(NY Times Review)
"A case of love at first sight" (Wall Street Journal Review)
"This is a museum to inspire you." (The Times)
"Pitt Rivers museum: canoes, monkey skulls and a witch in a bottle" (The Telegraph)
The gushing is worthy: The Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford University Museum of Natural History are absolute winners for kids and adults alike. It's no surprise the museums have shared the prize for best 'Family Friendly Museum'. Located in the thick of Oxford's colleges (yet close enough to town to walk back for great pub food and return again for more) the building itself is enrapturing. Our family gave a collective gasp upon entering.
The dinosaurs and Dodo immediately take your breath away, it's impossible to comprehend just how mind-blowing the eclectic collection of 100,000 artifacts will be.
J face to face with a Dodo.
Gigi studying dinosaur eggs.
The artifacts do the teaching. There is no interactive gadgetry to be found just old-fashioned peering, gasping, dreaming and appreciating. And appreciate you do.
We got supremely lucky and had a wonderful time seeing a security guard's favorite artifacts on several floors of the Pitt-Rivers Museum. (What were they? They ranged from the smallest doll in the world to the sharpest swords in the world. That would be Samurai. "Did you know these swords are so sharp they can slice four men in half in one blow?" he asked the kids. This kind gentleman brought the collection alive not only with his really nifty flashlight but with his heart-felt appreciation of the artifacts and an intimacy with the innards of the museum that made it seemed like we had stepped into E.L. Konigburg's novel
.)
It's been nearly a month since our visit and last night Gigi told a group about the 'weapon that was covered in spikes designed to make it so you had to puncture through the body to get it out- there was no pulling backwards' Yes, this was another of our security guard's favorites! Can you spot it? It's the weapon in the middle.
Our friend also pointed out an 'elephant trap' (a huge spike nailed into wood) and showed us the much smaller human version- he was quick to point out that they are illegal. Hmmmm glad the kids didn't get any ideas. The traps made the mace look ordinary.
Remember the shrunken head hanging from the rear view mirror of the Knight Bus in the "Prisoners of Azkaban"? Yep. Pitt-Rivers has a collection of them.
You can also gaze upon Darwin's net and his bug collections. Seeing the map of where the Beagle sailed for 5 years is an unparalleled geography lesson in itself.
DNA turbos from abstract to intriguing at Museum of Natural History.
It's impossible to share just how alive knowledge becomes at these museums but I'll give you two examples that I think shed light on why traveling with kids in tow is a boon for their 'education'.
You are quite literally surrounded by 'Big Thinkers' at the Museum of Natural History. I pointed out Euclid to Gigi and we had a small talk about Geometry and who uses it today.
All of the sudden I saw her straining to get a shot and so I came closer to peer at what she was seeing. Excitedly she told me that she was sending the shot to her friend Hanna who wants to be an architect.
One of the most special memories from the trip is of our family plopped down on the museum floor talking about Darwin, the debate around evolution, the theory of natural selection, adaptation and so on. . . for an HOUR. We talked about how the debate still rages today but how under these very ceilings the debate had played out in earnest. Later, upon being kicked out at closing time we would walk out onto the grassy quad and stand silently as we read this stone.
It's just the way of these museums- the low-key exhibit style sucks you in and bewitches you before you know what's happened.
Apparently it's been going on for generations. We ran into a young woman sketching.
She explained with the sweetest of excitement that she was lucky enough to have grown up in Oxford and had spent much of her childhood visiting the collections. She said, "The weather might not be great but the museums sure are!"
She spoke about how she had loved coming as a girl and still did- she was home from university. She lamented gravely that the Egyptian Room was closed for renovation; she sounded like she was describing an old friend, not a museum exhibit. It's easy to see why; the museums just feels that good.
I think it meant something for the kids to see someone sketching just for the love of it. By now they had definitely understood that education in Oxford means something different than in the rest of the world.
Most museums are of the 'Please, don't touch.' variety. Not these, there are small signs inviting animals to be stroked (the look across the face of a child was identical to that which washed over adults as they touched wallabies and otters: wonder and glee).
This pufferfish helmet (click to watch a killer (!) video on the helmet) caught my attention for a long while- its spikes contained toxins 1200x more deadly than cyanide! What could it possibly look like on?
Like happened so often at the museums I needn't look far to understand further. The Pitt-Rivers didn't leave me with just the picture (and the man's expression that I haven't been able to forget) there was a small note that said women would have helped him keep the helmet on.
The Pitt-Rivers Museum and Oxford's Museum of Natural History are an ode to exploration and explorers and it's simply impossible to leave unchanged. A month later we're all still mentioning things and ideas we encountered at the museums.
We've decided Oxford makes the perfect pit-stop (no pun intended) after the long flight to Europe. It's a sensational place to de-jetlag oneself in style- and in good company, some of our favorite friends moved there to head up Experimental Math at Oxford.
Buses to Oxford are direct from Heathrow, the trip is just shy of an hour and there's even free wi-fi aboard! Did we mention the incredible Farmer's Market just across from the bus station in Oxford? Just be prepared to feel melancholy that you're pulling out of the station and not in once it's time for you to press on (and with Heathrow a perfect vaulting point for the rest of Europe vault you may.)
No comments:
Post a Comment