The Planetarium :O

The ceiling clock was from the planetarium was probably one of the most intricate devices I have ever seen. At first I thought it was a little disappointing because you really couldn't see it move noticeably since its units of measurements were of days or greater. I did have a chance to go upstairs in the planetarium to see the "guts" of the clock and I was flabbergast from all the components that make up the clock. It was powered with 3 weights, one of which would only be reset at most twice a year. There was a single pendulum that timed the whole device. Watching things spin a different rates due to gear ratios was pretty entertaining to say the least.

Nicolette

I really enjoyed going to the planetarium. It was much smaller than I had first anticipated but being able to see the world's oldest planetarium was awesome.  I thought it was amazing how accurate everything with the limited number of resources Eise Eiseinga had.  It must have taken him a really long time to paint the planetarium on the ceiling, it was really beautiful.  I was most amazed by the mechanism itself. Being able to go upstairs and see how everything worked was so cool. The rest of the museum, though not as exciting, was also interesting. We learned about Eise Eiseinga's life as a wool maker and the solar system. 

Planetarium

Seeing the ceiling of this mans house was very impressive. I was amazed by the amount of work he put into it and his ability to scale everything to size so that it fit perfectly with in the room. I thought it was cool that he had actual representations of the planets circle the sun. Going upstairs in this house was a bit challenging for some because the ceilings were so short. Although, once we got up there it was impressive to see all the gears, pins, and devices that are used to keep his solar system revolving so perfectly. Going into that little house i didn't expect much, but it was bigger then it appeared and I actually learned a lot about this mans life. For example, the astronomy part of his life was just a hobby, he actually did work with wool.

Marittime Museum

Our tour guide was a sweet old man but I couldn't hear him unless I was standing right next to him. The maritime museum was dedicated to the long history of Rotterdam being a vary important port in the Netherlands. I enjoyed the museum mostly because my grandpa was a sailor and I remember him telling me about the ships he was on. the new exhibit sex and the sea was definitely something you wouldn't normally expect from a museum like this. At one point we were watching some what of a documentary of sailors accounts of being out at sea and its peaceful with fish, dolphins and sun sets then it starts to change with semi pornographic art that the sailors would have or see and then it changed between the fish swimming around to naked humans swimming around back to fish. We all were so speechless our tour guide thought we really enjoyed the documentary, but we were speechless for a completely different reason. Even though it was odd it is something that you wouldn't think to have an exhibit on but it was interesting at the same time.

Planetarium

It was very interesting to hear about the planetarium and the time and work went into making it.  The planetarium has been running continuously since it was built which is incredible.  It is able to show us an accurate depiction of the current locations of the planets in our solar system, as well as the time, date, and moon type.  The gears that ran the planetarium were all hand made to precise measurements.  The planetarium was incredible to see especially when taking into account that it was built centuries ago.

Hordis Botanicus

It was cool to se some of the medical plants they had in the garden although those of us who where in the group that went in the garden at Utrecht had already been shown allot of the things the tour guide was talking about.  my favorite part ofcthe gardens where the greenhouses, there where beautiful desert and tropical plants flowering wjile we were there.  I also thought I could smell black tea leaves when I went in to the largest part of the greenhouse but I could not figure out which plant it was. 

Hortus Botanicus

I really enjoyed this site. I enjoyed it because it amazes me that people were able to figure out that plants could heal people and that they could be used to help others. I am sure with much trial and error they were able to figure out what plants and how much of that plant could be used to help the ailing. The guide was also very funny and made the tour enjoyable. The butterfly room was also very cool there. There were many butterflies flying around in the room. Which I thought was very neat.