Not all museums, of course. There are those in which I feel very ill at ease - as if a wee twitch or slip of the hand would end me in exhibit-offender's prison...Forever.
But seriously, museums are so great. They're like a giant compilation of all things great. They're just so, great.
There's a museum for everything. Happy things - like dinosaurs, sad things - like the Holocaust, and weird, kind of not-so-socially-acceptable-things, like mustard.
But you want to know what's especially great? Almost ALL of them in DC are FREE. That means you can wander around the city, stopping in museum after museum at your leisure (or whenever you're on the verge of a heat stroke), all while being pretty darn sure that you won't ever have to pull out your wallet. (unless of course is sets off one of the tens of billions of security check-points within the city).
I'm especially a sucker for old-timey exhibits, like at the Museum of Natural History. There were exhibits on Sea-life (both modern and archaic), Human Origins, Dinosaurs, Mammals, and Gemstones (which was, very tellingly, the most crowded). I thought it was funny how there were these incredible fossils and really labor-intensive exhibits, and yet the most jam-packed room I went into was the one displaying some rich woman's heirloom of (admittedly incredible, from what I could glimpse through the jabbering mass of bobbling womens' heads) precious jewels/jewelry. No cultural barrier here - worldwide interest.
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| Crowded jewl room (observe cultural diversity) |
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| cursed Hope Diamond |
Thanks to the "Evolution and Extinction" course I took last year, I feel quite proud to say that I impressed myself with my knowledge of the material in so many of the exhibits, and it took all I had not to quietly lean over to inform innocent passers by of just why the discovery of the Tiktaalik fossil was so important in the search for our species' origins.
I'm in constant awe of my superior intelligence.
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| Attempt to become a neanderthal (horrifically embarrassing when done alone, might I mention) Failure = result of unwillingness to retry, due to aforementioned humiliation. |
The only negative part was the bounty of weird museum workers with clipboards sleuthing around every exhibit. I'd be dallying about, just checkin out different things, when all of a sudden I would catch a glimpse of a middle-aged, nicely dressed, creeper-employee clutching a clipboard from the corner of my eye , leering at me from an uncomfortably close distance.
I understand you're observing and all, but seriously, respect the Western guidelines for personal space. [Public Space = 12 ft (3.7 m) or more, for strangers]
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| I love elephants |
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