Museum Hopper

while we were in victoria, our last stop was the butchart gardens .  we arrived a little after noon on a beautiful clear sunday afternoon. we didn't have to wait long to purchase our tickets and we pulled in and parked.  we were surprised to see that they allowed dogs on the grounds.  the price to get in seemed a little steep.  hard to believe it was more expensive than my dinner the night before.  it turned out to be totally worth it. we followed the traditional path suggested in the map.  first, the sunken garden, rose garden, japanese garden and then last but not least was the italian garden.  i was so impressed.  the gardens seemed to keep going on forever with each step forward offering a new glimpse into the gardens.  i was amazed at how it never seemed repetitive.  the grounds were immaculate.  we were curious to know how many people are required to keeping it looking as beautiful as it is! overall, the only thing keeping this garden from an A was some traf

over the past weekend, i went on a girls getaway to victoria, british columbia, canada.  while we were there, we went to the royal bc museum in downtown victoria.   when entering the museum, we were greeted by john lennon's yellow rolls royce .  we all used our student ids to receive a discounted rate on admission.  the museum is primarily on the second and third floors with the first floor housing the entrance to the imax, gift shop and cafes.   we headed upstairs first and took in the emily carr exhibit, the other emily .  i finally got to see some of her work after being thwarted at the vancouver art gallery .  i liked seeing the works by emily carr as well as the photographs of her with her family.  i did not quite understand why the curators needed to recreate the photographed portraits with paint.   we also checked out the pretty typical "natural history" aspect of the museum that contained lots of stuffed birds, mammals and dead fish.  nothing out of the or

i would just like to say that i am super excited about my blog today.  my first guest post just went live!  if anyone else would like to contribute, please let me know!  thank you very much to steve vozar for his great post!

Guest post here from Katie's friend Steve. Last weekend, I visited DC and intrigued by the idea of the International Spy Museum . The museum itself is located near the National Mall, and features (if I recall correctly) three floors of exhibit space along with a spy-themed gift shop and restaurant. I was a little caught off-guard by the admission price; $18 plus tax was pretty steep, especially considering that most museums in DC are free. For an additional price there are also some more interactive activities available, called Operation Spy and Spy in the City , but I only opted for the standard museum self-tour, which had a bit of an interactive element as well. The whole museum experience is framed by a choose-your-own-adventure style espionage action story that unfolds throughout the exhibits. You first choose one of several covers and check out the dossier with your mission details. There are various checkpoints throughout the museum at which you progress through

for my birthday this year, i decided to go on the underground tour with some friends, jessica, pascal and sarah!  i had really good things about the tour from both seattle locals and nonlocals, so i figured we should give it a go! i bought tickets online although the website was not very quick and took 15 minutes (and counting) to process.  i ended up calling to confirm that the purchase went through.  it had, but did with the wrong date.  they quickly fixed it and i was still given the student ticket price. on the day of, we arrived at the ticket building (for lack of a better word).  they did have a nice little restaurant in there with decently priced drinks.  it looked quite quaint and fun.   at tour time, we were all shepherded into a large room with seating to get the kick off of our tour (~20 minutes).  this gave us the foundation of what we were going to see in the underground.  after this, we left the building and headed down to the underground , which consisted of thre

yesterday, i went to the experience music project with my friend noah from michigan.  we took the seattle monorail there, which was totally worth the $2 to get there!  it is completely unnecessary as far as public transportation, but was perfect for the start of this visit. the museum is laid out slightly unusually.  we had to "leave" the museum to get to other exhibits.  it was all in one building, but at times, you basically had to leave the museum that you paid through, walk through an area that did not require paid admission to go to another exhibit, which required paid admission.  for example, the avatar exhibit was in a completely separate area of the museum.   the museum name is not quite as representative as it could be.  as described on the website, the museum is dedicated to " the ideas and risk-taking that fuel contemporary popular culture."  the avatar exhibit and battlestar galactic seem a little out of place with the museum name, but are inline