The Museum of Natural History

Today we visited the Museum of Natural History, which, as it turns out, is not free on the first Sunday of the month.

That was a bummer, but we were already there, so we forked over the 8 euros each.

The museum is housed in a beautiful building in a park in the southeast side of Paris. The park contains other natural museums and a zoo. We wanted to see animals, so we chose to visit the Gallery of Evolution.

We were hoping for dinosaurs and wooly mammoths, but what we saw were mostly current animals and a few whale skeletons. There was a small, dark gallery containing some endangered and exinct species, which was kind of depressing.

In the basement was an exhibit entirely about flies. It was actually more like an art exhibit, the artist using hundreds of thousands of dead flies. It was disgusting.

The rest of the museum was lots of bugs, birds, and educational plaques. Maybe we would have enjoyed it more if we could confidently read French.

For example, there was a large, ornate clock on display. What this had to do with natural history is beyond me, and maybe I could tell you if I could have read the plaque. Here is what I did understand: This clock was built by H. Robin, as requested by Marie Antoinette. ...trapped in Versailles....tell the time....asked for a clock.....

And that's about it. When I turned to Dave for help, he hadn't understood any more.

I used to shake my head at people who breezed through museums without taking the time to read and learn anything. Today that was us. Just too lazy to try to read French.

As I stared down a stuffed gazelle I admitted to Dave, "I'm only here for the photos".
"Oh yeah," he said as he lifted the camera to his eye, "Me too".