Day 3: Monday 4/27/15
Today, it was a good thing I had set an alarm. We slept later than I had anticipated. The room had FANTASTIC black-out shades, which we had closed tight on arrival day. Seriously...who employs window washers on a Saturday? I began to wonder about my ability to get up for the “get the ass to work” alarm in a week. After all, my body had clearly not only adjusted to being on vacation, but it had adjusted to the central timezone too.
We got up and put on “nice casual” clothes for brunch. This meant capris and a top for me, and khakis and a cotton/tropical-ish (solid color) shirt for Nick. We’re not exactly the dress-up type. About 8:40, we started the walk to The Court of Two Sisters, which took about 15 minutes. It was unbelievably muggy, even by what we had started referring to as “southern swamp” standards, and there was no question that the forecast for “scattered thunderstorms” would be accurate.
We arrived at The Court of Two Sisters about 8:55. The sign was outside that they were “now serving”, so we headed inside. The hostess greeted us fairly politely, but when we said we had a reservation, she turned snotty, and directed us back outside, telling us they didn’t open until 9. I refrained from telling her she might want to take in the sign then. We waited outside for a few minutes, watching others also be turned away. Right at 9, we joined the crowd back inside, where the Jeckyll and Hyde hostess turned on her nice personality and greeted us politely and we were led by someone else back to our table, right by the jazz group.
Our server arrived quickly and told us about the buffet, which we had already scoped out on the walk to the table. While we were piling our plates with food, he brought us our orange pineapple juice. I decided while helping myself to the food that if we do a brunch in New Orleans again, it will be at a more normal “brunch” hour. There was plenty of breakfast food, including a made-to-order omlette and pancake station, but there was a TON of non-breakfast food, including some really amazing looking desserts on the buffet line. That being said, we did not want for food, and this timing served our needs for maximizing our day.
The food was delicious. The bread pudding was a favorite for both of us. The music was excellent, and the service was great too. I wouldn’t hesitate to return here, despite the Jeckyll and Hyde hostess.
Once we were done stuffing ourselves, we walked back to the hotel. By this time it had started to drizzle and thunder. Once back at the hotel, we changed into shorts, and started re-working our plan for the day. There just wasn’t enough time in the day for all we wanted to do! Once we had a new plan in place, we headed out to catch the streetcar, about a block from the hotel. By now, it was raining a bit harder, and a tornado watch had been issued, but the rain still wasn’t horrible, so we decided streetcar over taxi was fine.
By the time we reached the streetcar stop, it was raining harder, and about the same time we reached the (uncovered) stop, the sky completely opened up, Colorado style. The sky became so dark that the street lamps came on. Yup, guess a taxi would have been the better choice. The streetcar came along a few minutes later, and we jumped on, not even trying to avoid the puddles that had almost instantly become ankle deep.
While on the streetcar we listened to an older native talking about her strategy if she saw a funnel cloud. Seems the watch had turned to a tornado warning, and I couldn’t help but notice that the sky really can turn green. We won’t discuss how hard it was raining. Pretty sure what came down in 5 minutes would have wiped out the drought we are currently experiencing here in NH. And by the way, when we reached our streetcar stop, we would have to walk a couple of blocks. Our timing sucks. We considered just staying on. Eventually this line would loop back and drop off across the street from our hotel, but we were already completely soaked, so it really didn’t matter.
When the driver let us off, we started the walk through the driving rain. It WAS lighter than when the rain had started, but it was still pretty crazy. But at that point, just from standing (with rain coats on) waiting for the streetcar, we were soaked through, so it just didn’t matter. We arrived at the World War II museum a few minutes later, and we were just grateful to get inside.
While waiting in line for tickets, we discovered that a tornado had been spotted in another part of the city. About that same time, the phones started buzzing with texts from home. So we passed the wait in line by reassuring everyone that we were drenched but safe, and that we would be in a museum staffed by locals who know what to do in this weather, for the next few hours.
Once our tickets were purchased, we walked across the street (thankfully, the rain had slowed, but the puddles were halfway up my calves by that point), to one of the other buildings for their “4-D” movie, “Beyond All Boundaries”. This was a very powerful 45-ish minute movie that provided an overview of the war. Once the movie was done, we stayed in the same building and checked out the gift shop, debating buying a sweatshirt, and wishing that shorts were among their clothing items for sale. After a few minutes, we headed over to the restaurant in the same building (currently the WWII museum has 4 buildings, although I believe they are building a 5th). We were quite surprised to see that this restaurant, The American Sector, was a sit-down restaurant. Not something you expect in a museum. Also unexpected, the food prices were relatively reasonable (at least by New England tourism standards).
I think Nick and I both got a bowl of gumbo for lunch. This one had chicken, alligator, and sausage in it. We also split an appetizer of pretzels and cheese sauce. The food was very good. Not Gumbo Shop good, but still very good. And, as an added bonus, the food was hot. Not something I had expected to need in NOLA, but being soaked in a heavily air-conditioned building is just not a fun combination.
After lunch, we cruised through the gift shop one last time, where that whole “you snooze you lose”, philosophy reared its ugly head. There were no sweatshirts left small enough for me. Guess I’ll be shivering a bit longer. Fortunately, by then, my shorts were STARTING to dry out.
We moved on to the next building, which features an exhibit about the “road to Berlin”. It was very well done, and although we didn’t start in the building that actually shows the start of the war, it was very powerful. From here we moved on to The Boeing Center, which, as you can imagine, features a whole lot of airplanes. Nick told me that it’s laid out a lot like the air and space museum in DC. I told him we need to start planning a DC trip, since I haven’t been to any of the museums;)
Once we had had our fill of climbing stairs and riding elevators to get different views of the planes (there are 4 floors of observation decks), we headed back to the first building, to, you know, go back in time and see the exhibits about the whole history of the war, stopping for a couple pictures along the way. This building was MUCH bigger than it looked, and by the time we reached the end, I was pretty sure the brain was going to explode. There was just too much to take in. And that’s only on a surface level...I’m not even talking about the magnitude of the exhibits.
All told, we were at the WWII museum for over 5 hours, and we simply couldn’t take it all in. I cannot speak highly enough about this museum. It’s incredibly well done, and very powerful. If you have any interest in history at all and you are in New Orleans, visit this museum. It’s not cheap, but it’s well worth it. But look and see if there are multi-day ticket options, because it’s too much to take in at one time. Or at least that’s how we felt.
By the time we finished at the museum, the sun was shining, and we had figured out that our hotel was less than a mile from here, so rather than trying to figure out where the transportation stops were, we decided to just walk back. The walk wasn’t bad (10 minutes), and once back, we changed into dry clothes (yeah, the rain was THAT bad), and then went downstairs for our free drinks.
When we got downstairs, there was quite a line for drinks, which was no surprise in that city, so we decided to scope out the food situation. In addition to free drinks, the “5:30 kickback” that Drury puts on includes food. The options change daily (although, hot dogs seem to be a daily offering), and some of the options are sufficient to make a meal out of. This day’s options were, so we ended up piling our plates with pasta and grilled chicken (and a hot dog for Nick), and then we went to get our tequila sunrises and margaritas. I think Nick tried a screwdriver too. We use the whole free drink situation as a way of finding new things we like. It’s actually how we discovered last year that there were actually drinks I didn’t mind the taste of besides hard cider.
Once we’d finished our dinner and drinks, we headed back upstairs to grab raincoats before we headed downtown. They were still saying “scattered” thunderstorms, and well, we’d learned our lesson with those.
Raincoats in hand, we headed for the French Quarter. We could see the streetcar coming down the road as we crossed over, so we waited and hopped on, and took it the few blocks to Canal Street. We were kinda tired. We then walked down Bourbon Street, stopping somewhere for a beer for Nick that he ended up throwing away, which means he must have really hated it, because he considers that “alcohol abuse”, and then we stopped at Tropical Isle. We’d seen hundreds of people walking around the Quarter with these hideous lime green plastic cups, and this was apparently the home of them. Nick figured if that many people were drinking it, it had to be worth trying. The contents of these green cups were “hand grenades”. Turned out to be a fruity frozen drink that didn’t seem to pack nearly as much of a punch as advertised.
As we emerged from the Tropical Isle, the skies opened up again, so we took cover in one of their open doorways for quite awhile and watched Bourbon Street get a much needed bath. Of course, the only thing going through my head was “These puddles are getting huge on a street that is NASTY. I don’t want to think of what I’m going to be walking through.”
Eventually the rain kind of lightened up (or maybe it was just wishful thinking), so we decided we’d stood still long enough, and we started walking around a bit. We checked out some stores, and eventually Nick decided he was hungry again. We ended up at some pizza place, where he got a couple of slices. Once he was done eating, we walked over to Preservation Hall, since it was about 8:45 and we had tickets for the show at 9. Once there, we were told that they were running a bit late, so they’d start seating us around 9. She told us to go enjoy ourselves, grab a drink at Pat O’Brien’s to bring into the show, etc.
We didn’t need encouragement. We walked next door to Pat O’Brien’s, where I was carded for the one and only time this trip. I was actually kind of confused when I was asked for my ID. Once they’d decided that I really am legal, we went inside and got a hurricane to go to split. We then walked back to Preservation Hall, where a few minutes later, they let us inside.
Preservation Hall is a teeny tiny hole-in-the-wall jazz venue. They do multiple shows there every night. It seats maybe 40 people? Most of the seats are general admission, but they offer a handful (16?) of “big shot” tickets for each show. These allow you to reserve a spot in one of two rows and show up 10-15 minutes before the show. They also allow you to sit on a bench, rather than on mats (think thick carpet square) on the floor. I had reserved us spots in the second row, mostly because I didn’t want to have to wait in line for an hour to maybe get in. Given the weather, this was a wise choice, and is the only way I’ll see more shows at Preservation Hall in the future.
The show was the Preservation Hall All Stars, led by Leroy Jones, a trumpet player with the longest fingers I’ve ever seen. Seriously, they were probably as long as my face. No, I’m not easily distractible or anything. The show lasted about 45 minutes, and was fantastic. You sit so close to the musicians, and they were incredibly talented. Very cool experience in a cool venue, with excellent music. I HIGHLY recommend it.
Once the show was over, we walked back to the hotel. By then the rain had died down somewhat. It was still raining, but not nearly as bad. Once back at the hotel, we made sure to scrub the Bourbon Street puddles off our feet, and then collapsed into bed.
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