Modern tourism

The Hermitage was a pretty cool home to tour except for 3 things: there was a medical emergency on the second floor and we weren't able to go up (not their fault); it was way too expensive ($18 for adults and $8 for kids); and they promoted the audio tour.

I guess being from the DC area, I'm a bit spoiled and feel that every museum like this should have free admission and funding out of our tax dollars.  We were a bit taken aback by the cost.

The audio tour was something else.  I decided after the first couple of exhibits that I wasn't going to listen.  Not that it was that bad, nor was it uninformative.  I just felt as if it took the experience away from me.  Rather than feeling like a biographer researching Andrew Jackson in the mid-19th century, I was constantly reminded of the laziness and sloth of our lives some 166 years later.  To paraphrase a line from the tour, "Imagine yourself walking these grounds with Andrew Jackson himself."  How can I with some disembodied voice communicating with me over these electrical transducers?

That said, the kids ate it up.  There was a special tour with separate numbers for the kids, narrated by Jackson's pet parrot, Poli (or Pol, as he called her).  Andrew still spouts off some of the things he learned that day and seemed to have a blast.  Matthew was as attentive as one could expect a three year old to be.  He'd listen for a while, run for a while, hear his brother talk about Poli and request the headphones again...

© 2011 Scott Everett