Admittedly the last couple of days had been rather tame by my usual travelling standards but New Orleans was about to go one step closer to the kind of experience I had travelled across the globe for. We were fortunate enough to arrive in New Orleans during the 2 weeks of the year that have a very famous street party - Mardi Gras! Now my memory of these 2 days is somewhat impaired largely due to 2 very tasty (and very strong) cocktails, one was called a ‘Grenade’ and the other (refreshingly un PC) ‘Hurricane’. They were so cheap and so easy to get that I rarely had one out of my hand the whole time we were there.

Mardi Gras is as I said just one big street party throughout the city and where we stayed was right next to a large collection of bars so imagine if you can what its like to walk through the streets surrounded by hundreds of people everywhere you go just filling every bar and every balcony and flooding over into the streets, all having the time of their life. Fantastic!

Mardi Gras has a tradition with beads, the idea being that you’re supposed to collect as many as you can and the way you collect them is to flash your top, this is actually encouraged by the women so again imagine that street, those balconies, full to capacity with women everywhere flashing their chests everywhere you look and having beads hurled around like your playing pass the parcel and its gonna explode! I’ve never seen anything like it! Oh there was also a float parade and I found the weird wishing machine that made Tom Hanks so famously BIG.

New Orleans - www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=180893&l=a4027&id=699720654