We Are Very Cultured Now

Look at the inside of this museum! (plus me in my new H&M clothes)
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First thing we did today was ship, again, it was very nessecary though since the coats and such we'd bought required room in our packs and thus we needed to purge. Also we had a gift we needed to send for my cousin Christina, we hope it reaches her in time for the shower on Feb. 4th and if nothing else before the date Aniyah is due, the 14th March. That task accomplished we had another to attend to, this being the bus passes we need to purchase, and post-haste too. Found the office, it was coupled with some kind of fast food joint, oddly enough. Bought our tickets, 15 day of unlimited travel and we can not wait to start our hopping about. Then took the underground again to the museum area. The first two museums we didn't go into but they were absolutely excuisite outside. The richness of detail and the prolificness of the carvings my word it was incredible. The more we looked the more we saw. Briefly glanced inside one, looked just as amazing on the inside, but we had been told there were better ones, so we left, though the building itself was probably worth the admission price.

Cookie (can you find her, she is in blue) outside the natural history museum
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Well I really wanted to see the Ephesus museum so we headed over there. It is actually housed with a group of other museums in one of the old palaces, wow what a building. For our money we got into three museums; Ephesus, the Ancient Armour and Weapons, and the Antique Musical Instruments Museum. I am quite sure I have botched the names. First we hit the weapons and such, it was alright but at a certain point it was like if you've seen one you've seen them all. There was a free audio handset but it didn't do a lot of the stuff and since all the signs were in German most of the time when I was interested in something I couldn't get any info on it. Then we headed over to the musical instruments, which Cook went gaga for. There were some exceptionally beautiful pieces. The coolest part, at least to me, was that some of them you got to listen to being played on the handset. It was like a mini-concert. Some of the rooms were just, oh my. They building was meant to serve as the Emperor's private apartment so of course no expense was spared in the interiors appointing. The main areas, well just wow, and it was so white and gorgeous and clean (note to self, must take Gigi there).

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnmmme5(it is modern art)

Ditto for me
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Well so then we hit Ephesus, which was without a doubt the best covered by the handset, some incredible pieces too. Funny as many old roman stuff as we have seen lately I have still yet to grow tired of it. Then we walked over to the Leopold Museum, which had beed highly reccommended to us by multiple people. Well the first thing we both noticed was the building, wheras the other museums had been housed in these amazing old buildings that were attractions in themselves this one  was in a hulking modern structure. There were some lovely pieces of art inside, to be sure, but the vast majority was definately not our taste. Especially the terriffying and nightmarish work of Schill, who scares the pants off us both. All in all I ended up wishing we'd used the money to go into one of the other museums instead. Oh well.

Inside the museum
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Then we walked over to the opera, we were quite early but wanted to see where to go to buy the standing tickets, well we went in the door and were very suprised to see people already lined up. So we joined the queue and waited. And waited. And waited. I tell you it would not have killed them to have a food vendor there, we were starving. Well we finally got our tickets and were told to stand somewhere else and wait. Then went to our area and after marking our place with a scarf were told that we HAD to take our coats and backpacks to the coatroom, where of course there was a charge. The opera was Magic Flute, they had subtitles on little screens, which was thoughtful. It was ok, I would have liked it better if I didn't know what they were saying since it was racist and offensive to women, but they had lovely voices. By the second half we couldn't wiat for it to end, oh our feet hurt. A lot of people did not return from intermission. Then we headed back to the hostel, ate some food and didn't hit the sack till after 12.