Museumkaart

60 Euros gets you into more than 400 museums for a year.

If you’re under 18, it’s only €33.

Hold on a minute. What’s the catch? Something’s fishy. What are they trying to do here, anyway?

• Bankrupt the museums?
• Get families to learn about history and art?
• Dare to go to a museum for just an hour and not worry about the cost?
• Discover something you might not have thought about only because it’s free?

It’s preposterous! It’s insulting! How can they get away with it?

Maybe the economic model is like the gym: they factor in that a certain percentage of people won’t actually go–or go very often. But, like the gym, it’s actually good if people go to museums. Let’s see: learn about other cultures, get out of the hectic work-a-day world, lose yourself in art. Nah, give me video game and charge me money so I can have an excuse not to go.

Since we are now card-carrying members of the “Museumkaart,” we combined a visit to a bike shop with a museum visit. The only museum in the immediate area of the bike store was called CODA and I think it was mostly about jewelry. But here’s the trick, here’s the big secret, here’s what they’re probably trying to sweep under the rug:

We actually went to the museum only because we have a Museumkaart and this museum was on the list … and it was near the bike shop.

Otherwise, we wouldn’t have gone. Dang it! They got us! We were suckered into their scheme. They won!

So what’s going to happen to us this year? We have this pass burning holes in our pockets and over 400 museums to visit. Is the norm, like at the gym, to buy the subscription to make you feel good and then never use it? Or should we buck the trend and go to as many museums as we can handle?

I’m going to keep a list of the museums we visit this year here and write a quick review of some of them. For now, it’s been:

1. Nationaal Militair Museum
2. CODA
3. Airborne Museum ‘Hartenstein’

That’s about one per week so far. We’ll see how we do.