New Orleans, so but I've never been to
Marti Gras and this is quite something. If you're on
any kind of spectrum, it's difficult and I think I am.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Okay, all right, Meghan, I can't wait to hear more
about this next week. You're going to have to share
a little bit more about it. We'd love to hear
about the float, of course, and I'm sure you've got
a lot more tips about the region as well. Keep
an eye on Meghan's blog. Blogger at dot com shall
be following us in on this trip.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks a B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.