Share Spotlight: Museum Marathon

This week's share spotlight comes from a UK blog, Mad Cap Science:
Museum Marathon....16 Miles, 26 Museums and One Suffragette

On December 7th, a group of intrepid individuals participated in a Museum Marathon in London. They ran/walked 16 miles and visited 26 (or 27) museums over the course of a day to raise money for guide dogs.

I love this event on two levels.

First, it's a charity event, much like other marathons are. They allow people to give their time to help a great cause.

Second, what a great way to introduce people to new museums! Only been to the Science Museum? Come in and try the Natural History Museum! Love the V&A? Check out the Sir John Soane's Museum!

Where can you see this working in the US? I think New York City is a great candidate, but where else might people be able to take a whirlwind tour of the city museums?

Birthday at the British Museum

Word to the wise: Do NOT try to do the British Museum in one day. It was amazing, but my feet hurt. A lot. And there's way to much to see to pay attention to half of it when you're trying to pack everything in. But it was still awesome. Kiki (one of the girls in the program, who was actually supposed to be my roomate, before we got lucky and both got singles) came with me and I'm glad she did. Museums are more fun with somebody, so long as they know how to be about a musuem. Kiki was a lot of fun. She even let me look around the bookstore. :) I didn't get anything, but not for lack of looking. While both of the Egypt halls were packed with people all day, the rest of the halls were reasonable and we could look around at our own pace.

I had two favorite galleries. The first was the gallery that was themed 'Enlightenment'. It was almost a history of the museum! But is was really how scientific thought developed through the early 1800's. The room was set up like a giant study, with floor to ceiling bookshelves filled with books and stuff! And the stuff was so cool I forgot to look at the books. They had a Rosetta Stone that you could touch. Which was good, because I think I elbowed people so I could just see the real one. They had a bunch of busts and statues of people, as well as random stuff, like stuffed birds, canopic jars, Moche pottery, astrolabes, the usual.

My other favorite room was the hall of Egyptian statues. Not the Rosetta Stone, necesarily, that was kind of a pain, but the really big people were cool. There was guy whose head was as big as I was!

I am slowly realizing that I'm a bit punch drunk and if you want proof, you should look at the descriptions for the pictures I took today and put on facebook. To spare the world a similiar fate here, I'm going to bed. I have a productive day planned for tomorrow. We'll see how well that turns out. :)

Oh, and pretty much nothing happened yesterday. I ate lunch and wandered a bit, read a book and went to bed. It felt wonderful.

Two Days In!

So, Wow! Long two days. I've managed to cram a lot in. Friday morning I woke up and went to my first class. We met in the courtyard and then went to the cafeteria. We mainly talked semantics. Afterward, McGee was going to the i-zone (IT) and it's in the same building as the library, so I tagged along and found the books on the Normans (my independent study topic). I ate lunch a cute cafe with a couple of the other girls and found out that lemonade is actually funny tasting sprite. Then we went on a walking tour of Canterbury. We saw the city walls, some of which were knocked down by Cromwell's army, Dane John's hill, which used to be a Norman palisade, some bomb shelter's from WWII, Canterbury Castle, which was amazing, and then we went to the Greyfriars' Garden. It's the garden of an actual monastery and is absolutely beautiful. Then we took a tour of the Pilgrim's Hospital and were off for tea. That night was one of the girl's birthdays, so we went out to the Penny, a pub less than a block away from the House and everyone (but me) had a pint.

Today, we went to London. We went a took a tour of Parliament, which was really neat. The building is incredible and the traditions are pretty cool too. If you aren't a peer, you can't sit in the House of Lords. Which was sad because our feet hurt from waiting in line. I got a couple of post cards and I got Mom a thimble. We had a really cool experience just as we got out. We were standing around eating our snacks outside the cafe in Parliament when Big Ben started ringing. If I'd been smart, I would have had a video going, but I didn't think about it until it was almost done ringing. Then, we went to the Imperial War Museum. They had a gun out front with shells bigger than I was. I also looked through the spy exhibit. At that point, Sam and I couldn't find anyone we knew, so we headed back to the train station. I got some pictures of Big Ben and Parliament from across the Thames and we made it on a train back home, where we ran into some very drunk Englishmen, who proceeded to give us advice on the best pubs in Canterbury. They were rather vulgar, but actually pretty funny. It was definitely an experience.

My feet hurt from all the standing and walking and I am definitely tired.Tomorrow is a walking tour of the churches of Canterbury and Monday is STONEHENGE! Up at 2 in the morning, but so worth it.