Narwhals = Real?

Ah, finally Halloween.

I've been posting about it so often you'd think it was a week-long affair. However, I have no seen anybody in costume today so I guess people don't really care about the actual holiday but the convenient Sat night before to dress up. Or as one recent Shabbat host's son recently lamented "All the girls in NY will be wearing skimpy outfits in the cold and I won't be there to warm them up!"

Today I checked out the London Jewish Museum in Camden. It was between that and the Advertising and Branding Museum, and the LJM had a kosher cafe. Winner.
It was a neat little museum, with one floor about the history of Jews in England (spoiler alert: it involves a lot of persecution), one half-floor about the Holocaust (obviously) and the top floor's exhibit about Jewish entertainers in Britain.

The history of the Jews was pretty interesting, seeing as that Jews have been a presence here since the 1100's and they're part of Britain's history as anyone else. The museum like every other one here has a lot of interactive games and things to touch to entertain children. And again like every other museum, they use it a little inappropriately. Such as in the holocaust section there's a suitcase nailed to the wall with a little note pad and pencils. Next to it was the sign that basically said:
"Children taken away from their homes during the war were usually only allowed one suitcase so they had to think carefully about what they wanted to take! If you had to only take a few things from your house forever what would they be?"
Children could write some things on the notes and stick them on the suitcase, it was weird and depressing. But I think the museum did a good job taking serious issues and making them child-friendly, especially since Jewish children learn sad things very early on.

The Jewish Entertainers in Britain wasn't that exciting for me since I didn't recognize any of the names aside from Amy Winehouse and Sacha Baron Cohen. Most performers were also from the 50's - 80's. I can't imagine that there are so few British Jewish entertainers today. It seems as if everyone in Hollywood is Jewish.

Afterward I went to the cafe and was disappointed in the cheese boreka I ordered. So, all in all I'd give them museum a B-. Oh, and the guest-book in the Holocaust section had messages from children that said "RIP JEWS AND AMY WINEHOUSE OXOXOX" Also weird.

After class today, I went with my friend's to the Zoology museum since they were having some sort of Halloween night called 'Lizards and Witches'. Four pounds seemed like a rip-off to basically see the same museum I saw 2 weeks ago but with free wine (I couldn't drink) and fake bats strung around the ceiling. Also randomly there were little factoids places around such as "Folklore said that if a witch ate a queen bee before her trial she could withstand the pain of torture" next to some taxidermied bees. The whole museum is dead animals, they definaitely could have made it scary for Halloween. Although I DID learn that Narwhals are real. I'm not embarrassed. I thought they were myths. That's why when they had a Narwhal horn on display I assumed it was fake for Halloween until my friend was like "Aviva, Narwhals are real things." Awkward.

Anyways, sorry this post was a little long, but hey, at least it's longer than Kim Kardashian's marriage right?