Wax On, Wax Off

It might seem tourist-y or hoaky or cheesy, but another thing that Becky and I had to do while in London was visit Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. I wanted to go when I was in London the first time, but time (and, uh, money) kept my friend and I from playing there. I was determined not to let that happen this time, so Becks and I planned and budgeted for it.

We embarked on our journey to the stars (hehe! I made a pun!) on a cloudy Monday, late in the morning. We rationalized that if it were to be busy, most people would go early on in the day, right? Wrong. Well, maybe. Perhaps people had gone early in the day, but there was also many people there around noon. The line to get tickets was a fourty-five minute wait. Normally ADD Me would have gone crazy waiting, but there were some interactive displays that held my interest. I got to compare hand sizes of David Beckham and Michael Jackson and gaze at many glass eyeballs in a display case. (That was creepy.) I also observed the crowd: people from all across the globe seemed to assemble just for the chance for a Kodak moment with Brangelina.

Once we secured our tickets we were transported to another world through interactive displays that showed off the wax figures. The first room was the Red Carpet room, where the most popular celebrity figurines waited for you to snap pictures with them. I rubbed elbows with Julia Roberts, talked smack with the men of Pulp Fiction and crazied it up with Tom Cruise. It was eery how lifelike the figures were. Some of them were spot-on and eerily lifelike. Others were awful. The figure of Jennifer Aniston made her look like a horse-faced man, while J.Lo's behind was roughly the size semi truck.

The Movie Room was a lot of fun, too. Little boys went crazy over the Spiderman figure and everyone was enchanted by the Shrek figure. Becky and I posed by Steven Spielburg and Becky kept giggling because she was slightly creeped out by how real he looked. They also had props you could wear. Like I'd pass up an opportunity to don a pink cowboy hat and feather boa!

Another fun room was the history room, where people can take a meeting with a queen, kiss up to Prince William, debate physics with Einstein and wax poetic with Shakespeare. I did all of those things--I adore photo opportunities!

Something really interesting to me was the World Leaders display. They had figures of everyone from Nixon and Lincoln to Ghandi and the Pope, but they also had a figure of Hitler. I later learned that the figure I had seen was the fourth one of his likeness. People feel compelled to hurt the figurine when they see it. I don't blame them!

Besides the interactive-ness of the figures, there was a fun display where you could type in your name, choose a flag and a theme song and be proclaimed the next world leader. Under a brightly colored flag, with the Spice Girls' "Wannabe" playing, I was proclaimed Queen of the World. I loved that I was able to subject hundreds of people to the Spice Girls for a couple of minutes. I got a couple of dirty looks for it, but it also got some giggles from people and some adorable little girls to dance!

I had a lot of fun at Madame Tussauds. It seemed a little cheesy at first, but once I started posing with celebrities, I got really into it. I figured it would be the only time in my life I'd get to pose with Harry Potter or Will Smith. I'm motivated by Kodak opportunities and this provided plenty of them. It was also a great way to learn about some world leaders and the art of wax sculpting. I unintentionally stepped into a great learning opportunity when all I planned on doing was posing with Johnny Depp. It showed me that learning can occur anywhere and that it should--perhaps we just need to learn how to capitalize on it.