Good Intentions

What do you get when you combine one of the world's most popular museums, three children whose ages sum to 9, and an overeager father stupid enough to think he could get the time to enjoy it?

The answer to this loaded question, you can surmise, is a not-great Portnoy family outing. I've been wanting to go to the British Museum for ages and it being a typical grey, blustery Saturday, we thought we'd give it a go. The kids, Tracy, and I all love museums, so what could go wrong? It even started out fine given that Tube actually got us there trouble-free, entrance is free (a dizzying concept in this town), and the museum, like the Tate Modern, has a "kids' desk" that organizes a variety of age-appropriate scavenger hunts.

Notwishtanding photos of smiling children above, it was a challenging - and brief - experience. It simply wasn't a kid-friendly (or stroller-friendly) museum. We did do the antiquities search designed for 3-5 year olds (even as I just typed that out, it sounds ridiculous, don't you think?). The search all took place in one room devoted mostly to Buddhist sculpture and art. And having just returned from the "Nalanda Trail", why not delve into more South Asian civilizations! Yeah, right. I guess the boys liked snooping around for the right numbered display case and trying to sit and place their hands/fingers in the same fashion as Mr. Siddhartha himself. But this was a short-lived and (let's face it) not fun exercise. A number of exhibits, like the Terra Cotta warriors (temporary exhibit) and the Rosetta Stone, probably the museum's most famous holding (last picture), will have to wait for another day.

Lessons learned, probably. I will definitely try to make it back, either by myself, with Tracy, or maybe even just with Ben. As we just experienced at the Miro museum in Barcelona last weekend, he does seem to really enjoy listening to the blurbs about different pieces on the headsets provided by the museum. There's no way that he understands what they're talking about (I often don't - beware art historians with digital recording technology), but we're certainly not going to discourage him from pursuing this activity.