natural history museum is the best place ever

With Cat White heading off to explore the North until after christmas, I was left to my own devices in London for a few days- what better time than to do a little more Museum hopping.

I was excited to go to the natural history museum, having heard so much about it over the years. It was a freezing day and I was excited to get inside. The builiding itself is absolutely gorgeous - and it has been a Museum since the 1850;s - so a trip there is not only an education in natural history, but in the history of museums (they still have the bird exhibit as it was 100 years ago - and alot of taxidermy too!)

I had a WONDERFUL DAY (well 2 days, because I came back agian the next day)! I spent hours wandering the halls. I loved the "red zone" which was earth sciences - they had the most wonderful minerals and crystals on display! I liked this seciton as well because I learned alot. Most of the sections were more of a memory jog for me - it is nice to feel I have largely conqured "popular science" as a subject area. The Blue zone - the mammals section, was AMAZING!! so many beautiful creatures - and very well set out too - with taxidermied animals everywhere.

There was also a great exhibit on the human body - extremely detailed- especially the perception and brain section! There were dinasaur bones aplentyy as well. I should mention that each of these exhibits (of which there were so many I loved but havn't written about) were MASSIVE. The human body took me at least 1.5 hours - and I spent 3 hours in the earth science section (made up of 4 huge secitons).

I also went to the David Attenborough studio, where I attended a fascinating lecture on Meteorites. They were interviewing a meteorite scientist. Did you know that most of the meteorites found on earth are in the antarctic? and she had been there, collecting. It was SOOO awesome.

Then I went to the spirit house (where all teh animals in formaldehyde are kept). THen I checked out the newest section - the coocoon - a huge 8 story structure within the museum shaped like... well, a coocoon.

Inside, all teh displays were about science in action and were super interactive - with special touch tables. You also got a special card when you went in, which you could swipe to add to your online NHM account- so you could look at the information again when you got home.

It was SOOO rad. It was interesting to see the oldest exhibits (the birds) and then the ones that were dating a bit (the ecology one was from the early 90s for sure- as was the creepy crawlies). I liked how you could tell the "era" of each exhibit by it's presentation styles, detail and technology.

I love the Natural History Museum. It is my favourite place for sure.

Oh i also went to the Victoria and Albert Museum - a very cool (and very huge) design museum. it was neat-o. but the NHM rules 4EVA!!