One froggy evening

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It would be a real change of pace if I said we had a rushed and hurried morning. A change of pace, and a lie. Lovely morning of yoghurt with strawberries and bananas and lots and lots of coffee. The plan for the day was for my mother to visit some museums of particular interest, and my father and I to visit the natural history museum and the Dupuytren museum of anatomical and pathological specimens.

It has come a bit late in the trip, but my father showed me this great 99 cent GPS app, MotionX, where you can download parts of maps (ie, all of Paris). This made navigating to things easy. Except anything to do with the Bastille, it seems, as we were surrounded by things named Bastille with no Bastille in sight on our walk to the museum today. As the Bastille wasn't a destination, it didn't matter, but it was vexing.

The first stop was the Jardin des plantes (such an imaginative name for a garden with plants) for the bone museum. We were stopped dead in our tracks by air raid sirens. "are those the nazis, walter?", "no Donny, these men are cowards.". What was happening? No one was running for cover, so perhaps it wasn't the nazis, though heaven knows they've done it before. Twice. Looking around cautiously for hidden nazis, we proceeded to the museum, where upon being asked the ticket taker explained they test the air raid sirens on the first Wednesday of every month. Just in case.

The Galerie de paléontologie et d'anatomie comparée is a fabulous museum and defined thusly: The Gallery of Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy is a part of the French Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (National Museum of Natural History). It is situated in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris near the Gare d'Austerlitz. The Gallery was inaugurated in 1898 as part of l' Expositions universelles de Paris of 1900 and was the creation of professors Albert Gaudry (Professor of Paleontology) and Georges Pouchet (Professor of Comparative Anatomy) who wished to preserve and present to the public collections of great historic and scientific importance. The collections derive from the great expeditions of the traveller-naturalists of the 18th and 19th centuries as well as from the ménagerie' (zoo) of the Jardin des Plantes. The Gallery of Paleontology presents a famous collection of fossil vertebrates (especially dinosaurs and other extinct animals) and of invertebrates. The Gallery of Comparative Anatomy holds nearly a thousand skeletons and interprets their organization and classification. The remarkable Gallery building, designed by the architect Frederic Dutert consists of two floors and its surface area is approximately 2,500 square meters. The largest gallery, made of stone and metal, is almost 80 meters long, the facades are decorated with sculptures inspired by naturalists and large windows afford abundant natural light. The skeletons are so plentiful it's almost overwhelming, and if we hadn't had other places to see I could have spent the day in there. They also had many preserved wet specimens such as brains and spinal cords, and some deformed animal fetuses. There was a skeleton of a gigantic extinct crocodile, and even though it's a fossil I found it pretty threatening and advised my father to stick close to it so it would eat him first.

To arrive at our next destination we walked through the same rose garden we walked through two days ago, and I was stuck by how much the roses had changed in two days. Some that were great were just crap now, and vise versa. At the end of the rose garden was the museum of evolution, which also had an exhibit on spiders. We went to the spider exhibit, which was enjoyable, but would have been even more so with children as they were the intended audience. The hall of evolution is beautifully designed and lit, and arranged to illustrate the differences and similarities between species. There are many specimens and taxidermy models, and my favorite part was the hall of extinct and endangered animals. Some of the specimens were from the 1880s and might have been the last one ever alive. I was reminded of the ace Ventura quote, "this is a lovely room of death." The lighting was very dramatic and effective, though it made for challenging photographs.

Since we had planned to meet Geoff at the musee Dupuytren of specimens at 2:30, we had to walk very quickly the twenty minute distance from the Hall of evolution. Lunch was on the go and consisted of a sandwich (dad) and a chocolate and pistachio snail for me (they call round curled pastry "escargot", and I love it). We staggered to the museum, which isn't obvious to find but I'd studied google street view and so thought I had a clue, and we're worried we'd made geoff wait, but as we rounded the corner firemen were escorting everyone out of the medical school, of which the museum is affiliated.

No, it wasn't nazis. I'm not sure what the problem was, but we waited for about half an hour while Geoff took spectacular self portraits in the reflection in the firemen's helmets. Geoff had already been inside the museum, and it sounded like quite a place. When we finally got in, we weren't disappointed - though it's too bad no photos were allowed. Dupuytren is a name I'm familiar with from medical school for the following reason: Baron Guillaume Dupuytren (5 October 1777 – 8 February 1835) was a French anatomist and military surgeon. Although he gained much esteem for treating Napoleon Bonaparte's hemorrhoids, he is best known today for Dupuytren's contracture which is named after him and which he described in 1831. The Dupuytren museum is defined thusly: The Musée Dupuytren is a museum of anatomical items illustrating diseases and malformations. The museum was established in 1835 by Mathieu Orfila as the Museum of Pathological Anatomy of the Medicine Faculty of the University of Paris, with the bequest of Baron Guillaume Dupuytren. The museum was installed in the old refectory of the Cordeliers Convent, gathering collections from throughout the faculty. Its first catalog was compiled between 1836 and 1842, and listed about a thousand specimens. By the late 1870s the museum contained over six thousand pieces. The museum began a slow decline starting in the late 19th century, despite continued acquisition of new collections, and its upkeep became problematic. In 1937 Gustave Roussy ordered the museum shut, with many items subsequently lost or destroyed. However in 1967 Jacques Delarue (1901–1971) brought the museum back to life with a general refurbishment. Today it still retains a superb collection, including specimens dating from the 17th century, as well as wax anatomical models, books, and photographs. Among many other notable items, the museum contains brains of aphasic patients, preserved in alcohol by the celebrated anatomist Paul Pierre Broca, and used in his research in the localization of brain functions. The museum is fantastically creepy, all wood and glass bottles filled with fascinating pathology, some of the most shocking of which is a whole shelf dedicated to horrifically malformed fetuses. There are also shelves of various tumors, the many sequelae of tuberculosis, and bezoars, to name a view. As a future neurologist it was exciting to see the preserved brain of patients of dr. Broca who contributed so much to the field of speech, and mapping the area of the brain partially responsible for its generation: broca's area. Prominently featured near the exit if the museum was an anatomical drawing of a malformation Geoff and I happen to share: neither of us can hold our hand straight with the pinkie touching the next finger; it sticks out. Once we bend the hand, the pinkie is able to come in. I'm pretty sure it's a misalignment of the finger so the usual pulleys don't work. Dad seems to think we're a superior species who will take over the planet, mom seems to think we're from another planet and it's probably time to go home.

The thirty minute walk home brought us past city hall, where they're airing the French Open on giant screens with comfy chairs, for a price. After a quick feets up at home we went over to Geoff for some lively conversation and four bottles of wine (there was a trip halfway through the visit to get more). We staggered blithely to the cafe Louis Phillips where we'd had our first dinner with Geoff and where we intended to have our last Paris dinner. I went ahead at looked at the view from the bridge, while the grown ups debated whether to sit inside or outside. They landed on neither, it was very important that they sit upstairs, so I went to secure a table, while they decided it was very important to admire the city from the bridge. From my table in the restaurant I was able to take some photos of their happy party returning from the bridge.

I decided to have frog legs, which I have never had, because it seemed like the right thing to do. My mother and Geoff had the whole sea bass, and my dad had the steak.

I absolutely love frogs legs. I am going to be raiding the nearby ponds when I get home. They do not taste like chicken, and they do not taste like fish, they're like the delicious bastard child of a chicken and a fish. At one point I picked up the legs and had them do the "one froggy evening" dance, and sung along in my most distinguished baritone, which is probably why the waiter avoided our table for the next forty five minutes.

Gelato on the way home, then off to bed. Tomorrow we meet Geoff for a croque Monsieur and then will move out of our apartment by eleven and stash our bags at his house as we don't have to be at the train station until seven. I will miss Paris, and can't wait to come back with Braedon

Full http://www.220.ro/desene-animate/10-One-Froggy-Evening/8IjmtzN9LE/

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