Once again the street is all cleaned up from last night. We ate in the hotel. I had an omelet with hash browns. We then wandered down St Charles where we found another in our group, Cindy, doing the same. We were on our way to the WW2 museum. We went around the circle at the Ogden Art Museum and admired the big brown stone building that is part of the museum. Engraved in the facade is the word "Library". We went into the WW museum and bought tickets that included the 11 AM showing of the Tom hanks narrated movie. The museum started with a train trip where we registered our electronic dog tags. i was assigned a pilot from WW2 named Greg "Pappy Boyington. Throughout the Museum I followed the travails of my guy at various stations. This made the museum interactive and a lot of fun. We waited around the gift shop for the 11 AM movie. The movie starts with a preshow outside the theater on a group of smaller flat screens that combine to provide a larger overview. The movie itself is spectacular. The words 4D are used to describe the movie, it includes a plane nose lowered in front of the screen that matches the image on screen and a camp tower and other effects that come and go. The seats vibrate with scenes of tanks and bombs including the atomic bomb although they didn't focus much on the bomb. The overall experience was quite good but very daunting. After a while all the war exhibits, videos, artifacts and re-creations blur together in a mass. It's hard to give the proper attention to any of this.
After the museum it was time for lunch. I wanted a place with music and new Orleans food. We started walking towards the river with the theory that with cruise ships visiting the harbor there would be pubs with music. We didn't find any but we did encounter the Bacchus floats lined up along the road next to the river. I took some pics then we continued to wander along N Peters. We stopped into a few gift shops looking for the slate tiles I originally found but we went into the Crescent City Brewery first. There was a band playing in the corner that we tipped a few dollars because they played during our lunch. We ordered two appetizers, a crab cake remoulade and a shrimp remoulade. The crab cake was to die for it was so good. We had a beer with lunch. During lunch i called Blake and spoke to him about tonight. He suggested we join them at Bufas Bar on Esplanade. Music starts at 7. We walked over to Jackson Square after lunch and bought the pen and ink watercolor from Lee Tucker instead of the gift shop tiles. This was a good decision. He is going to ship the artwork to us in a cardboard. It's already matted. Lee told us we should take the riverfront troll back to Podyrus. We didn't know this existed. We decided to take a walk around the square and found some oils of old houses in front of the Presbytere and bought one. Asking was $75, we offered $50 cash and the person accepted the offer.
We made it to the trolley behind Cafe Du Monde and rode it down to Podyrus. This was a good experience. We loved the fact that the driver took the time to give directions to one lady who stepped on but didn't ride. He explained to her how to get to Mannings restaurant. It would be fun to have a notepad and pencil and ride the trolley in the PM for 40 cents a ride and take notes of how much fun it is to record the comments of the colorful people getting on and off. What fun. MAde it back to the hotel but on the way saw some floats getting moved that were covered in colored foil. They were quite pretty.
Around 6:20 we left again for streetcar and rode it to the end at Esplanade. Met a young girl who was traveling alone and wanted to go to the French Market then walk her way back to the Hilton for a cruise she's taking tomorrow. We walked 4 blocks to Bufas and went into the back and found Blaze and Cathy. This was a treat. We had a couple of Stellas and a bowl of the best Chili ever. The dual clarinet players in the band were fantastic. They were accompanied by a wonderful jazz drummer and a piano. I loved it and didn't want to leave but we left around 10 but first we did a few Rumbas then went out into the street and walked down the neutral zone for a while before using the sidewalk. The streetcar arrived and we watched the driver prepare it for going the other direction. The pulley has to get pulled down with a rope and the one on the other end raised. He also reverses the drive console since the back is now the front. We then had a very colorful ride to Podyrus. Once again I enjoyed the cast of characters getting on and off. This was so cool. Cathy came back with us to our room to pick up beads we didn't want. She wanted to take back 50 pounds to Raleigh. We passed out but first set the alarm since we have to leave tomorrow at 7 AM.