A Month of Fundays: Day 28 – Wander around a Museum

I realize some people think they are boring, but I’ve always loved a good museum. Art, history, science, tin, Barbie, MoMA…whatever – museums are high up on my list of fun things. Sometimes randomness is fun and it’s amazing what people collect.

Whilst traveling, Chris and I have made a habit of going to museums. I’m not exactly sure when this started – maybe we always have; he is an artist after all. I think my favorite trip was Chicago a couple years ago when we ended up at 5 different museums and spent a good two hours in The Thorne Miniature Room exhibit. Who knew how fun tiny things could be?

Today we went to the Science Museum of Minnesota to see the King Tut exhibit before it ends. The Science Museum was a favorite school field trip when I was little. There’s lots of hands-on for children and I’ve always enjoyed their collection of old-school medical/quackery devices. I think the Science Museum is where I discovered how gullible people can be. And they have musical stairs – musical stairs are cool!

I honestly don’t know if I liked the Tut exhibit or not. I’m guessing most of the antiquities are replicas because they weren’t in cases and I didn’t see a lot of temperature and humidity gauges; but nothing said it was a replica in print anywhere in the plague copy. Well, except for Tutankhamen – he was a replica. On the other hand, the cartouches were cool and the size and amount of stuff was impressive. Not over-stimulating, I’ll-never-be-able-to-see-it-all like the Egyptian collection at The British Museum, which I think was the last museum I was at this summer. Today was still enjoyable and fun.

My favorite part of museum wandering is the scope of imagination just sitting there in a palpable state waiting to be discovered. I started bringing a notebook to write down story ideas because I’m always inspired by something on exhibit. Today’s story idea came from a video about finding King Tut’s sarcophagus. Apparently a local, unnamed water boy helping out at the dig was the first person to come across the steps leading down and into the burial site. I think a mid-grade or picture book version from the boy’s perspective would be good. Naming the Water Boy: See how I already have a title and everything – by ‘everything’ I mean all but the actual writing, plot or characterization.

Museums: Educational, inspirational but mostly FUN.

Picture: The exhibit you are looking at or museum you decided to go to. What’s your favorite item on display?

Song: Barnaked Ladies’ “If I had a Million Dollars” if only for the art comments and a real green dress is cruel. Also Indigo Girls’ “Galileo”, a man who seems very museum-y to me...OK, this song also reminds me of all the artists, musicians and scientists who try to enlighten out human existence through their genius. And those things all end up in museums.

Tomorrow: Go Someplace in Your Town/City You’ve Never Been Before

A Month of Fundays: Day 16 – Celebrating My Wedding Anniversary by Taking Time for Tea

Perhaps I should explain the idea of the mini-break in August is to celebrate our wedding anniversary – August 16th. I have a horrible (read: super-fantastic awesome) husband who wants to go somewhere every year, just us, to celebrate. Really, I don’t know how I cope with him sometimes. Last year we did a similar road trip, but headed to The Apostle Islands in Wisconsin, then straight through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Mackinac Island and finally down to Door County, WI. We met a couple celebrating their 45th anniversary on Mackinac last year and the woman pulled me aside to give me some advice:

Keep a journal, or at least a list, of where you go on your anniversary trips. Write in it each year and then remember to read through it after your entry for that year.

Well, you’ve probably figured out how I feel about journaling by now. Of course, I haven’t actually started said journal because I also have strong feelings about procrastination, but here’s a perfect place to record honeymoon and the first three anniversary mini-breaks. I’ll put them in a journal at some point. Promise.

A List of Trips:
2008 – Honeymoon: Land and sea Disney World trip included 4 nights in the parks and 3 nights aboard a Disney cruise ship in the Bahamas. It was hurricane season, but we lucked out with the hurricane/tropical storm occurring during our land stay and beautiful blue, calm seas during the cruise.

2009 – A long weekend in Chicago by Millennium Park and The Art Institute.

2010 – The road trip I mentioned above through WI and Michigan.

2011 – Another road trip. Well, last year was fun so why not. Also, in the many years Chris has resided in America, he hasn’t seen much of it; mostly stemming from my constant need to travel outside of the US. But since my husband is actually interested in seeing the country he’s chosen to live in, USA travel is on the agenda. Oh, and his passport expired at the end of July. It takes a really long time to get a new one when you don’t reside in the country it’s issued in. A really long time.

So here we are, anniversary mini-break, hiking to a waterfall and lazily wasting time. We began with a two mile hike into Jay Cooke State Park over the swinging bridge, to a waterfall and beyond. I’m not sure what we chatted about, but we walked and talked and enjoyed each other and our surroundings and set precedence. The rest of the mini-break could be coined: “Waterfalls of MN”.

After the day’s morning hike, we decided to go to Grand Marais and poke around with the tourist collective. I don’t know what else to call the meandering tourists who inevitably congregate in Grand Marais during their North Shore trip. You will congregate like the seagulls on the shazam (I don’t know the actual name of the bank, but “shazam” was printed on the ATM receipt) bank – the only building I could see with poky, anti-seagull structures on the roof. It’s unavoidable; you can’t fight it; just give in, drive down Highway 61 to Grand Marais and join your peers. We walked into a bunch of shops, skipped rocks on the lake, perused Drury Lane Bookstore, visited the artist colony – looked at pottery, jewelry and quilts, then debated where to eat lunch: Sven & Ole’s or The Angry Trout. In the end it was too late for lunch and we wound up at Chez Jude for Afternoon Tea.

I would like to blame this on the British man, but I can find tea anywhere; even Grand Marais, MN. If you would like to hear me expound on tea and why I love it so, go here.

While we were sitting on the porch of Chez Jude sipping tea and eating an amazing scone with even more amazing homemade lemon curd, it dawned on me that afternoon tea is an anniversary trip tradition. We’ve made a tradition without realizing it! No seriously, on our honeymoon we had tea at The Grand Floridian in WDW, the next year we had tea at The Drake in Chicago, and last year we had tea at The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island (That’s right, they don’t have cars but they do have afternoon tea).

Apparently I’m a 60-year-old English woman from 1955. Who says reincarnation doesn’t exist?! So yes; thankfully I married Chris who doesn’t mind the occasional tea outing. And also that I have friends like Tera and Megan who love it as much as I do. And also that I have friends like Matt, Mara, Shane and now Anna who willingly partake in tea rituals and the cornucopia of yumminess when we travel.

Back to our anniversary and the afternoon tea at Chez Jude in Grand Marais; well, I feel I’ve used awesome a little too much during the month of funday blogs, but that’s exactly what it was: AWESOME! After the mouthwatering scones came a delightful turkey cranberry concoction on a cibatta roll, followed by a delectable chocolate cake and a luscious lemon cake.

I hope you find time for a nice cuppa today – or a scone, or tiny sandwiches, or even a cup of coffee with a friend or two. We don’t take enough time to sit down and actually hear our friends and family – or be heard, for that matter. Yes, it turns out my fun activity for today is active listening. Apparently you just can’t take the customer service trainer out of me.

Picture: Tea pot, coffee cup, afternoon tea table setting, who you’re sharing this extra bit of time with.

Song: Chris and I had a string quartet at our wedding and I made them play two contemporary songs. Or, I found sheet music for them so they could play two songs during the recessional. We’re going with those today: Enya’s “Wild Child” and U2’s “Beautiful Day”.

Tomorrow: Discovering Waterfalls by Day and Searching Stars by Night

HP Monday – Where’s Neville?

I had a very Harry Potter weekend myself. I went to the Harry Potter exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago on Friday. I highly recommend it to any one who likes the books, movies, or just likes seeing movie props in real life. I was also finishing up book number one in and around Chicago and watched the first movie last night to cap off the weekend.

I was surprised at how similar the book and movie are – I don’t remember that at all. I remember thinking they were really, really different actually. Of course, we could get into how they are different, and list off all of the details missing from the movie (and if that’s what you want to post about, feel free) but that’s the problem with every book to movie translation. I even found one thing in the movie that’s not in the book – and I really always thought it was. The scene where Hermione finds Harry and Ron on the train and Ron performs his turning-scabbers-yellow spell and then Hermione tells them all spells are easy and fixes Harry’s broken glasses – not in the book; she doesn’t perform a spell at all, just says the ones she’s tried have all worked.

Walking around the exhibit in Chicago with all the movie props you can’t help but be impressed by the world that’s been created. If my books ever make it this far, I’ll be so impressed – someone took my words and then created this whole thing with all of these tiny details. Rowling must admire things like the posting board for Gryffindor house with notes and names and a million little things she didn’t have time to think of while writing her story. Or, she may have thought them up but then she had to delete them from her manuscript or she would have never been able to sell it. Imagine if one of your deleted thoughts, ideas – or just random small thing that you never wrote down but always imagined while writing – actually shows up on screen, because a director, or cinematographer or set designer read your words and thought it up too. There was a Great Hall room in the exhibit, and I was totally impressed by this chocolate hat with chocolate bunnies coming out of it – as a reader I’ve thought of things like that…I’m going to have to try and recreate that one!

I get why there is no Peeves in the movie – it’s an extra plot-line that could be eliminated; and Peeves is kind of obnoxious. I even get why they play down the two oldest Weasleys (Charlie and Bill) even though I like both characters a good deal. But I don’t get the mixing up which characters are in which scenes? Why is Neville not with Hermione, Ron and Harry when they meet Fluffy for the first time? Why is Neville not part of the detention in the forest with Hermione, Harry and Malfoy (and why is Ron there)? Neville’s actions at the end of the book and movie seem much more heroic when you know he’s been suffering along with Hermione and Harry in the wrath of all other Gryffindors for loosing all of those house points. I can’t figure this one out at all. The scenes play out mostly the same; I just keep wondering where Neville is.

I like the obstacle course in the book better. The gauntlet the trio has to run at the end is really entertaining in the book – I miss the potion (if for the logic puzzle alone) and troll sections. I liked knowing that each professor put their own twist on the trials to get to the stone, and that all three children needed to be there to get through it. Although, I really do like Ron’s speech in the movie as he sits on his horse and waits for the queen to knock him down.

So, what do you think? Movie thoughts, book thoughts, book and movie thoughts? After reading and watching, do you feel the movie took any liberties? Does it assume you’ve read the book or does it stand alone? If you’ve already seen the movie and this is the first time you’re reading the book, do you get more out of the movie now?

Oh, and if that girl who reminded me so much of Hermione from the HP exhibit who lost her bag of souvenirs and tried to take mine at the train station is somehow reading this; I apologize. It really was my bag and not yours, but my husband tells me I was mean to you and I should have just opened up my bag and showed you what was inside instead of saying you could look inside if you wanted to (which apparently I did in an accusing tone). I really hope you found your souvenirs, wherever you are.

Next week we will wrap up book one and look ahead to book two – that pesky chamber and all those spiders. Watch the movie if you haven’t yet and post your comments!