State capital museum

Arizona out grew its capital building after the territory became a state, so when the legislators and governor moved out, part of the building was turned into a museum with all sorts of state trivia.

Winged Victory, a seventeen foot weather vane sits atop the building.

The room where the state congress used to meet looks sort of like a school room.

The Arizona state seal--incorrectly designed--is at the center of the building.

This was an interesting display.
There was a law that to enter town, a man must be wearing pants.  Some of the native tribes didn't have the custom of wearing them.  So there was a pair of jeans which hung on a tree outside the town.  A man could wear the jeans into town and put them back on the tree branch when he went home again.
Wow. 

Arizona state capital

I visited the state capitol building of Arizona.
Inside is a museum, outside is a nice park.

Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza is the stretch of park between the Arizona state courthouse and the capitol building museum.
The park holds numerous different war and veteran memorials.

As a plus, Arizona's blue sky makes a fantastic backdrop to it all.

Hall of flame

 The Hall of Flame in Phoenix is a fire truck and fire fighter's museum.  With wagons from the 1700s all the way to modern day equipment.







Some of them were fancy enough to look like the carriage Cinderella took to the ball.

 Fire hydrants are an interesting part of fire fighting history, too.  Here, they are very functional barrier markers.

 The Dalmatian--another piece of fire station history

 An early fire alarm.

 Some good advice from another Lindsay.

Yay, firefighters.

Metal museum

The metal museum housed at the Hohenlimburg castle displays the technology of cold press.  The gregarious guide is very willing to explain as much as you will let him.  He'll tell you all about metal making and machines.  But once he finally let us go to the upstairs with the instructions to "touch everything, that's what it's there for", that's when the fun began.

Upstairs were displays of things that cold pressed metal has been used to make in the last century.
Kitchen gadgets.
Toys.
Tools.
Watches.

So many things that you never think about.  Yes, a bicycle is made of metal, but where did they get the sheet of metal that went into it's manufacture?
Probably Hohenlimburg, as they make 80% of what the world needs. 

There's even a VW bug upstairs.  Curious, I asked how the car got up the narrow stairs into the castle's small room.
"That's a good story," said the guide.  He told us that he had been talking with friends at a pub one night and one of them said they could put his car in the museum as it was made of cold press metal.  The guide, who admitted he'd put back a few too many that night, agreed to the deal.  By the next morning, he wondered what he had done. 
The car had to be cut into four pieces and it then took mechanics two weeks to put back together.
It is probably a permanent part of the castle now. 

Prison museum

Within Rothenberg, there is a criminal museum.  A huge collection of prison and torture devices used in the middle ages. 

Oh the things people had to endure publically.  And the people of that time believed themselves to be civilized and modern.

Torture was written in the law books of the day as the legal way to procure a confession.  It was part of the process of law, and punishment was then immediate, no time for an appeal--even if the sentence was death.

By far, the most common pieces in the museum were shame masks and neck violins, used for different types of humiliation.  Those being punished were put on display, and it was encouraged that those walking past ridicule them. 
This, I suppose, is how what is culturally acceptable or not becomes deeply ingrained in a society.  Even when there is no longer fear of punishment in the town square, people still frown upon someone being a tale-bearer.

Rail museum

The sign in the photo says not to climb on the train engines

...but that's exactly why we come here.

What little boy--and all the others with him--don't love climbing on old trains, trying out the gears in the engines and pretending to blow the whistle?
Or making train sounds of our own as we trail down the tracks?

Good fun.

It's terribly designed as far as museum quality and presentation of facts go.  Terrible.
The four year old with us knew the most because he watches Thomas the Tank Engine.

Trains are such an important part of India--past and present.
And because of that...

I suggest you follow that arrow and visit the Rail Museum.

Metro museum

 This is the guy that started it all.
A mannequin at the metro, with his hand extended in greeting.
.
Did you know there's a museum within the metro line system?  I stumbled into it one day--literally, because I fell down the stairs...okay, so it was the escalator...embarassing...
Anyhow.

So I landed in the station and saw this guy--this was no ordinary metro station.  There were displays!

That day there was no time to look around and this was my first chance to come back.

The metro museum.
It's not big.  It's not super exciting.
But to walk around underground in the airconditioning is kind of nice.

Photography, though, is not allowed here.
So I have done you the favor of taking all the prohibited photos on your behalf.

 Welcome.
This girl is the mascot.
Her picture and greeting is on most metro stations somewhere.

The metro has been thirty years in the making.  Thirty.  Wow.  Talk about Indian time.

The metro has even won itself an award in the shape of the Qutub Minar.  I'm not sure if they didn't award it to themselves, but it's cool nonetheless.

So if your looking for a short walk around the metro, get off at Patel Chowk and see what there is to see.  It won't take you very long.
....and be careful on the escalator.

National Science Centre

 It's what to do on a hot day in Delhi.
We thought.
Mistakenly, we believed the science museum would be air-conditioned.  And I supposed it was, sort of, but not fully. 

Escape from the heat or not, there are still a few things to do there...

...see an ancient surgery taking place, for one.

Look at cannons.
Even Akbar makes it to the science museum.  These are his portable cannons, the first of their kind, an innovation in weaponry.

The most fun are the mirrors--mazes, distortions, and fun angles.

Keep your expectations low--and I mean low--and it's a good outing.