Museum of Science and Industry/Harry Potter the Exhibition
Mom, Ash-lee and I went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago last Saturday to see the museum, and to see the Harry Potter Exhibit that closes tomorrow. If you’ve never been to the museum, and you are in the area, take a day and go. I’m telling you, I think they have everything there except for a display of patio furniture, and it could be I just missed those! lol
They have a fairy castle, antique firetrucks, genetics and a baby chick hatchery, a coal mine, a U-505 Submarine, a whispering gallery, a circus…
Old main street, where I saw my name on glass…
well, what Aiden calls me anyway
And of course, the Harry Potter exhibit…
The flying Ford Anglica in that picture is the only part of the exhibit you could take pictures of. It was really neat, but rather poorly executed. At the beginning of each entry time, they scanned tickets and then you gathered into a room together with everyone in the group to be “sorted.” Then into another room to watch clips from the movies, and then you walk past the Hogwarts Express into the rest of the exhibit.
There, they had costumes and other displays on both sides of the room, but the previous entry time was still right there, so all forward movement basically stopped. By the time you got down one side of the room, and went back to the other side to see the rest of the costumes, one of the later entry times was entering the room so it was really slow going and hard to see everything. And HOT. Oh my goodness… between not having the air cranked high enough and just SO MANY BODIES crammed into the space, I was dying by the time we got through the whole exhibit.
It was crazy to see the costumes from the first movie compared to the costumes from the more recent movies… they were so tiny in year one! But you could walk through Hagrid’s hut and sit in his chair. They had costumes from just about any character you can think of, their wands, death eater masks, a dementor, Umbridge’s whole pink office… the final room of the exhibit even had the candles suspended from the ceiling like the hall at Hogwarts. Definitely worth the trip and the money if you’re into Harry Potter, I just wish we could have taken pictures!
