This past Tuesday (Feb 24th) was the celebration of Mardi Gra in the Gaslamp District of downtown San Diego. It was the first time I was eligible to attend such a great festivity. I had no idea what to expect, but Tuesday night definatley exceeded my expectations.
The night started at my house at about 7 o clock where two of my friends came over to start drinking. This happens on a normal basis whenever any of us go out so then we wont have to buy as much alcohol when your downtown. Everyone probably does it because who doesnt like to save money? We left my house at 7:45 and got downtown at the Hyatt where we parked at 8. This was terrible timing because the train started to go by. It seems like it took forever.
Once ariving at the gate to get in we skipped the line that was formed to purchase tickets because at work they hooked it up with free tickets. This was another big money saver, 20$. Once getting through the gate and onto 5th ave. there were people everywhere. I don't think ive ever seen so many happy people before. There were Heiniken booths on almost every side street where you could purchase a beer. They served you the beer in a cup therfore when youre walking around people are bumping into you and spilling the beer everywhere. Thats why i only bought beer in the bars that we were bar hoping until the parade.
Once the parade started we went out onto the street again. I dont know if id call it a parade though because it was just a bunch of party buses and vans that had people on them throwing beads to the crowd. At this point pretty much everyone was out on the street. One of my friends had the genious idea of wearing his brand new air force one low top sneakers. They werent so white at the end of the night.
After the parade was over we left 5th ave. and walked to the Ivy Hotel. One of my friends that went with us works there so we went to one of the bars there. Before we knew it it was a little after 1:30am and time to go. There were no taxi's anywhere. We were forced to walk from the Ivy which is on 6th and F all the way to Market and W. Harbor. The worst thing about it was that all of 5th was blocked off with fences so we couldnt just cut thew market and save us half the time and mileage. Instead we walked all the way down 6th and once we got to the Omni we made a right and were on our way back to the Hyatt on W Harbor. A solid 45 minutes later we got back to the hotel and made it home at about 2:50am.
The next day school was aweful. I had class at 9 and i had a pretty bad hangover. I know exactly where i made my mistake though, therefore it should never happen again. Instead of drinking Sky vodka, its always better to pay a little more for better vodka and the hangover wont be so bad. haha i left alot of stories out about tues night. i have a feeling they are i little to inapropriate.