Saturday, August 14, 2010

A Visit to an Art Museum

Last Friday, the kids and I got to go see "The Birth of Impressionism" at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. It was so much fun!

Ok, so Tboy wasn't crazy about it, but he didn't hate it either. And if we hadn't had to wait in so many lines before we got in to see the paintings he would have done much better. As it was, he kept trying to sit down on the ground every time Tgirl and I stopped in front of a painting and I ended up giving him my iPhone to keep him busy so that he wouldn't start whining about wanting to leave.

One of the things that I liked most about the outing, besides how amazing it was to see the original of paintings that I have seen in books, on stationary, etc for most of my life, was watching Tgirl discover the art. She was fascinated by it and could have spent a lot more time standing looking at all of the paintings had I not been hurrying her along concerned her brother might explode.

I did learn how useful the audio guide it when visiting a museum. I hadn't been planning on renting one. They were $7 a piece and after buying the museum tickets, I just didn't think we needed to be throwing money all over the place. But as we stood in the second line waiting our turn (after standing in another line for nearly 45 minutes, including 30 minutes after our time of entry on our ticket) and my little natives were starting to get restless, I bought one audio guide and told them that we would all take turns listening to it and sharing it.

Which worked ok. Except, both kids were rather impatient with each other when it wasn't their turn.

So I bought another one. Each kid had their own and I just looked at the paintings. Then, when the boy gave up on the art and I gave him my phone, I got to listen to the audio guide and it was definitely worth it. I learned so much more, the narration definitely enhanced my experience. And from watching my girl honestly enjoying art that was made over 200 years ago, it was absolutely worth it.

So even though we got lost/missed our turn about 4 times on the way there and once on the way home (thanks to my horrible sense of direction - hooray for the GPS on my phone!) and the parking garage was full so we had to drive up and down the surrounding streets, trying not to get lost again and ending up having to walk rather a long way from the parking spot we ended up getting into the museum, it was a great outing and a wonderful experience!

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