Spent the weekend with Jenee exploring her new city with her and had such a freak'n awesome time that I contemplated on driving back for Mardi Gras. Wasn't too sure about the weather though since it had been raining there. Crappy weather could kill any good event and I wasn't about to waste my time and long drive on a bum party. Anyway, come 3pm, Jen left a message on my celly letting me know that the weather had changed and that it was beautiful out - perfect for a Mardi Gras celebration. 4pm rolls around and I left work, went home, took a quick shower, packed up, and was back on the road by 5pm. Was concerned that traffic would be a pisser, but just hoped for the best. Surprisingly enough, like the weather, the traffic had cooperated. Took me only an hour 20 to get to her pad in Hillcrest. Sweet!
We hung out at her apt for a few hours and did our girly thang. Had called up Ray, also a recent transplant to the city and had invited him to join us. He was game, so that was cool. He'd just meet us there. We got to downtown at around 8:30pm. Getting there later then we had anticipated, the next challenge was to find parking, i.e., available disabled parking for Jen. Luckily, we immediately found a lot not too far from the entrance. Woohoo! Funny thing though, but as we were driving around, a radio station van pulled up next to us during a red light. The guy inside yells out, "Hey, you ladies want some beads and CD's?" "Yeah man, hook it up," we said - can't say no to freebies. Then he goes, "Wanna be on the air?" Before I could say anything, Jen agreed. So they followed us into the parking lot, which by the way we got for free, saving $20 bones. Woohoo again!
The hip hop station briefly interviewed us and gave us the opp for shout outs. It was so quick that I didn't even know what to say and ended up shouting out the lamest things ever (and I wasn't even drinking yet), "Fatimah in the house from L.A..." I'd tell ya the rest, but it's embarrassing. Anyway, after that was all done with, the next thing was to meet up with Ray and get our tickets. Lost in all the commotion and waiting for Ray, some guy comes up to Jen and I. He showed off his beads and offered to give us some in exchange to see our tatas. Um, no thanks buddy. You can keep your beads. By the looks on our faces, he knew we weren't up for it, but gave us some anyway.
So we finally joined up with Ray and purchased our tickets. Man, it was "nuts to butts" as my buddy Mike (a San Diego native) likes to say. It was a madhouse and difficult to maneuver around given the thousands of bodies there. From what I read, the number of expected partiers was about 50,000 peeps. Now that's a lot. Regardless, I was just stoked to be there. However, I was damn hungry. Yup, I needed me some food - hadn't eaten since noon and Ray was hungry too. After pushing our way through the crowds, we just settled on TGIF. Can you believe there was a cover for grub? Anyway, between Mr. Taco (photo below) and the puking boobies-hanging-over-her-blouse girl (sorry, no photo below), TGIF covered a good cross-section of the SD Mardi Gras scene. It was nuts.
After dinner, we hit the streets again and walked around. We danced a lil bit, had a few drinks, and people-watched. While Ray was looking for a john, a nice gentleman from the organic meat industry approached us for a brief chat. One guy was so impressed by Jen that he even gave her a dope bead (see Jen's picture below). All in all, I had a great time and was glad to have experienced Mardi Gras for the first time. Yup, it's my first Mardi Gras ever. Can you believe that?! I had always wanted to go to New Orleans for this event, but never got a chance to. Was satisfied with SD's version though, which is probably much more tame. Looking forward to next year's.
*Please note, no boobs were ever shown for the acquisition of beads, just ask Ray. The guys were pretty respectful, which was good. For all you single gals, just letting you know that the ratio of boys to girls was something like 3 to 1. |
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