Holidays 2006, Part 2: Williamsburg
Jan. 3rd, 2007 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarahmichelefWe were home for 1 day between NYC and our New Year's trip... Just enough time to run some errands and do some laundry. This year's New Year's trip was to Williamsburg (because Josh has limited vacation time so we needed to stick close to DC). We flew down on the 28th, spent 5 hours in the parking lot that was I95 on the 29th, and actually started doing things on the 30th (my 30th birthday) - hey, I turned 30 on the 30th and didn't even think about it!
Colonial Williamsburg was fun, but I found it to be a bit too tourist-trappy. They're in the process of building a new farm, and that part was really, really interesting. TRex was fascinated by the guy who was cooking a fish over the fire - she kept demanding to go back to the "cooking". M was swearing at me right away because the first thing he noticed was that the guy playing the lute in the welcome center was wearing machine-sewn clothes and modern shoes, but that was a theme - lots of modern shoes and that sort of stuff. And once you got into town, the history fell into the background and the commercialism rose to the fore. Which was fun, and we saw some interesting stuff (the bookmaking shop was fascinating; M and the other adults got to see a harpsichord being built one afternoon while I was back at the hotel with a napping TRex), but ... well, I'm too much of an authenticist, I guess. A good example: we were waiting in line for the tour of the colonial governor's mansion and the dude who was managing traffic (who was wearing repro shoes) said something about how they weren't made with left and right feet in that time period, which I'm pretty sure is wrong (and I'm looking tokass_rants
Jamestown Settlement was much more my speed as far as the history bit goes. It didn't hurt that everyone was wearing period shoes and that their clothes were hand-finished (and, in some cases, visibly worn). Much more real history going on there. The Powhatan village was cool - TRex got to help dry a deer hide. The boats were also cool - we were able to go aboard the Susan Constant and the Godspeed (which is a very new repro). And in town we saw a black powder demo, which of course made me think of many of my friends, and a woman making apple pasties and chatting with everyone who walked through her kitchen. Oh, and the blacksmith cleaning the coals out of the forge. Pictures are here.
I think I like the balance of "interpretation" that is done at both of these sites - I haven't been to Plimouth Plantation recently enough to evaluate their first-person approach (my only memory of it is my grandfather spending all day trying to get the staff to break persona - I was probably 10 at the time), but when you have the public asking questions and education is the goal, I like the mix of the two. The woman working in the dressmaking shop at Williamsburg was actually really good - she managed to stay entirely in the first person while still answering questions in a 21st century context.
Other than that, we went to First Night and saw some awesome groups - TRex loved the bluegrass and celtic music. She woke up during the fireworks and was "scared booms" which caused some problems... Also did a bit of outlet shopping - I got a couple of knives and a skirt, and we got some clothes for TRex (I was proud of 2 shirts, a skirt, and a dress at The Children's Place for under 10 bucks).
And now we're home again.
Colonial Williamsburg was fun, but I found it to be a bit too tourist-trappy. They're in the process of building a new farm, and that part was really, really interesting. TRex was fascinated by the guy who was cooking a fish over the fire - she kept demanding to go back to the "cooking". M was swearing at me right away because the first thing he noticed was that the guy playing the lute in the welcome center was wearing machine-sewn clothes and modern shoes, but that was a theme - lots of modern shoes and that sort of stuff. And once you got into town, the history fell into the background and the commercialism rose to the fore. Which was fun, and we saw some interesting stuff (the bookmaking shop was fascinating; M and the other adults got to see a harpsichord being built one afternoon while I was back at the hotel with a napping TRex), but ... well, I'm too much of an authenticist, I guess. A good example: we were waiting in line for the tour of the colonial governor's mansion and the dude who was managing traffic (who was wearing repro shoes) said something about how they weren't made with left and right feet in that time period, which I'm pretty sure is wrong (and I'm looking to
kass_rantsJamestown Settlement was much more my speed as far as the history bit goes. It didn't hurt that everyone was wearing period shoes and that their clothes were hand-finished (and, in some cases, visibly worn). Much more real history going on there. The Powhatan village was cool - TRex got to help dry a deer hide. The boats were also cool - we were able to go aboard the Susan Constant and the Godspeed (which is a very new repro). And in town we saw a black powder demo, which of course made me think of many of my friends, and a woman making apple pasties and chatting with everyone who walked through her kitchen. Oh, and the blacksmith cleaning the coals out of the forge. Pictures are here.
I think I like the balance of "interpretation" that is done at both of these sites - I haven't been to Plimouth Plantation recently enough to evaluate their first-person approach (my only memory of it is my grandfather spending all day trying to get the staff to break persona - I was probably 10 at the time), but when you have the public asking questions and education is the goal, I like the mix of the two. The woman working in the dressmaking shop at Williamsburg was actually really good - she managed to stay entirely in the first person while still answering questions in a 21st century context.
Other than that, we went to First Night and saw some awesome groups - TRex loved the bluegrass and celtic music. She woke up during the fireworks and was "scared booms" which caused some problems... Also did a bit of outlet shopping - I got a couple of knives and a skirt, and we got some clothes for TRex (I was proud of 2 shirts, a skirt, and a dress at The Children's Place for under 10 bucks).
And now we're home again.
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Date: 2007-01-03 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-03 07:57 pm (UTC)