French Quarter high jinks

When most tourists think of New Orleans, they think of the French Quarter, the oldest part of the city. Full of bars, strip clubs, souvenir stores, and old-line Creole restaurants, the place is a magnet for bachelorette parties, spring-break frat boys, gay pride gatherings and vampire enthusiasts. With a liberal attitude toward public drinking, honky tonk music, and taking things to excess, the place is a people-watching Nirvana on a regular day. During Carnival season you can double that.

My trusty steed, Bluebell

Yesterday I biked down to the Quarter to catch a parade called the Krewe of Bosom Buddies and Breast Friends.

Bewbs!

It turned out to be a short parade - one band and maybe fifty marchers. But that doesn't mean it didn't make an impression. Boobs were on display here, as you might expect.

Carnival season brings small, informally organized groups of revelers out on the streets - or above them. I walked under a balcony filled with business-suited white guys, waving their champagne glasses and tossing doubloons to the tourists in the streets.

Tossing doubloons to the populace below

Of course, I scuffled for one myself! It was a Krewe of Hermes doubloon - this must have been a pre-parade party for the big Hermes parade that rolled yesterday evening.

 The bankers march!

Shortly after that, another blue-flashing police scooter stopped traffic on Toulouse Street, and a phalanx of partiers marched down Royal Street. It was the  Fat Bankers' Social Aid and Pleasure Club! Marching in their three piece suits and doling out beads as largess, it was the whitest parade on record! 

Fast behind them, another Krewe, the Crescent City Dames, came by. The Dames all wore corselets that were made from Mardi-Gras beads.

Further down on Royal Street, a brass band was playing to the delight of clapping tourists, but as I biked slowly through the crowd, I noticed sharp-eyed young people wearing walkie-talkies, and then a cart bearing aluminum light stands and reflectors - it was a film crew.

Action!

Of course it was! What's more fantastical than New Orleans during Carnival season? A pretend New Orleans, filmed right on the streets of the French Quarter!