Day 83: Melbourne Museum

Another low key day in Melbourne.  Today I checked out the Aztec exhibit at the Melbourne Museum (kind of like the Museum of Natural History).  The exhibit was small -- but very good.  The exhibit was laid out mostly in terms of a timeline of the rise and fall of the Aztecs -- the informational write-ups around the exhibit were really good (although I'm always annoyed by people who stand smack in front of them -- blocking anyone else from reading them).

After the exhibit, I had lunch at the exhibit cafe (Australian take on Mexican food -- pretty good except that my quesadilla came with mustard instead of sour cream -- very odd).  I walked through a bit of the Carlton Gardens (really a park) and then walked back to my apartment.

The Melbourne Museum opened in 2001 and is the largest museum in the Southern Hemisphere.  Right next to the museum is the Royal Exhibition Building -- completed in 1880, it's one of the last remaining major 19th-century exhibition buildings in the world.  It's usually open to the public -- but this weekend there was a dog show going on in the building.  The Royal Exhibition Building was one of the venues for the 1956 Summer Olympics.

Trivia for the day:  the Summer Olympics were held in Melbourne in 1956 -- apart from the equestrian events, which were held 5 months earlier in Stockholm, Sweden.  Equestrian events could not be held in Australia due to quarantine regulations.  It was the second Olympics not be held entirely in one country (the first being in 1920).  Also the first Olympics to be held in the Southern Hemisphere -- as well as the first to be held outside Europe and North America.

Weather:  cloudy with occasional peeks of sun,  rain showers, 46 - 58F
Miles Walked:  3

Pic Notes:

• 1:  Royal Exhibition Building (I rather like the kangaroo lamppost)
• 2:  Melbourne Museum
• 3:  Pretty building across the street from the museum
• 4 - 5:  Wedding cars (I think the wedding was at the church across the street) -- I like the old jags
• 6 - 13:  Aztec Exhibit
• the bits on the human sacrifices were the most interesting.  While most believe that the sacrifices were performed as rituals for their gods (viewed as a repayment for the sacrifices the gods had themselves made in creating the world and the sun) -- an anthropologist named Michael Harner has a different idea.  He estimated that roughly 20,000 people were ritually sacrificed every year.  The people who were sacrificed were often eaten -- as part of the sacrificial ritual.  Harner proposed the theory that the whole thing was cannibalism disguised as sacrifice because the Aztecs didn't have enough meat in their diet.  (at that time, there were no big animals (cows, sheep, goats) around for them to eat)
• 14:  no, that isn't a dog driving a scooter.  There's a woman driving the cart -- and the dog is sitting on the back of the seat (they were on their way to the dog show).
• 15 - 22:  random shots on my walk
• 21 - 22:  it's odd what you see on building some times -- good reason to look up
• 23:  You can see my apartment in this pic -- it's the building in the upper left corner -- my apartment is on the right -- 2nd floor from the top (if you look closely -- you can see the dryer rack on the balcony -- stupidly trying to dry clothes on a rainy day).

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