In which we go to Night at the Museum

Every spring, Europe celebrates the annual Night at the Museum. In Paris, this means that the national museums, and many of the private musuems, are open from 7 p.m. until 1 a.m, and they are, generally speaking, free. In addition, there are events scheduled at many of the larger parks and cultural centers. (When I say that they are mostly free, I mean that the Dutch cultural center charges admission to their event. Draw what conclusions you will.)

This spring, the Nuit des Musées was May 15th, and, of course, we went, along with Mom who was still visiting with us. (And yes, if you're thinking that I'm rather behind here, you're right.) After a careful consultation with the schedule for the evening, we decided that we'd like to go to the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution, which we visited when we were here in 2007 but hadn't yet on this trip. The museum, along with several others, is located in the Jardin des Plantes, and we were looking forward to walking through the park enroute to the museum. Unfortunately, the security detail at the park directed us out through the gates and along the street to the museum entrance, where we proceeded to stand in line for 45 minutes.

Once inside the museum, we headed downstairs to the dinosaur exhibit, which had both dinosaur fossils, and fossil remains of early fish, mammals, and birds, along with text explaining how various developments had been to their advantage. Then back upstairs to the ocean exhibits, where Cherry and I walked through an enormous model of beach sand and looked at the critters that lived there. (The grains of sand were nearly as tall as Cherry, and the scale-size life was still fairly small.) Blaise showed Sapphire and Ezio the seiche (cuttlefish) that he had tried at dinner the night before.

On the first floor we walked past the enormous path of animals from all over the world, and of all sizes. (Why do people think it's OK to let their kids touch museum specimens? Or even, in one case, lick them? And on a related note, what kind of kid wants to lick a stuffed lion?) Sapphire went over to one of the demonstrators and asked questions about the animals, and Cherry and I went in search of (what else?) a bathroom. Once we had everyone together again, we went up to the second level. By this point Cherry was getting tired and cranky and it wasn't much longer before she fell asleep on my shoulder, and I got to carry her through the rest of the museum. (And for just the second time in Paris, I found myself wishing that we'd brought a stroller with us. Not too bad for 10.5 months.)

My favorite part of the museum is the hall of extinct and endangered species. Have you ever wondered what a dodo looked like? They have a stuffed specimen in the museum. Would you like to see a Barbary lion? They have a pair of them, given as a gift (while still alive, of course) to the king of France for his menagerie. Once we had finished walking through there, we decided to skip the third floor and head for home.