International Spy Museum 

                                                                  Ethan V.

                                                                  8-15-21

    Today was our last full day in D.C with Koko so we decided to go to the International Spy Museum. I had been to it before, but it was years ago and since then they had completely moved it and remade the museum. When you first walk into the museum, you go to a table where you pick up your spy badge. This spy badge is your identity for the time you are going through the exhibits, and you can use it to scan into computers and play games/crack codes under your spy account. For example in the first exhibit I played a game where they showed a trunk full of items, and I had to remember as much as I could in 15 seconds. After the 15 seconds I had to answer questions about the items to test my memory. This was one of the side missions. Their is also a main mission tied to your character as you go through the exhibits. Mine was about finding secrets that a tech company was hiding.

    As you went along, there was also gear used by spies and stories about what some spies did. When I went through the exhibits one thing I noticed was that there are a lot of spies in the Middle Eastern Terrorist Organizations like Al Qaeda and taking down Osama Bin Laden and East Berlin during the Cold War. 

    One of the things about the museum that I liked the most was the short documentary stops, where they would have a small theater with a short film playing. One of the short films was a lot of spies speaking about their experiences spying. 

    One of my favorite exhibits in the museum was the exhibit about how they caught Osama Bin Laden. They sort of made it into a game, where they had questions on screen and you had to pick what you thought was right. For example it was about Osama Bin Laden’s compound that he was killed at and it was asking questions like “This compound had 10 foot walls while the rest of the houses in the area had 6 foot walls. Who would most likely have these walls? A criminal, a businessman, the Al Qaeda Leader or Osama Bin Laden?” and you had to select all that could be it. 

    I really liked this museum, because I really had no knowledge of spying before this. Also at the store after the museum I got a can of Spaghetti O’s but it was actually empty and I can fit money in it. Hopefully my dad doesn’t see this and steal it!