TOP FIVE PLACES I WISH I WENT TO MORE by Jimmy
Top 5 Places I Rarely Go To But I Wish I Did More Often.
We all have this list., we all have places we like to visit in our hometowns but rarely do. Here are mine.
5. Madame Tussauds’ Wax Museum
I think there’s a certain creepy charm to Wax Museums, and Madame Tuddauds Wax Museum is no different. You might recognize the name from the red double-decker busses that have become ubiquitous on the National Mall area, with a lifeless wax Barack Obama staring at you with those lifeless eyes, surrounded by an equally lifeless Beyonce and Johnny Depp. There’s something a little creepy about wax statues, famed robiticist Massahiro Morri called this phenomenon The Uncanny Valley, but that’s a subject for another day. Despite the inherent creepiness, I’ve always found this place to have a certain kitschy charm to it. It’s just gaudy enough to work.
4. Verizon Center
Washington DC has a hockey team to be proud of. I know very little of sports, and still I know this. My grandfather used to take me to see hockey games when I was a kid. I used to anxiously wait around for fights to break out, and I felt a giddy, guilty glee whenever it happened. Currently we have a team worth seeing even without the chaotic melees of yesteryear’s hockey. While part of me misses that wild barbarism on ice, it’s always good to see a prodigy like Ovechkin on the ice.
3. The Crime & Punishment Museum
The Crime & Punishment Museum isn’t a museum dedicated to the classic Dostoyevsky novel, unfortunately enough, but it is dedicated to one of my favorite interests the world of crime. I, like many law abiding citizens am deeply fascinated by crime and crime narratives, and this museum features everything from the barbarism of medieval justice of generally chaining people to walls and torturing them to the prohibition era of mob crime. When I wander around this museum it almost feels like I’m in the Bat Cave in all of it’s absurd glory.
2. Marian Koshland’s Science Museum
As a kid, science always fascinated, seeing how the world really works and the inner mechanics of the world captures my imagination. It has tons of really cool things like a Science Trivia challenge, you can see satellite photos of the world at night, showing the tiny little points of light that tell everyone humanity was here, and some astrophysical phenomenon. You might have to pay 5 bucks to get in, but when you see the beauty of the natural world through the lens of science, you’ll probably forget about all that and look at the world in a beautiful new light.
1. International Spy Museum
Surprisingly little of this museum is dedicated to Baccarat or bowties, but this place is nothing if not atmospheric. You come in and immediately are given a cover identity, they ask you to memorize it and they start to do their best to immerse you in the world of espionage. It even has it’s own treasure hunting thing over DC. It might not be the most scientific or highbrow museum, it may be pricey at 18 dollars admission for adults and it does really skip over some of the dirtier and more morally grey aspects of the trade, but the showmanship is so good that it will take you a bit to come to your senses.