This was one of the smaller skeletons - there were a ton of them there!
When we went in there we were given free audio guides in English. Each display had a number attached to it, you would put in the number and it would tell you about it. Michael was sooooo excited about this. I think this is the only time he was sitting down the whole time we were there. He went from one to another to another to another. David had a hard time keeping up with him. :-)
AJ wanted to take this one for Grandpa - hope you like it Grandpa!!!! :-)
This is the largest mounted dinosaur skeleton in the world. You can see how small the people are in comparison. It was found in Tanzania between 1909 and 1913.
Here AJ is learning about fish. He really loved listening to them. He actually listened to most of the talks when he punched in the numbers and didn't run as fast from one to another as Michael :-)
David decided to have a stare down - I think the panther might win :-)
These was kind of cool, you put your elbows on it and you could hear what the statue was saying. Unfortunately it was in German, but it was still a cool effect!!
Michael actually had a stare down with a live baby one of these when he was just over a year old up close so we thought it would be great to have another one :-)
This skeleton is huge in comparison to the boys heads, absolutely amazing.
Michael listening to some information about rocks. That is the thing about this museum, there was so much and such a variety of things and it was so cool to have the information about things. David listened to a lot of it and he had some great information from them and very interesting too.
Michael and his scary face. This was cool, one side with skin and the other with just bones.
AJ was getting eaten by a huge hippo!!!
This was a HUGE room with all these bottles of specimens in them, I put the boys in front of it so you can see the height of it.
Here is the length of the room and then there were shelves inside these two walls, you can see the expanse of it and I am not sure what they do with all of them.
This skull just looked kind of mean - I couldn't read what it was and there was no number to it.
After that we headed over to museum island. It is truly an island, there is water all around it and there are a ton of museums on it. We decided to go to only two of them and that was really probably one too many for the kids. We started at the Neues Museum. It was finished in 1859 but destroyed in WWII and then re-built and re-opened in 2009. It's exhibits include Egyptian and prehistory and early history collections. The biggest artifact that is in there is the bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. It was really cool to see that!!! We couldn't take pictures of it, but just to see it was amazing!!!!
They set up the museum in different rooms. This was the courtyard. The sculptures around the wall told a story of conquest and people trying to escape. I still can't believe the kind of art and sculptures that they did way back then with none of the technology that we have today.
The one thing that the Egyptians had was amazing burial caskets. This was the only one there that had the drawings on the inside as well as the outside of the casket.
Look at the intricate designs on this one and all the writing - not sure what it says, I am a little rusty on my ancient Egyptian ;-)
This one was cool--it had to lions on each side of it and was one of the few Christian ones, they were the guards.
Old time dice- even back then they enjoyed game nights!!!
This is a great picture that Vic took - it shows the two different door frames and then a statue on the inside of a little boy and then the statue of the horse through the window.
This is just for one person - each layer had a different meaning, different protection. This museum also had the free audio guides. The kids enjoyed it but by this time they were getting a little tired because we had been walking for hours and hours. The adults were starting to drag a little too, but we had one more museum we wanted to see and we already paid for it and didn't want to pay for it again the next day. It was the Pergamon Museum, luckily it was a short walk to get there. One thing that was interesting is you have to check your coat at the coat check or wear it the whole time. I kept mine at one of them and then took it off and draped it over my arm and was told I had to go check it or put it back on. But that is a side note, this one took over 20 years to build and was finished in 1930. They transported parts of the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate of Miletus from Turkey. There is an ongoing controversy about the collection being returned to Turkey.
This is another great picture that Vic took - it is a panoramic view of the Pergamon Altar. It was built in the first half of the 2nd century BC on one of the terraces of acropolis. The base is decorated showing the battle between the giants and the Olympian gods known as the Gigantomachy.
Here is a little closer view of some of the architecture.
My boys on the steps of the Pergamon Altar
This is the Market Gat of Miletus. It was built in Miletus in the 2nd century AD and destroyed in an earthquake in the 10th or 11th century.
I just thought these were really cool looking - like guards, walking through them it is almost like you are walking into a protected place.
This is the Ishtar Gate and was the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon. It was constructed in about 575 BC
It was actually a double gate and the other gate is much too big so it is in storage, but this is part of the Processional Way between the above gate and the bigger one that is in storage.
They had many statues there that were a quite sight!
This is the Entablature of the Sacrificial Altar in the courtyard of the Great Altar Marble, before 156 BC
This was a mosaic on the floor from the dining room of a Roman private house - that is pretty cool to have in your own private home.....
The boys and I being guarded, I am surprised they are still going at this point. We let them sit for quite awhile on the steps to rest up and they still were pretty tired, I can't blame them we were standing or walking almost the whole day. We didn't go through the whole museum on this one, but saw most of it on fast forward :-) Then we all were ready to head for home and have some dinner. But on the way we saw a couple of things I couldn't help but put on the blog.
You can see me pointing to it, it is a double umbrella! I have never seen one like this and thought it was so cool, it is connected up top in the middle and then down below there is only one handle that the older gentleman was holding. I think it is great!!!
Then these guys are die hards - it is a bierbike - drinking while biking and seeing the sights. We actually saw a couple of these and the boys were all for it!!! It sounded and looked like these guys were having a great time! We headed back to the apartment and had dinner, kids played and were soooo glad to get home. Then the kids went to bed and the adults stayed up waaaaayyy too late and laughed and had soooo much fun playing games. We played taboo and pictionary.
I had never thought about it but Porchea and Victor brought dry erase markers and we played on the window. It was perfect, we had to put paper towels on the outside so we could see it at night. We played guys against girls and let me tell you my abs hurt after this evening was over. It was a great end to another great day!!!
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