YOB: #2 The International Spy Museum (Part 2)
Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 7:00AM MAD21 By Beth
What red-blooded American girl doesn't love her some spies? I mean, come on, if your heart doesn't go pitter patter for at least one of the many James Bonds, there's something wrong with you. Some of my earliest movies included the 007 ones, those and Star Wars. I fell in love with James Bond (but not nearly as hard as I fell for a certain British bad guy, if you have to ask who you obviously haven't been following my stories). My favorite Bond as a young girl was Roger Moore, Sean Connery was too hairy and Timothy Dalton was just…odd. I know there were more but they did not earn a place in my memory as these few did. Pierce Brosnan was good too but I had my reservations when Daniel Craig was announced to play James several years back. Really? A blonde Bond? But after seeing the first movie he did, I was hooked. I guess you can technically argue that Bond isn't really a spy in the strictest sense of the word, but that's really besides the point. My love for spies and covert activity was born and will never die.
Thus brings us to the International Spy Museum on a cold January morning. We had just planted our letterbox that would later disappear and we were high on adrenaline. Maeli accompanied us on the train to the city. It was January 2nd and we figured not too many people would be out at the museum. We were wrong. We got to the street the museum was on before it opened so we stopped in the Spy Café' for lunch. The menu was a poor attempt at cleverness. I got the Langley hot dog, Maeli got the MI-5 dog, both of which really could have been called the 911 hot dog as it could clog your arteries just by looking at it. Lara, being much smarter than me and valuing clear arteries over good taste, opted for a bagel and an apple crumb cake thing. We ate a leisurely lunch, used the not-so-soundproof bathrooms and marveled that there were a lot of people on the street outside the café'. It was only after we left the café' that we realized these people were actually waiting in line to get into the museum. Seriously, don't you people have anything better to do with your time?
So we joined the back of the line which slowly made its way to the door where we were let in to buy tickets. We were then promptly shown the door. Outside again we waited in another line to actually get into the museum,. This part took much longer. There is one elevator to take guests up to the second floor where the museum begins. Perhaps eight people plus the operator can fit in the elevator at a time. The elevator is very slow and the operator must wait until the room it opens on is clear-ish before letting more people up there. I don't know how long we waited or what we did to pass the time, I'm sure it was amusing and involved a lot of the typical outrageousness us bombshells are known for.
Once we finally got up to the museum we were to assume the identity of a spy laid out for us on pillars around the room. We could be tested on this information later in the museum. This is all very nice but I could totally come up with a better identity than these people did. I looked over one and committed the information to memory in case of interrogation later in the day, but my heart wasn't really in it and sadly, I never got the chance to prove myself. Somehow I missed the spots where you could test your guile against terrorists, mercenaries, or the computer.
Lara and I are similar in the way we take in museums. While some would be content to simply look at pictures and relics and move on, us Bombshells enjoy learning (gasp!) and will read the plaques affixed to the walls and cases to better understand what it is we are looking at. We know this about each other and neither of us was too bothered when we lost track of the other. I learned about some fascinating ways people 50 years ago spied on others. I would seriously like to have some of the gadgets in that museum. We were both rather disappointed that we didn't learn a whole lot about modern day covert operations but we understand that it would be rather foolish to have a museum that gives away all the secrets the US uses. We can both imagine the types of things out there today, we have quite vivid imaginations!
It was a good day. We rode the train back, got in Lara's car (which I had taken a picture of to assure that we remembered where we parked) and attempted to leave the parking lot. Some confusion ensued, something about parking passes and holidays. I didn't pay much attention. Maeli went running across the parking lot to get a pass and we left. Who would've thought it would take 1 ½ years for me to write about it! Stay tuned for the next Year of the Birthday (a.k.a. Young Outrageous Bombshell) adventure!!!
[Editor's Note: Be sure to go read Lara's account of YOB: #2 The International Spy Museum]
Reader Comments (1)
Outrageous bombshells? Does that mean that we can blow things up?