Friday at the Museums

I don't know when it was exactly that the powers-that-be decided to make a lot of London's museums free but I am so bloody glad that happened. Over the years I've taken full advantage of the free admissions but now, as I'm unemployed and poor, I've never been more grateful. Yes, I've got to pay for my travel, but just 30 minute on the district line to South Ken and I've got three of London's best museums all within walking distance. So that's what we did. Mitch had Friday off work so we popped into the V&A, Natural History and Science museums, just because we could :)

beautiful netsuke & inro at the V&A

A-mazing miniature eye brooch complete with...diamante tear!

The Alexander McQueen exhibition is on at the V&A and looks tres cool but we were on a budget so we stuck to the permanent collections. I've been to the V&A on numerous occasions but I always manage to find a bit I've never seen before, this time: the miniature portraits bit. Mitch's favourite seems to be the China and Japan sections, mine's probably the jewellery (so amazing!). Thanks to the glorious weather on Friday, we ate our packed lunch in the V&A's courtyard, it was so warm in the sun I didn't even wear my coat!

Next up was the Natural History Museum and we arrived just in time to sit in on a free talk about coral. They've actually got a brand new exhibition about coral reefs on at the moment, and the talk happened to be with one of the key researchers. As well as telling us about coral we also got to ask some questions and get up close and personal with coral skeletons. The talk was v.interesting, when I get a job I'd like to see the exhibition - they managed to build a living reef in there which has got to worth seeing! (FYI the free talks take place all day in the Attenborough studio and cover a wide range of topics, worth checking out if you find yourself in the Natural History Museum.) We had a quick look around the volcano section (having been to Iceland, this permanent exhibition felt way more relevant and made a ton more sense) before moving next door.

Alas, we got to the Science Museum a little late in the day and missed out on their new IMAX film, Mysteries of the Unseen World. Annoyingly their amazing icecream bar on the top floor was closed  but, we did have a look at the new (and free) exhibition in the wellcome wing, Cravings. It was a v.interesting read about the relationship between your brain and your gut-brain and why we crave the things we do. I'd deffo recommend a visit, it's only teeny.

Suitably knackered (and, funnily enough, hungry) we got back on the tube to meet friends for a curry. London's museums are fan-bloody-tastic, especially as I have the luxury of going in the week! See, there are some plus points to being unemployed ;)