Museum Hopper

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...

the last and final museum we visited last monday was the national museum of natural history . the boys had gone on a little before me and i met them there. before i got there, they checked out the dinosaur exhibit. jason (he has really gotten used to this blogging thing) told me that he did not think it was as good as the exhibit in new york city. he thought the layout was a little crowded. he also liked the how the new york city natural history museum exhibit is informative to both adults and children. he felt that at this museum it was a little too kid centric. we walked through a few different exhibits, darwin's legacy (all about evolution) and the mammal exhibit on the first floor. upstairs, we checked out the hope diamond, minerals, gems, basically the stone sections. the hope diamond is huge! i did not realize that it was in a museum and that we could see it! also, we appreciated the few shout outs to michigan for our cooper deposits! we were getting pretty exhauste...

next stop on the museum trip was the national gallery of art . needless to say, i ended up staying in this museum a lot longer than the boys did. they went through about half the museum and then left. they headed to the next stop, natural history museum. i liked the layout of this museum. it reminded me of the national gallery in london with a very easy to follow layout. as you went through the museum, you knew you weren't missing any rooms. you also didn't need to do much back tracking to see all the paintings. i did not go into the east building (modern and contemporary art), but stayed in the main west building. i loved the fountains at the each end of the museum. it was a nice little sunny break from the museums. i liked the flow of art styles and time periods. they had a few spectacular pieces. i particularly liked the raphael , which is the only painting of his in the united states. i also briefly walked through the sculpture museum on the way to the natural...

while visiting my boyfriend's cousins in d.c., we spent a power day visiting three museums. jason's friend, greg, joined us as well. greg has lived in d.c. for school/work for a year now and had NEVER been to any of the museums yet! i was shocked. he joined us for all three museums. the first museum we visited was the national air and space museum . full disclosure on this review: a spaceship my boyfriend worked on is in this museum. it is the spaceship one hanging in the entrance of the museum. we did spend a substantial amount of time looking at this plus a few other exhibits. we loved the airplanes/spaceships in the main lobby. they seem to have every airplane on note. the spirit of st. louis , the wright brother's plane, the command module of apollo 11, columbia , and the first plane to break the sound barrier. we went into the special exhibits about world war II aiviation , america by air , and apollo to the moon . we in particular wanted to check out the ap...