Maybe we collectively failed our high school French classes, but where I live the big Mardi Gras party is always held on Ash Wednesday. It somehow seems a bit odd to me to host the drunken revelry on the first day of Lent, but that’s the way it’s done here.
Anywhere else celebrate Mardi Gras on another day? Or perhaps another holiday celebrated on a different day of the week than normal (like Thanksgiving on Friday, for example)
I’m leaving out when we move the official public holiday date to Monday when it falls on a weekend.
Maybe they felt they were losing too much tourism to NOLA and Brazil, being inbetween the two. So, throw it on a Wednesday, get access to the two-day partiers who don’t quite care what Ash Wednesday means.
And since Ash Wednesday is a full public holiday here, having the drunken debauchery on Tuesday night would allow all of Wednesday for hang over recovery.
Instead people have to drag themselves into work Thursday morning in a less-than-ideal state.