For our walking Florence assignment, I went with a group of people to the museum of natural history. Coming from a country town, I’m used to seeing deer heads and moose heads on people’s walls and it always makes me sad. For some reason I didn’t feel that way going into this museum. The first animal we saw upon walking in was a deer and I pet it’s fur (only afterward did I notice the “do not touch” sign… Oops).

The first rooms were fairly interesting; there were things like tapeworms and spiders and crabs and seastars which were pretty cool to look at because they’re not things you see often.

Then came the butterfly room.

Hi, I’m a 20-year-old with an irrational fear of butterflies. This being said, I had to be led through the room of butterflies with my eyes closed (and also filled with tears). I was sweating substantially just with the knowledge that I was walking past so many of them. Thankfully I only saw one of them before someone warned me or else it might have been a full-blown panic attack.

From there on out it was smooth sailing. I’ve never seen so many animals in one place. Monkeys, birds, large cats, sharks, snakes, crocodiles, and so much more. There were all shapes and sizes of every type of animal and I’ve never been so wowed by taxidermy in my life. I think what made it even cooler was that some of those animals were extinct and we were still able to see them.

However, I think the coolest part of the exhibit was the wax museum portion. There were all types of wax sculptures of humans displaying all their muscular structures, nerves, and reproductive developments. Everything was so anatomically accurate it was amazing to think of how long ago they were made.

All in all I had so much fun seeing all the things in the museum. However, I think the best part of any of these trips are the people who come along.