Yes, King Cake is a Catholic thing, although we are not Catholic or any other religion, we celebrate because we lived in Louisiana and Sarah’s ancestors are Catholic and Jewish. You should see our house during the winter holidays, we move from one celebration to another.
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Mardi Gras is BIG in Louisiana. Our school closed down for the week. A lot of locals go on vacation during Mardi Gras. We had a lot of Louisianan folks on our cruise.
The link below takes you to the Mardi Gras celebration that was sponsored by our tiny town. The population when we lived there was about 1200 people.
http://iotamardigras.com/main.html
Where we lived in Southwest Louisiana (Cajun country), they celebrate Mardi Gras differently from New Orleans or Baton Rouge, no parades with big floats and no beads are thrown. They celebrate a country style Mardi Gras that comes from the medieval fête de la quémande, a sort of ceremonial begging tradition where the revelers go around the countryside offering a performance (sing and dance) in exchange for gifts (items to use in making a gumbo). The revelers are mischief makers who are dressed in costumes like clowns. There is a Capitaine who carries a cloth whip to keep the mischief makers in check. Actually, this is all well planned in advance setting up whose houses are to be visited and what gifts will be given, what behaviors are allowed and what is not allowed. It is considered an honor to be invited to join the Mardi Gras revelers. Some of the revelers ride horses and the rest ride on the bed of a large truck/trailer. Those that are old enough enjoy a bit of drink during the day and by the time they arrive downtown after collecting all the gifts, they are often quite happy. After collecting the ingredients for the gumbo, the revelers and everyone else gathers downtown for a big, big party with music, food and dancing.
Here are a few photos from Sarah’s first Mardi Gras.
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Sarah and one of the revelers. I have no idea who the reveler was, people in Louisiana are very child focus thus it was not unusual for random strangers to say to us "Give me that bebe." "Sha bebe" (Sha means something like sweet or darling baby).
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Rob and Sarah.
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We did a b2b up the west coast and then Alaska. The "2" b2b embarkment day seemed like a wasted day. You know, we really did not miss concierge. Probably the best part of concierge was being escorted off the ship and taken to the front of the very long disembarking line.