Categories
Adventure

The Art of the Brick

Untitled
I can’t begin to count how many people took the time to let me know that The Art of the Brick exhibit was at the nearby Franklin Institute. Apparently my interest in Legos has grown to a near legendary status. So when I heard that NGM was moving out of the area (but not too far away) I knew it was time to check it out.

So I took the voyage to NGM’s house. It wasn’t too bad of a drive, I’ve got it down by now. Didn’t even need to use GPS or look at a map the night before.

Perhaps the most eventful part of the day would be NGM’s road rage (well it wasn’t really that bad). We were cut off my BOBAH, and it enraged him! Then we drove around the parking garage for quite a big. There was no parking and we had no idea that we were driving in a circle for quite a bit. It was funny.

Once we got inside NGM completely BOBAH’d me and cut in front of me to get his bracelet. I was a bit disappointed by the display of aggression.

The exhibit was really cool. There was quite an impressive variety of works. Famous works redone in brick as well as original creations too. All very impressive.

Afterwards we got some good pizza at Bricco’s. It was really good too, they always know fine places to eat.

It was another great NGM trip.

 

Categories
Adventure

Mutter Museum

SkeletonsI asked the Shepherd to come up with some destinations for a recent adventure. Apparently he recently heard about a strange museum somewhere in Philadelphia. With a little bit of searching we came across the Mutter Museum. We were now determined to seek out this fine establishment.

The plan had us departing no later than 10:00 am. This meant I would have to call the Shepherd at 9:30 to wake him and possibly come over and manually wake him if necessary. Amazingly, when I called him that morning he was already awake and ready to go. If you know him then you may not believe the previos sentence, but honestly it is true.

The ride over wasn’t too bad, there really wasn’t much traffic to deal with. It took us a few extra turns to get there, but nothing too out of the way.

Paying for street parking was very difficult. It wouldn’t accept my debit card despite several swipes nor would it take our $5 dollar bills. Apparently there was a $4 limit on it. Luckily I did have some singles and began to feed them one at a time.

This took a very long time, for some reason it was a struggle for this wretched machine to take my money. Finally with my fingers numbing from the frigid cold it just shot out our parking receipt. And when I mean shot out, it went onto the street and the wind took it for a little ride as well. Eventually I was able to pin it down with my foot, but I’ve sure I gave some people a very entertaining show attempting to pay for parking.

We walked a block the the museum and used 2 interent coupons the Shepherd printed out to save $2 each on admission. I’ve never seen him so organized, and frankly it was rather strange. But I saved $2 and that was nice.

Inside it was very nice, but sadly no photography was allowed. We were both shocked at just how busy it was. We clearly expected to be the only fools to partake in such an adventure on this day, but apparently others shared our interest as well.

The various exhibits were for the most part extremely morbid. I can’t say that I was a fan. While I can see the medically value in documenting and sharing such things that were on display, I felt at times dirty for viewing many of the exhibits.

There was a wall of skulls, with some dating back hundreds of years. Samples of Einstein’s brain were featured as well.

The most disturbing exhibits to me were the numerous jars of fetuses and siamese one’s on display. That was very creepy. Also the assortment of old tools was strange as well. They had there tongs that were used to crush a babies skull, yuck.

Oh, and cast of a 70 pound cyst creeped me out as well. It was huge.

Afterwards we walked around Philly for a little bit. However it was freezing outside and extremely windy, so that didn’t last very long.

On the way home I realized that we were near The Pop Shop, which is a restaurant that I went to previously with NGM after a run a while back. I suggested that we go there to get a bite to eat. It was just as amazing as I had remembered. I got a humongous grilled cheese and ate more fries than a man should be able to.

All in all a very successful albeit bizarre adventure. And I’ve very glad for my health.