The tour is supporsed to be 90 minutes and ours lasted about 3.5 hours because the docent was DELIGHTED to have people who understood what a big deal it is that they let you PLAY WITH THE ENIGMA MACHINES. LIKE RIGHT THERE. HANDS ON.

Unless it has changed, the entrance road to the NCM is a quick left just before the NSA HQ main vehicle checkpoint. It can be a fun way to make first timers very nervous.

We had two general nerds, a forensic scientist, and a research librarian in our party and the docent said we were her favorite tour group she'd gotten in months. They LOVE explaining the collection in exhaustive detail and answering questions about the parts that have been unclassified by now :)

...holy crap, really??

What?! That's amazing. When I lived in DC I went to the Spy museum and they had a repro enigma machine, but nobody let you play with it! This is now on my list of things to do.

I have rarely wanted to go to the US this bad.

I got to play with an Enigma machine just a couple months ago. For reasons I cannot explain, the Atomic museum in Las Vegas has one and I was there.

My team has a rolling six-week attachment thing going on in our Washington bureau and this is almost enough to make me sign up for it on its own...

THEY LET YOU PLAY WITH THE ENIGMA MACHINES? ...I need to get my dad to that museum ASAP. He will giggle like a little kid

oh god I love that museum