{Anniversary Trip} New Orleans, the Aquarium and Imax.

Jake and I love animals. Zoos, aquariums, we love them. I visited the New Orleans Aquarium of the Americas in 6th grade on a school field trip and had fond memories of the trip. I knew as soon as we decided to go to New Orleans on our anniversary trip that we'd have to go to the aquarium. It turned out that the best deal for the zoo and aquarium was to buy a pass that included the Imax (and Insectisarium but we did not partake in that one. I don't love insects). So on Saturday afternoon, we took in the aquarium and then headed to the Imax to see Happy Feet 2!

 When you go in the aquarium, the first exhibit is the great "underwater" tunnel. There were sting rays, sharks, fish, and more. There was a worker in a scuba outfit feeding the sting-rays, which was cool.

 After the tunnel, there were lots of tanks of fish. I spotted Dory and Nemo hanging out together. Glad they are still friends...

 I particularly liked the penguins, the sea horses, and the otters. The otters were my favorite actually. Overall, the aquarium was a great stop. The exhibits were nice and I'm sure in the summer when humidity is out of control, it is a great cool stop as well. The only things I didn't like about the aquarium were that the sea otters' tank was so dirty that you couldn't really see into the glass very well (big bummer) and the obnoxious children running around out of control. Now, the aquarium can't control bad parents but they can control their otters' tank.

Even with that in mind, I still loved the aquarium.

 Afterwards, we headed over to the Imax. The showing of Happy Feet 2 was in 3-d. Though we really didn't have a choice of what to see (they only show one movie at a time and this was the time that worked for us), I really liked Happy Feet 2. The geography teacher in me nerded out about the whole tie in with environmental issues and melting ice caps. I loved the singing and thought it was just super cute.

 

By the time we got out of the Imax, it was dark. We walked back to our hotel to catch the end of the Saints game. What an experience watching that in a bar in New Orleans! The bar across the street had it projected onto a wall outside and you knew what was going on as you walked down the street because everywhere people were watching the game so when you heard cheers, you knew it was a good thing. I loved how everyone seemed to have so much pride in their team. We settled in at the hotel bar to watch a crazy end to the game - three touchdowns in three minutes. It didn't end well for the Saints but it sure was fun to watch. 

Next, on Sunday we headed out to the Zoo and I fell in love with million dollar houses...