And I thought the BMW Z1 factory in Leipzig was incredible. This is truly something else and a great concept. Thumbs up for German engineering.

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Not too long ago we spent a weekend in Madrid and one of the things we wanted to visit was the Prado. Unfortunately it’s closed on Mondays – the day we planned to spent all day long in a museum. Now I’m kind of happy – we got to see the incredible Sophia Reina Museum and we have an other reason to visit Madrid again. I loved the fact they were allowed to take pictures (of course without flash) in the museum, except for the Guernica (I’m so sneaky )

Before I bombard you with art … here is a tip, if you ever need place to stay in Madrid – check out Hostal Gala. Great location, clean and great value.

Now the arts:

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After couple days in Darmstadt and Heppenheim we took the train to Berlin to visit friends. We haven’t been back to Berlin to see them in 3 years (SCARY). But we made up for it – hardcore. Produced $500 dollar bills in bars, went to Berghain ( claims to be the most important Club right now in Europe) and barely missed Lady Gaga. And went to Kimchi Princess – a restaurant which one of our friends opened not even a year ago. More about Berlin in following posts but for now I will blog about the Bode Museum which describes itself like this:

The museum was opened in 1904. During the Second World War much of the building, especially the dome, suffered great damages. Beginning in the 1950s, step by step the museum was reconstructed and put back into use. In the 1990s, general restoration began with the first parts of reconstruction work; in August 2000 construction works for the basic restoration followed.

The Numismatic Collection has been open to visitors at the Bode Museum since 22 October 2004, opened on the occasion of its 100th anniversary. On 19 October 2006, the Bode Museum was re-opened in its entirety, displaying the Sculpture Collection, the Numismatic Colletion and works from the Gemäldegalerie – Old Master Paintings.

Sculptures and coins – sounds boring but to our surprise it wasn’t. Going to see the museums on the Museums in Insel is a must. Plan a whole day!!!!!

May favorites where the antique gambling machine simulating a horse race and the incredibly detailed dome sculpture with scenes from heaven and hell.

Enjoy (first images are a homage to all the Germans loving some good cakes):

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So, went inside this ceramic museum in Valencia – which is in this awesome palace. Great interior and then there was this. Penis Asparagus all bundled up and ready to be eaten. BIZARRE.

Check out images of the whole museum – I promise, it’s actually pretty nice: Marquis de Dos Aguas

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During our last visit to the States, Juergen and I finally made good on a long-standing promise, and ventured inside northern Kentucky’s Creation Museum. My sweet Christ in heaven, it’s as unbelievable as you’ve heard.

Any reasonably educated person would enter this "museum" expecting to be offended, but no one could truly be prepared for the scale of madness on display. We went, planning to be hilariously entertained, and left depressed. On the drive back home, Juergen and I hardly spoke. We just didn’t have the energy.

The Creation Museum is not a museum in any normal definition of the word. It’s a fun house ride. You start at the beginning, and follow arrows through the various exhibits, with no freedom to deviate from the path — you can’t skip things that don’t interest you, or jump ahead to things that do. I suppose that’s what religious nutbags enjoy: a pre-approved narrative; a path to follow, dictated by a higher authority. It’s diverting, but it’s not a museum.

I was expecting faux-science and ridiculous reasoning, and we got those in spades, but I wasn’t expecting overt racism. Did you know Adam, Eve and Jesus were muscular, sexy Caucasians? Their animatronics sure were! In an introductory video explaining the difference between Evolution and Creationism, we meet a kind, elderly white scientist, blessed with the wisdom of years, and a shifty little Asian. Guess which one is the dirty Darwinist!

The exhibits were utterly insane. My favorite described how similar species came to exist on different continents. Clear evidence of an anicent supercontinent, you say? Well, continental drift requires millions of years, and a good Creationist knows that Earth is just 6000 years old! Here comes the tortured logic…

"During the Great Flood, tree trunks floated to the water’s surface creating makeshift rafts that carried species to the different continents of the Earth".

Wow! Science is easy when you can just make shit up!

The depressing part about the "museum", though, was how crowded it was on a Thursday morning. Packed! Full of families, the elderly, and children. Schoolbus loads of children. I mean we actually saw multiple yellow school buses in the parking lot. There’s a whole generation of kids in America being taught this rubbish, as though it were fact. At every exhibit, hordes of wide-eyed kids absorbing junk science… "Canyons really formed in a matter of hours?!"

I wanted to whisper into every little ear, "These are lies".

I’ll be straight-up about this because it’s important: the parents who bring their children here are brainwashing them. The schools who bus children to this "museum" are permanently damaging them. I have no problem with religion, but there is a serious sickness with a society that can peddle easily disprovable junk as science. It’s wrong, and I have no doubt in my soul that the profiteers pushing this dog & pony show know it.

This kind of willful and well-financed push against knowledge could only happen in America (update: well, maybe not. Thanks Tracy!). I’d like to believe that this crazy evangelicalism is just a fringe of society, but it seems contaminate more and more minds every single day. The Creation Museum is proof of that, and it needs to be fought.

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