St. Joseph's Day

St. Joseph's Day is apparently a big deal here in New Orleans. I had never really heard of it before and didn't know of any traditions associated with it. I thought it was really interesting and so I wanted to share a bit about it with y'all:

It falls on March 19th each year (last Tuesday). It celebrated Joseph, Mary's husband and Jesus's step-father (Is that his proper title?). The holiday is mostly celebrated by Italians and Italian-Americans. In the United States, New Orleans has the largest tradition of celebrating St. Joseph's day.

Churches, schools, and homes can build altars to Joseph. The altars have lots of food, candles, pictures, plants, and statues displayed. They are usually open to the public. The doorway to the building is marked with a green branch to let passersby know their is an altar inside. At each altar, visitors are given a dried fava bean for good luck and some free treats or cookies. The fava bean tradition comes from Sicily where they say that if you carry the bean you will never go broke. Some of the altars also offer free meals or feasts. My parents and I went to two different altars. One at De La Salle High School and another at St. Stephen's Church on Napoleon. Here are some pictures:

St. Stephen's altar

St. Stephen's altar

De La Salle High School's altar

(I didn't take this picture, but I did want to show the Fava Beans)

My New Orleans March

Spring has sprung here in New Orleans! Flowers a blooming and the sun is shining. Everyone keeps telling me that these couple of weeks in late March and early April are the reward for a New Orleans summer. I'm definitely going to enjoy it while it lasts.

March has been a busy and exciting month. We're now more than halfway through the YAV year. It's hard to believe it. I'm still having a wonderful time with all of my roommates. St. Patrick's Day was a week ago and we spent it hanging out on the neutral group on Napoleon Ave. watching the parade go by. I tried to take more pictures at this parade to make up for the fact that I didn't take many during Mardi Gras. The St. Patrick's Day parade was like a smaller than last month's parades. There were large sections of men walking and exchanging flowers for kisses. Following them were large floats with people throwing food to the crowd instead of beads. I caught some Ramen and Lucky Charms. I also caught a cabbage and some carrots. You're supposed to be able to catch the ingredients needed to make an Irish stew at home. We honestly haven't yet cooked out cabbage. 

St. Patrick's Day also happened to be Super Sunday this year. Super Sunday is the Sunday closest to St. Joseph's Day (March 18). On Super Sunday all the Mardi Gras Indians meet at a park in Central City. It's a great opportunity for the public to see the Indians and take pictures. Unlike on Mardi Gras morning, they are out to be seen. I was able to take a lot of wonderful pictures of their costumes. Each costume is hand made without using any glue and can weigh up to 70 pounds depending on the type of designs. 

My parents were in town last week. We ate a bunch of wonderful food and went to a bunch of great museums. It was a definitely a great week. Some of my favorite parts included going to the zoo and the botanical gardens. We also went to a couple of St. Joseph's altars. 

So those are basically the best parts of March for me. We're now heading towards Easter. I hope you are all having a wonderful spring and Holy Week! 

I also want to extend a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has donated money to my fundraising. I have reached my fundraising goal of $6,500! Thank you all so much! If you would still like to donate, feel free to. Any additional fundraising will go to support the program and my house. 

Love, 

Valentina 

Grand Bayou

Two weeks ago, all the YAVs went down to Grand Bayou. Here are some pictures:

Ragun Cajun

Pelicans - Their beaks can hold more than their belly can! 

Just to prove that I was there...it's me! 

Mardi Gras

So I know that we are well into Lent and Mardi Gras has come and gone. There are no more parades or king cakes. I still don't feel like I have fully recovered and beads still control a major part of our house. I figured I would still share a bit of my experiences because it is one of the biggest events of the year.

Lauren, Layne, Me, Nate, and Chad at Orpheus 

Before moving to New Orleans, I didn't really have a concept of what Mardi Gras was like. I pictured a weekend, maybe 5 days, with some parades and parties. I didn't know New Orleans celebrates carnival for a month and that there are weeks of parades. Some days have as many as 5 parades. I counted that over the course of a couple weeks, I went to 31 parades. Here they are: Krewe du Vieux, Cork, Oshun, Cleopatra, Pontchartrain,Choctaw, Sparta, Pygmalion, Chewbacchus, Carrollton, King Arthur, Barkus, Ancient Druid, Nyx, Babylon, Muses, Chaos, Hermes, Krewe d'Eta, Morpheus, Iris, Tucks, Endymion, Okeanos, Mid-City, Thoth, Bacchus, Proteus, Orpheus, Zulu, and Rex. It was, needless to say, exhausting. I don't think I will ever go to that many again in one year.

The stands outs were King Arthur (just because Pastor Fred was in it), Barkus (all dog parade in the Quarter), Nyx (new all women's parade), Hermes (really beautiful floats), Iris (all around fun, cool theme, floats, and throws), Tucks (rowdy and toilet themed), Proteus (each float was an old krewe), Orpheus (Harry Connick Jr.'s musical themed parade. Cool this year because each float was a past theme), Zulu (more than 42 floats in one parade - and I got a coconut), and Rex (Last major parade of the season).