Sunday, March 20, 2011

Week 7 - Science Museum

If I remember correctly, that's when we went to the Liberty Science Center in NJ. It was a cold and windy day... And I had a head cold or something like that. So my memory is a bit fuzzy when it comes to the details.

First we took the train to Hoboken, NJ. A real-life double-decker train (guess which deck we were on) that moved snail-like from one station to the next until just over an hour later it reached Hoboken.

Usually this train is empty on Saturday mornings (or was it a Sunday morning?). But not this time. Hoboken was having a pre-St. Patrick's day parade and drink-fest that day. So every platform was full of drunk revelers and the train cars were choke-full, standing room only, after just 3 or 4 stops. Good thing we got in at the first stop and had to get out at the last one. The downside - spilts beer all over the train and some drunks chanting "drink up-drink up-drink up" for like 30 mins straight.
Why did I have to take M's car seat with me, you ask? 'Cause we weren't going to take the train on the way back, but instead ride in a nice BMW car. But here's M familiarizing himself with the local real estate market while waiting for the train.

Before going to the museum we stopped by J's place (my brother's girlfriend who sacrificed a huge chunk of her day to be our cab driver. Thanks, J!) She has this awesome dog, Guinness. Isn't he adorable?! And he is super smart too and very nice with kids. So not only did M get to give him some treats and play with him, but also was able to walk him for a little bit (with our supervision, of course).
Finally, the museum... What can I tell you? It's awesome and huge and absolutely overwhelming. Full of people too, but I s'pose everything is on a weekend. So we went to almost all the exibits except for the Sensory Tunnel one. I didn't think M would've liked it (they warn you to prepare for 10 minutes of crawling on all fours in a sensory maze in pitch dark). And I didn't feel all that well to drag him through it on my back. Maybe next time.


But him and Arkadiy did go on a space roller-coaster simulator. And tried their hands at controlling a mini-excavator. And drilled for oil. And dredged the Hudson River. Plus we got to see all sorts of interesting things about germs, watched an operating theater in action (a banana was getting staple-ectomy done by a couple of 6-year olds).
And we went outside for a breath of air and a great photo op, but just for a few seconds - it was windy and M wanted to get back, like RIGHT AWAY. Oh, and also created giant soap bubbles and attempted to control a neuclear reactor, a hydroelectro station, a wind turbine and something else equally awesome with lost of buttons and levers and lights (I think it was a laser beam).
All said and done, by 5pm (the closing time), we found ourselves in the museum's store. M wanted some more Space stuff, but I put my foot down and said he could get 1 small thing that was not space-themed. So instead he got himself a hex bug. But I'll talk about this separately since it's so cool.
Then it was time to walk Guinness again and head home. Needless to say, M fell asleep half-way. He was actually so tired that he didn't wake up when I moved him from the car to the bed and changed him into PJs.

The next day he wanted to paint something. Here's what he painted.
The description that he gave me: "Mama, this is something glassy with stinky beer and it fell on the floor and broke into lots of pieces. And then here is a big germ!"

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