Nation’s Arms Museum.

October 2006. I had been thinking about visiting this museum for a while, but since it isn’t open on weekends, I finally made the visit on Monday, October 30, 2006. At the time, I had won a ticket to an exhibition through a contest organized by the newspaper La Nación, and I had to pick up my prize—that is, the ticket. Looking at the street map, I noticed that the Arms Museum was close by, so I decided to visit it as well.

I left after midday, took the 152 bus, and got off at Plaza San Martín. From there, I walked to the newspaper's branch to pick up my ticket, passing by the museum along the way.
When I arrived at the branch, everything was closed behind a metal shutter. I rang the bell, but nobody came out; I rang again, and still nothing. I walked to the corner (I don’t really know why), came back, and spotted a sign right in front of my face that I hadn't noticed before because I was distracted—it indicated that the entrance was on the other side.

I knew it was on Alem Street, but being a bit clueless, I turned a street too early and ended up right behind the offices. When I walked around, I saw the newspaper sign, the offices, the door, and the glass storefront, so I went in. A man—possibly security, one of those who give directions—was sitting there. I told him I was there for the contest ticket, and he replied that he had no idea, sending me to one of the counters and giving me a ticket number. I had number 69 and was waiting there all alone. One of the receptionists saw me and started calling numbers: 63, 64, until she asked me, "What number do you have?" "69," I said. "Alright, come on in."

I told her I came to pick up my ticket, to which she replied that she had no idea either. A moment later, the penny dropped; after telling me she didn't know what it was about, she saw a folder and went to check it—sure enough, the tickets were inside. She handed me one and asked me to fill out a form with some personal details. I filled it out, put the ticket away, said goodbye, and left. I remember asking her, "Is this it?" and she said, "Yes." I was surprised by the size of the ticket, but later I realized they were all like that. She didn't ask for my ID; in fact, I had to point out who I was on the list myself because she hadn't heard me. This means that, given the confusion and lack of control, anyone could have walked in, provided false information, and taken a ticket. Granted, that’s a bit of a conspiracy thought (though possible), since I doubt anyone would dare do that just for an exhibition ticket.

Anyway, once I picked it up, I walked back to the museum and went inside. There were three women chatting and a man holding a ticket booklet. I walked over to him while he was listening to tango and bought my ticket, which cost $3. He asked if I was from out of town, to which I bluntly said no. I had to leave my bag, but I asked if I could take pictures, and he said yes, so I went in with my camera.

Compared to how it looks on the Internet, it is quite small—at least that was my impression, as it seems much bigger online than it actually is. I walked through the whole place. I liked the room dedicated to the Desert Campaign—not much is said about that conflict, so the room is quite brief, but I liked it. The room for the "Falklands" War (Guerra de Malvinas) is very small—extremely small, I’d say.

The Asian weapons room—I don't know if it only features Japanese weapons or items from other places as well—was eye-catching, mostly because of the samurai mannequins.

That day, that room had no lights on because the lightbulb had blown out. There were several tourists around—actually, there weren't many people in the museum, maybe 10 people besides me wandering around—and some complained that they couldn't see the room properly without light. I couldn't see much either, but I took photos using the night flash setting, so they turned out pretty well. You could see the man from the ticket counter hurrying around and arguing with another man about the lack of light to get the problem fixed.

In the heavy machine gun room, there were two idiots constantly messing with the display. It's a museum, not a place to "test out" machine guns; they are meant to be observed. I don't know if these two were trying to get them to work or if they thought they were actually going to fire a shot, but they looked like two kids touching the weapons, making up scenarios, and sitting on top of them—and they were way too old to be acting like that.

When I reached the end, in the cannon room, I found a small table where I set my camera down and took a self-portrait using the timer function. Finally, I headed back, bringing the tour to an end. I'm not sure how long it took me to walk through the whole place—maybe an hour, but I don't remember clearly.