Where to go for fun in the sun?

Why are so many people heading out of the country for the break? After asking some of my friends I got a couple reasons. High drinking age promotes college students to go abroad for Spring Break vacations. Someone else was as bold to say that he would rather be, "Arrested where they don't have police records." I was surprised to learn of how many of my friends were leaving to U.S. border for Spring Break.

SMU’s Daily Campus reported in a recent pole that 18% of participants are staying in Dallas, 32% are going home, 27% are traveling within the U.S., and 23% are traveling outside of the U.S.

Personally, I am going to Florida to do some damage myself and I can see that going to Florida has downsides compared to Mexico or the Bahamas. I went to Florida last year and didn’t have any encounters with police but their presence was known. Factors like a higher drinking age, stricter cops are enough to send young Americans to less secure destinations that lack American luxuries like lower crime rates, safer hotels, and cheaper traveling fees.

So is it worth it to escape Uncle Sam for break?

Who Dat?

I enjoyed one of America’s most acclaimed festivals over the weekend. Mardi Gras sets its own standard as a festival. The amount of community participation and tourists was impressive.

Staying with some friends in Metairie which is an old New Orleans’ neighborhood, I had a much different experience than my friends staying downtown in a hotel. While they were next to Bourbon Street sulking in the sketchy crowds, I enjoyed a beautiful part of town. But the side of New Orleans I enjoyed was much different.

Watching parades that stretched two miles long in Uptown was awesome. Nice crowds and pretty Southern homes lined the parade route as ragtime Jazz blared from the passing floats. The Uptown bars catered to the college students instead of the middle-aged burnouts that are found on Bourbon. So why does the commercial image of Mardi Gras portray Bourbon Street and the French Quarter as the face of the festival?

It is a one of kind place I will admit. Nudity and blackout drunks are tolerated by the police force and shattered whiskey bottles fill the street’s gutters. But is this really the American ideal of a great time? People get just as drunk at the bars and house-parties of Uptown as they do in the French Quarter, but the American media loves to publicize the gross low-life alternative of Mardi Gras.

I don’t know who to blame for this whether it be the general public or the media. Regardless, I found Mardi Gras and the city of New Orleans a city that has a historic culture which is cherished and celebrated every year by its residents and guests which is something to commend in a country that has grown to ignore much of its heritage and traditions.