Life Viewed Through an Amber Focus

Really, really, really fantastic. But also really long and hot and crowded, and this with timed tickets only letting so many people into the exhibit at a time. We had a great time though and learned a lot. It's amazing to walk through all these displays and realize that the stuff there is 3000 years old. It just give you this sense of awe and of time passing. It also had me wondering how they moved some of the larger pieces. A semi-truck flatbed, I suppose on some of it.

My son took 5000 pictures so I might have something to share in a day or two if anything turned out. The exhibit was about four times as big as the Harry Potter exhibit (and probably four times as crowded). Also way more interesting brecause it was history and real. Not that I wasn't fascinated by the HP stuff, but ancient Egypt is a whole different world.

We had a great time with my neice along and she was just so thrilled and happy to be there (more so than my kids, even who are history buffs). After the exhibit we watched a movie on the IMAX there, Secrets of the Pharaohs. It talked a lot about the tombs and the history of the discoveries and about all the grave-robbing and how the pharaoh mummies had actually been hidden by the priests and not placed in some of the original tombs at all. All very intresting. It makes me want to go see some of these things in person.

If anyone is in the Seattle area while this is going on, you really should make every effort to go. It's really worth the $20 for adults, $15 for children.

I did fairly well physically. Although I'm pretty much never moving from my bed and my ice pack again (or at least until morning), it isn't my knee that is hurting. It is my hip and low back. So much walking, but that's not the bad part. It's the standing. Just standing. Moving around loosens things up. Plus I still walk slow and my family walks fast. But no cane and I only had one moment where I wished I had it and that was after we'd left the science center. And I'm glad I didn't use it, because it will mess me up. I proactively scheduled a massage for tomorrow because I knew I'd be tied up like this. Part of it was the standing, part of it was the long drive there and back.

I plan to go swimming tomorrow, too. That always helps things loosen up again, plus anti-gravity is always awesome when you are in pain. Still, all in all, I did great. This bodes well for Disneyland in March.

We are back from the science center and the Harry Potter exhibit and even though it was totally worth the $40 for the 4 of us, it was crowded and exhausting.  Still, it was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be.  It's a travelling exhibit and they used actual stuff from the movies.  The costumes were amazing (I thought of you, azriona).  And they had sections done up like the inside of Hagrid's house, Umbridge's office, and the herbology lab where you could pull up mandrakes and they would squeal.  It had the dragon and Buckbeak and a petrified Colin and all of the wands and potion books and the potion lab and just...so many things, too many to count.  It took about two hours to make our way through it and I was really glad they were only letting in so many people at a time.  Oh, the kids got sorted with the sorting hat.  Rose is a Hufflepuff (duh!).  And Tobias, it couldn't make up its mind whether he was a Ravenclaw or a Slytherin (and he's really a bit of both so that was spot on).  It had the quidditch robes and brooms and also three of the hoops and you could throw those, what do you call them, quaffles through them.  And the golden snitch was so beautiful.  And so was the egg that Harry has to open in Goblet of Fire.  I'm not the biggest fan, but still, I was very impressed.

The gift shop was fairly extensive (and expensive).  earlgreytea68, you will be happy to know they do, in fact, make a time turner necklace.  I was sorely tempted because it was so pretty, but it cost $60.  They wouldn't let me take a picture of it, either.  No keychains though, sadly.  We did get a few things.  We got a gorgeous set of metal book clips (like book marks), each with the crest of one of the houses on them, a wand for T, a chocolate frog for Rose with a trading card that had the Potter family on it, and two fridge magnets for me.  One says Hufflepuff (which I usually sort out to be when I'm not Ravenclaw), and the other says Hogwart's Express Platform 9 3/4's.



I've really got to find my digital camera.  The focus on T's DSI is not that good.

Anyway it was a good day, but I am super sore from the long car ride both ways, and even from sitting in the wheelchair.  Gosh, that thing was uncomfortable.  Not as uncomfortable as wobbling around on a cane and being ridiculously sick on my own two feet would have been, but still pretty bad.  I have a massage scheduled for tomorrow, thank goodness.  I will need it.

We had dinner at Red Lobster.  Their Seaport Shrimp and Lobster is fantastic!  I haven't had a meal out that good in ages.

Now I need to crash.  I just wish I had some sudafed.  I sorely need to breathe.