Mardi Gras (pronounced mardee graa) is basically a parade with floats, and finally the members of the krewes who are on the floats adjourn to a dinner party masquerade. Of course, digging deeper into mardi gras history it also involves getting drunk and anonymous sex. That is what the mask is for.

Krewes are something like a secret society and members' names are kept secret. In olden days,before electricity, they used to have people with burning flame torches in order to see the floats at night. Of course, it would have been better using electric light as the torch bearers were so drunk that occasionally they set the float on fire. But anyway, I'm not a historian, so enjoy the pictures!

Before I forget, Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday, always occurs before ash Wednesday.