A Doubly Refreshing Weekend :)

It was my last weekend in downtown Seattle, and I was going to make the most of it. I had already studied the discounts I had, and concluded that my best bets were the Seattle Aquarium and the Museum of Flight.

So it was nearly afternoon on Saturday when I took off on foot towards the aquarium. Doing the usual Subway routine, I pocketed the 2 double chocolate cookies from the meal. As aquariums go, this one will rate pretty high - if you are/have a kid. They have several interesting 'shows' where the explain the history behind each animal, feed it, and sometimes even get it to do tricks. There was also some information about the aquatic life around Seattle, what you could do to protect it, how the mankind has affected marine life, etc lined on the walls.

All in all, it wasn't an exhilarating experience, but the fish handling pool and the octopus feeding session would surely be a thrill to a 6 year old (mentally) ;-) I was still happy because I got a couple of pretty good shots of jellyfish in colored light and a near-impossible panning shot of a small colorful fish.

Then dawned Sunday, and it was time to head to the Museum of Flight. I had much more expectations here after having thoroughly enjoyed the Virginia counterpart of it. My Tomtom guided me to the place without any issues, taking me by a Subway joint en-route. It was upon entry that I found out that my corporate discount applied only for general admission, and not for the Leonardo Da Vinci special exhibition that they were having. I got curious and bought both tickets anyway, and I have never thanked myself enough since.

It was an awesome experience. To drastically understate a fact, the man was an absolutely fantastic genius of sorts. There were five whole sections dedicated to miniature models of his inventions, some explaining how he had applied physics to do the most amazing things. The first one was on flight - had to be! Here, his first (manual powered) and second (gliders) set of attempts to fly were modeled. There was also a computerized simulation where you could experiment with the design of a round parachute and see the variation in its various abilities.

The second section was on mechanics, where they showed his brilliant use of pulleys and levers (essentially mathematics) in order to do everything from lifting weights to running a mechanical robot. In the hydraulics part, there was a water powered saw, boat designs for civil and war uses, a system for walking on water and other such inventions. The section on war included a tank, battleship and a LOTR type drawbridge for scaling fortress walls. The final section was, of course, art. I have an absolute and complete lack of appreciation for that, so I'll reserve my comments. All I can say is that a person as talented as Leonardo should be worshipped!

Outside once again, I quickly went past the usual suspects - a blackbird, a Wright brothers' model, a Boeing cargo plane (the first I think) and several jet and propeller driven aircraft. Then I headed to one of the most exciting parts of the museum - a British Airways Concorde! With supersonic speeds, exquisite leather seats, and terribly expensive airfare, it was no surprise that those planes were unprofitable.

Next, I went into the older Air Force One jet plane. It was complete with bunk-beds, sofas, a conference room, an encoding typewriter, an electric stove and a safe for nuclear launch codes! I sure wish I could've seen the latest version :) The other two planes - a NASA experimentation plane and a Boeing 747 JUMBO (man it's huge!) - were not open to entry, so I headed back to the main exhibition.

There was a pretty huge section of the original Boeing factory, which had been set up with props and speakers to give a feel of what must've been there originally. Half finished wooden planes with engines on pulleys waiting to be fitted, charts unrolled on the table, the manager's desk, and much more gave a pretty authentic feel to the place.

The rest of the visit was quite hurried, because I was almost out of time. There was a floor on WW2 and another above it on WW1. Apart from the exhibits, there was a mini-theatre that was projecting a movie on WW2 history. In the WW1 section, the most interesting part was the Fokker Triplane, allegedly flown by the (in)famous Red Baron.

That, then, was my last weekend in downtown Seattle. After that I got really busy with moving, which I completed last weekend with the construction of a 3-drawer cabinet with 150 parts (whew). So the next time you talk about Leonardo Da Vinci, make sure you give him the respect he deserves!