George visited at the weekend and so we went for a little trip to the National museum. If you are in Edinburgh I totally recommend it; it is such a wonderful and varied museum.This may be a very picture heavy post because the building is just so beautiful.
The museum itself it so big and light; I think that's one of the things I like best about it. It feels like the perfect environment to actually learn about the things you're seeing rather than being an old and dusty place where things are kept. My favourite room is the natural history room which looks like a huge green house with sea creatures suspended from the ceiling. I have tried to photograph this room on two different occasions now and just cannot do it justice. It's so awe inspiring in person because all the creatures are life size so you feel so tiny.
On the first level of this room they have platforms with examples of the most amazing animals on them. They also have a huge dinosaur and the skeleton of a prehistoric giant sloth. It is so overwhelmingly beautiful. By the way I don't know why I'm pulling that face, I really like polar bears.
There are also really fun interactive displays. I think these might be for children but hey, we had fun.
My second favourite room is right next door to all the animals. It is all dark and has a huge collection of old astronomy equipment. It was so fun to look at all these intricate bronze pieces and read the tiny plaques about what they were meant to do. Some of them are brilliant; there was a type of clock which apparently "Just didn't work."
There is also an enormous transparent globe with all the constellations on. If you look inside you can just see the models of the planets with all their little moons around the sun. Sadly it wasn't spinning. I soooooo wanted to spin it.
