Weekly Cultural Outing: National History Museum

This week, I dragged Eli to my weekly cultural outing to remind Cariocas of all their city has to offer and to remind gringos that there is much more to Rio than the beach.

This week, we visited the National History Museum in Centro. It's housed in a huge historic building, with whitewashed walls, a huge interior courtyard with old cannons and Spanish tile roofs, which at one point was the "Casa do Trem" and then later an arsenal.

We went during one of the last days of the "Darwin in Rio" exhibit, and it was packed with school groups. The exhibit, which was created by a Brazilian group and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, was visually stunning and had an overwhelming amount of information about the life of Darwin. There were three live specimens: some small turtles, some huge turtles, and some awesome huge lizards. There were lots of skeletons and some fossils, but the actual Stuff in the exhibit wasn't that exciting. I think that it was a great opportunity for the student groups, though, because it's a much more interesting and interactive way to learn about evolution. My favorite part, actually, was the last part, which was a huge rack of hanging orchids of a dozen different species, which were gorgeous. Also, all of the printed materials and ads and even the tickets were so pretty. You can check out the website here.

My biggest beef about the museum, which has been my complaint at all museums in Rio, is LACK OF SIGNAGE. We got lost and entered the exhibits from the wrong end a whole bunch of times, since there is so little information telling you which way to go. The museum is huge, with several floors, so it's easy to get lost. The permanent exhibits in the museum house artifacts dating back to the beginning of modern Brazilian history, namely, the 1500s. There are tons of objects that belonged to the Emperors and to the leaders of the past, including an ivory boat made in China that belonged to one of the royal sons. The translation in English of "ivory" was iron. Good job!

One of my favorite parts was the old carriages exhibit, which were so incredibly beautiful and ornate and ridiculous that it's amazing they were used for transportation. Eli's favorite part was "Coins of the World" where they had coins dating back thousands of years, to when coins were even first used, to the present, from every country in the world. Eli loves coins, and he collects them. But I love him anyway.

We were wandering around the second floor and we looked out into the courtyard, where some school kids were bumming around after their tour. There was a fat teenage boy straddling one of the cannons, and a girl was taking his picture. Eli goes, "Parabeeeeeens," in his cute sarcastic way, and I burst out laughing, but then I felt bad because the kids heard us and ran away in shame. Ahahaha.

The best exhibit, in my opinion, was a temporary one called "A New World, a New Empire: the Portuguese Court in Brazil." It contained artifacts, information, and paintings from the time of the arrival of the royal court in Brazil. It was gorgeous and thorough and I loved seeing the yellowing passenger lists in fancy ye old script. I also was completely FREAKED OUT by a statue of the emperor, which, with the help of some brilliant but simple technology, turned into a TALKING STATUE. Oh my lord. I also loved two of the thrones they featured, one with a huge dragon on the top of the seat with two lion-women as the feet, with huge, ridiculous pointy boobs. The other one had lions as the feet, with cherubs on the arms, and a smaller dragon on top. These people were so over the top. Oh and as you can see from this painting of Dom Joao, they were also total hotties.

My other favorite moment was when we were passing through the old cars exhibit, weaving our way through a group of seven and eight year-olds anxiously scribbling notes as their tour guide droned on. Eli and I were talking, and I guess I switched between Portuguese and English as we passed them, because one of the boys spun around, wide-eyed, and goes, "CARAMBA, essa tambem fala INGLES!" -- WOW, that girl speaks ENGLISH too! Ohhh love it.

Oh, and as you can tell, both of us forgot our cameras, and we definitely must have missed parts of the museum because it was so big. I really don't agree with the entrance fee, which during the Darwin period was very jacked up, but I discovered a great thing and now I'm totally kicking myself that for the nearly 10 months I've been here I haven't done this yet:

My GW student ID card totally works for student discounts. Doh.

Comments

[Trapped in NJ]

"Eli loves coins, and he collects them. But I love him anyway."

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!