Every year visitors flock to New Orleans for the Annual Celebration of Mardi Gras (”Fat Tuesday”), an event that includes parades, masquerade balls, and a carnival. But this year is different. After the devestation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, continuing with this annual celebration as scheduled is New Orlean’s way of saying, “We Refuse to Be Beat”.

For 10 days, the city of New Orleans will play host to visitors from all over the world, for one of the biggest and best Mardi Gras celebrations in the world. Mardi Gras is traditionally celebrated exactly 47 days before Easter, and was first brought to Louisiana by early French settlers. Mardi Gras was so named because it falls on the day before Ash Wednesday.

Purple (symbolic of justice), Gold (symbolic of power), and Green (symbolic of faith) are the traditional colors of Mardi Gras, and were chosen during the Rex Parade in 1892.

As a less traditional aspect of the celebration, tourists often walk up and down Bourbon street handing out mult-colored beads to women who are willing to bare their breasts.