Barns Family USA Odyssey: City Museum

After an afternoon of school work, we wandered on down to City Museum. It was totally awesome! It is an amazing building that looks like a co-operative of experimental artists were given free rein and no brief about how to design and embellish the place - well perhaps the only guideline was that it had to be a fabulous place to explore and play. On the top of the building is a ferris wheel, a school bus suspended over the side, and an enormous slide leading to the ground floor. Inside there are seemingly unending rooms, all with different themes - some decorated with remnants from the old travelling shows, some like diners, some with huge skate ramps, but the favourite was the one themed like Jonah and the Whale. In centre place was an enormous marble whale that you walk right into. Inside leads to mazes that go 10 storeys high, or right underground. Ken and the kids played hide and seek for over an hour and didn't cover it all! The floors were mosaic, there were marble columns, and everywhere there were surprises - let your guard down and you could walk right under a huge bucket spilling water from a great height at random intervals. Outside the building was like being in a totally bizarre beer garden! We sat at tables sipping our 'cool beverage' whilst chill out session music played, people sang and danced around us, and kids played in the uber tree house and climbing frame surrounding us. For me - well, I like order, so this place freaked me out somewhat. For the kids - well, getting them to leave was incredibly difficult. I've never experienced anything like it - it was fabulous!