Trip to Museo d' historia

On February 17th 2010, I went on a trip to see the Museo d’ historia de Catalunya, or the Museum of the History of Catalunya. When I went to this museum, I did not realize how unbelievably big it was. The museum spanned about three floors, and had an abundance of information in regard to the history of this city. However, I spent most of my time on the top floor. Here, I basically went on a tour of the early Catalonian history, starting with when the Romans arrived on the Peninsula. I really enjoyed the setup of this floor, because it had a great setup where it essentially took me in chronological order through the various events that happened over time. I learned about a lot of different things from this floor in addition to the Roman era, such as when the Muslims era and also many issues that came to the surface during this time. One of the major problems that came about was the Black Death, which took place in the 14th century. Although I had known about the Black Death from my studies in school and had vague background knowledge on it, I did not truly realize how unbelievably damaging this plague actually was. It was an opening experience to see how a disease could absolutely ravage a population and wipe out 100s of millions of people. While in today’s world there are obviously prevalent diseases that have not been cured yet, it is hard to fathom a disease coming around that nobody is able to stop and essentially crippling the world’s population. Maybe it is because I have grown up in a very fortunate part of the world, but it is mind boggling to think about the terror that must have gripped Europe since they were basically helpless against the inevitable spread of the disease. On a lighter note, one cool aspect was seeing the armor that knights would use in battle. I can’t even imagine how a knight could go to battle with that amount of weight on their back. In the museum, there was a pulley, where you could lift up the armor to simulate how much it would weigh to fight in. While I could lift it, it was definitely no easy task; it was as if I was weight lifting. I assume that technology has improved in today’s society. Lastly, another funny thing to do in a mostly serious exhibit was that I was able to sit on a fake horse like I was a knight. Enclosed is a picture of me (without armor) as a knight ready to do battle.