Paris 2008 - 4 Juin

Mercredi -

The original plan was to make yet another trip to the bank for some ridiculous something, but overnight, I managed to talk Robb into forgetting the whole idea. I mean, it would be nice to have a French bank account, but not when we have to put up €8.000 that we can never access without replacing it immediately. We don't have $12,000 that we can just give to a bank. It rankled me to the core to even think of doing that, and Robb finally woke up to the stupidity of it also. Of course, stopping the process is almost as difficult as starting it, so we most likely haven't seen the end of it, yet. We're still waiting for a call from the person with whom he dealt at the bank.

In the meantime, we needed to go to Place d'Italie and Italie2 to pick up Robb's pants from Armand Thierry. Then I had an idea; I've been wanting to go to the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle for some time, why don't we go there first and then go pick up the stuff at Armand Thierry? A brilliant plan if I do say so myself.

I even came up with a new way to get there. Instead of taking the 69 to Gare d'Austerlitz, we could take the 56 to Nation, a section of the city to which we've never yet been except on the métro. Great idea! Nation is rather nice. More so than I was expecting for some reason. After we arrived there, I took these three shots of the area: 1, 2, 3. At Nation, we caught the 57 to Gare d'Austerlitz and the museum.

We entered, paid our six euros and proceeded to look around. There were bones everywhere, even on the walls above the display cases, as well as on the floor. The stuff on the floor was cordoned off and watching some of the too-young-to-be-there kids, I could easily understand why they had done that. I think it's totally admirable for parents to want to take their children to educational places like the museum, but I think it would make a lot more sense if they waited until the kids were old enough to have a clue as to what they were seeing. Many of the kids thought it was just a cool playground, and I'm certain that tomorrow, they will have no remembrance of where they were or what they saw.

The first floor, starts off with an excellent argument for evolution, although it was somewhat obvious in their display that a link or two might have been missing. Most of the stuff on the first floor was primates (including man), four-legged animals and fishes and whales. We walked up the stairs to a mezzanine where I took the pictures, somewhat hesitantly, because I had asked if it was okay to take pictures and the attendant said it was if you do not use a flash. I took the first picture and there was no flash, so I figured I was good to go.

While the first floor was quite interesting, the second floor was more to my liking. Dinosaurs! They had a full skeleton of a Brontosaurus and even the head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Wow! Those were the biggies for me, but there was a lot of lesser sized critters filling the room, including some not-so-small mastodons. There was a guy on a ladder cleaning one of the skeletons. That was interesting because it never occured to me that they ever needed cleaning, but after seeing him at work, I began to notice that some of the skeletons were a bit "dusty". I took my first picture, and wouldn't you know the flash came on. Well, we had seen pretty much all there was to see, so I took a chance and took the second picture. If anyone noticed, they said nothing.

I have to admit, as much as I liked it, I was disappointed. I had seen pictures in which they had whole dinosaurs, mastodons, sabre-toothed tigers and much more. I saw none of that today. Maybe it had been a special display. Still, it was easily worth the pricce of admission and I'm glad we went.

Then, it was off to Italie2. Robb collected his jeans from Armand Thierry, was very satisfied with the alterations and bought a light jacket, though I'm beginning to wonder if he'll ever get to use it. The weather has been very much on the cool side (according to some, it's downright cold to me). I can't believe it's this cold on 4 Juin. It feels like it should be mid-February or something.

We wandered over to Chez Jules for lunch. I had an Omelette Mixte, Robb had a steak filet. We drank Sancerre.

After lunch, it was back to Italie2 because Robb decided he needed pants with which to wear his new jacket. While he was doing that, I bought yet another man-bag. A larger one because I seem to be carrying more and more stuff with me whenever we go out. With the crazy weather here, I'm afraid to go out without a scarf, my hat and an umbrella. Then there is my camera and all the métro/bus plans and my copy of Paris Practique. Robb was complaining that the original man-bag I had bought and given to him, was too small, so I gave him the second one. Now we have one that will never be used.

Part of the plan for the day had been to bring all our purchases back to the apartment, get some rest (me) and then go to MK2 to see Sex and the City with dinner at L'Avenue afterward. It never happened. By the time we got back to the apartment, it was after 19h00. I laid down to take an hour nap, that lasted until about 20h30, which meant there was no way we could make the movie. Ah well, maybe tomorrow, after the laundry is done. Finally. I hope.

Plus à venir, mes amis.