1.We get to know the area! Okay this one is obvious, but when we are going to a different city each week, it's hard to study up on it's history and why it's important. Museums can tells us all that and more in under two hours.
2. There's always a nice viewing bench to sit on. We are on our feet walking around most of the day, so we love to be the lazy tourists and have our whole family take up an entire bench. When we don't know what the display is, and are too far to read the information, I get out my camera, take a picture of the information plaque, zoom in, and read it out loud to anyone around.
3.Sometimes, the museums are entirely in a different language, so we don't have to do anything but look at pictures.
4. When it gets boring, I have time to harvest my crops in my Smurf Village, an app that doesn't need internet!
5. Crazy photo shoots. These are the best in modern art museums. Today's artists come up with the weirdest stuff and I like to take pictures to remind myself that someone is making a living off of this giant solid blue canvas.
6. Free restrooms. Yes, most everyone is aware that in Europe, everyone pays for the loo. I don't usually have a problem with this because high school - with 4 minute passing periods - trained me to never need to use the bathroom during the day. Thanks FCHS. But the rest of the family cannot help but take a pit stop every hour or so.
7. The tickets make for good scrap paper to put our chewed gum in. Who wants to walk around looking for a trashcan when there's a perfectly good piece of paper at the bottom of your purse?
8. The cultural experience is unparalleled. In both small and large museums, we see a lot of different countries represented. The best is to watch what everyone takes pictures of. Sure we are all guilty of taking useless pictures. Sometimes, I think something is really cool, and as soon as I get home I don't even recognize what I was aiming for in the shot. But after following some fellow tourists around, it's obvious that some people just want to record every second of their museum visit. Even the type of carpet they are walking on.
9. They're not all boring! It's pretty great being the oldest child all the time, but when having younger siblings gives me an excuse to go to some interactive kid museum, I like it even more.
10.The beggars can't get to us. Even after 76 days of being exposed to these people, I am still super awkward around them. When I see a grungy looking old lady coming near, my thought process goes something like this:
If I look busy on my phone, maybe she wont come over here - as long as I don't make eye contact I'm fine - I wonder if its a scam, shes probably actually some young gypsy - don't look - DON'T LOOK - okay just a glance - SHOOT - she's definitely old - I think she's coming over here - why did I look! - well I definitely don't speak her language, so I'm exempt from giving money right? - she's definitely coming closer - I'll just duck behind Scarlet - that's it, I'm taking the long way to get around this lady.
It just goes on and on until the beggar isn't in sight.
Today we hit three Köln museums.The first was a modern art museum that had a very intriguing temporary exhibition. I think they had a whole bunch of people do acid, let them loose in a really creepy abandoned warehouse, filmed everything they did, and called it art. Next was a museum with old Roman artifacts. It was cool, but not as cool as the actual Roman Forum. and last was a German war museum. I think it told a lot of history on both of the world wars, but seeing as I have no knowledge of the German language, and most everything was in German, I couldn't really tell you. They did have some english info in the basement which was a prison in World War 2. So all wasn't lost!
After another quick run by the local McDonalds for a milkshake, we headed home for an authentic German meal of glorified German hot dogs. I'm sure there's some fancy name, and I've now offended someone.
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