A Day at the Museum

I recently had a day trip to the big tourist attraction, London and its sub-attraction, the Science Museum.  What was lost in time playing with crowded lifts was exasperated by the prices in the cafe and both were detrimental to my outing demeanor. Be warned if you visit.

So, that's my moans out of the way.  My demeanor recovered in the space exploration area and we had a lovely time sitting watching  what I would describe as a  puppet Earth, as it was suspended by strings, rotating before us and displaying the  networks that cruise our planet. Some natural such as jet streams and others artificial,  aeroplanes, tracking the globe.  I was struck by the concentration of flights in USA and in Europe. Twitter was a network not shown.  I must put that forward to the museum unless it is a deliberate omission due to the weight of twitter which may  break the puppet globes suspension strings.  

We stood awhile considering alternate ways of parking our cars on my drive, vertically, along the lines of the vertical food previously tried.   

The automotive engineer (see motor parts and groceries in December) wanted to spend an inordinate amount of time looking at engines and took great delight in talking pistons to me.  In return I talked Apollo 10 command module to him.  He had the most to say.  

We then moved on to aviation and any gaps in my knowledge of pistons was filled. 

Once my knowledge of pistons was complete we went to play in the interactive area.  Well 'we' is poetic license.   The young online shopping genius and automotive engineer fiddled with their tablets from which they were able to drive cartoon cars around a Simm City like town.  (The young on line shopping genius appears to have taken her Chinese winter wardrobe with her given the size of her bag.)

We then moved on to the dentistry section.  This is a small area in the upper  level. The online shopping genius decided to further my education by teaching me about spittoons and the function of. 

A few years ago I was in Washington DC for work and availed myself of the Smithsonian collection of museums.  They hosted a huge variety of displays from Easter island stone figures to the flag raised when the British were defeated, to Conestoga wagons to the Apollo 11 command module, well we have 10 in London afterall.  I was struck by a teenage boy who was visiting the National Museum of American History with his grandparents.  He exclaimed at a display of a 200 year old  Gunboat.  'Wow this is awesome.  A once in a lifetime experience.'  

In Britain none of us are more than a few hours from a natural history or science museum. Our children take museums and 200 year old artifacts so much for granted they are bored by them.   Well mine were.  It was so rewarding seeing my once museum bored offspring enjoy the science museum, even if it was spittoons.