Who are you?

Yes, I know your name… but I ask again

 WHO ARE YOU????

"The Utrecht University Museum manages the academic heritage of Utrecht University. Beside the conservation and restoration of the 170.000 objects the museum also organises permanent and temporary exhibitions. The dentistry, microscope, and physiology collections are among the most important in Europe."

Jip and Alexia went to the Univeristy Museum in Utrecht this sunday. Totally lazy day, we were just walking downtown and to show each other we are culturati, we decided to go there.

Tip: If you are not exactly the strongest-stomach person in this world, do not eat before going in.

The museum offers a wide collection of wax models of dissected arts, organs, bodies, heads... plus a collection of skeletons of deformed people all mixed up with various objects used in the past for surgery, dentist and other Freddy Krueger kind of arts.

The museum also host a garden that must be very nice to visit with your partner during summertime, but at this time it's just sadly dead and gray... well... if you are in depressive mode you would surely appreciate it.

If you have kids (like kids to take care of.. I don't think many EVS's have kids on their own.. maybe they made some during EVS, but that doesn't count), and they speak Dutch, it's surely worth a viit, since at the top floor there's a Jungens Lab, aka a place where lil brats can destroy things and then watch the results into a microscope.

Address
Lange Nieuwstraat 106
3512 PN Utrecht

Reception desk: (Tuesday - Sunday):
030 - 2538008
fax: 030 - 2538700

Open    
The University Museum is open from Tuesday - Sunday from 11.00 am until 17.00 pm.
Closed on Mondays, January 1st, April 30th (Queen's Day) and December 25th.

Admissions
Adult: 5 Euro 
U-pas, NS pas: 50% discount
over 65, CJP, students: 3 Euro
groups (< 10p) 3 Euro (3,50 in 2005)

I tell you a secret. Sometimes when Jip and Janneke do not find nice topics to write in their heads just go to the Net and search… So one rainy day (nowadays we have enough of them ;) they did the same. And found something very interesting. Museum rooms in Utrecht….

But, hey, what exactly is a Museum Rooms??? - they asked each other. Is it a room in a museum you can book to sleep in? Or a room in a hotel, which contains old and historical objects?

"In conjunction with the seven 7th heaven museums, seven hotels in Utrecht are responsible for these very special hotel rooms that guarantee a very special night. These rooms are designed in the style of the museum, fitted out (with reference to and) using their collection. Besides a special hotel night in a museum room, there are also special packages which you can book with lovely dinners, free tickets for museum and a lot more…"

That's what you can read if you go on www.the7th-heaven.com.

As Jip and Janneke are very curious, they couldn't resist taking a peek inside two of them, to have a first hand touch.

They entered to the "Money room", where the armchairs have been made of the smashed old Dutch paper money "the Gulden". It is literally sitting on a bag of money! :) You can also find lamps and tables that have been made of old coins. And if you go to the place where even the King goes alone, you can see a toilet with special money design and also the bath curtain shows that money is everywhere….

They also went to the most famous one, which is the Nijntje room. Nijntje is a cute rabbit girl quite famous in the Netherlands. It is amazing how much the shape of his head remind us the shape of a very popular Japanese anime character, called Totoro. This could that be an explanation why this room is booked so often by Japanese people…

In this room everything shows Nijntje and her stuff and friends. The mirror, the blanket, the shower curtain, even the pattern of the curtain on the window. It is just a perfect room for children.

These rooms were born thanks to an excellent cooperation between the museums, hotels and municipality of Utrecht. They exist because 2006 is the year of museums in Utrecht!

Jip and Janneke really loved this initiative, because art is often “locked” inside museums, it has its own space out of ordinary life and this project brings art in our normal daily life.

Where are we? We are in a magical building…

Here, the elevators go up and down by themselves and they decide where to stop. You can only change floors with the elevators, so you can’t be in a hurry!
This building is called the Tower of Babel. A place where nowadays art is the Lord. Artists work and exhibit here and they can totally understand each other. Even though they might use different dialects, the common language is the same; their wish to express themselves, their thoughts and reflections on the world around us.

Once in a while the elevator stops at the 13th floor. There you find yourself in another world with a different smell, sound and color. A unique piece of nature in the centre of Utrecht. A beach at the same height as where the birds fly.
When you close your eyes it is as if you are on a beach. You take a big breath and you can actually smell the salty air of the ocean and hear the sound of waves and if you take your shoes off, you touch the sand and shells with your feet. It’s almost real.

As you open your eyes again, you discover that the reality is different. You are on your own beach high in the air and you see how the city lives far below you. Trains, boats, cars and bikes are crawling. People of all cultures are passing below you. You are out of the composition, you are in another space. You finally get a chance to slow down and think…

After this experience you will look at the city from a different perspective. You leave your footprint in the sand and depart from the beach by elevator...