Believe it? Or not!

Q: How do you "play tourist" in NYC?
A: Hit up any Times Square attraction, still using your old CA driver's license!

I know this is super corny, but I've wanted to go to a Ripley's Believe It or Not for a long time. I mananged to convince Blondie that this was a *brilliant* idea on Saturday. We braved the touristy madness of Times Square and headed into Ripley's, which turned out to be a totally fantastic kooky wonderland of goodness.



Some of the items were just flat out wrong - case in point: the torture room where all kinds of exhibits of torture technics used in medieval times were documented. It was made worse by the group of 10 year old schoolkids who treated the room like their own playground. "Oh look! An electric chair from the 1800's which took 12 minutes to kill you! Can I sit in it???"

And the vomit-tron - how can I forget that? They called it "Experience a Black Hole" and put you on a metal grate walkway through a tube that rapidly spun and was entirely black but with stars lit up all over it. We came out of that and Blondie turned to me and said "Now I feel drunk". Um, again, those schoolkids loved it. To the parents of these schoolkids I say "rehab. now."

But then they had some exhibits which ruled. Want to see what you look like without legs but with devil-eyes?



How about Blondie getting to meet with a medicine man? What do you think he asked for?



My favorite thing, it actually took my breath away, had to have been the "WORLD'S LARGEST BEER STEIN COLLECTION"!!!!! Ripley and I would've been BFF's for eternity had we known each other.



And the boat carved out of a 1000 lb slab of jade was something that was pretty amazing.



Also, you're welcome.



--K