Skeletons, Podcasts and a Show (31/8)

Allan was very pleased with his run this morning. The 19km included the Bois du Boulogne and Eiffel Tower and finished with a run up to Sacre Coeur to ensure there were some hills in it! This made us too late for breakfast at the hotel, but the nearby café was very pleasant.

Parade of the undead

We headed for the Natural History Museum, but came across the Museum of Comparative Anatomy and decided to see what that was all about first. Well! At our first glimpse inside we were quite taken aback! We were confronted by what someone aptly described as a stampede of the undead! As far as the eye could see there were skeletons of all sorts of animals all seeming as though they were watching us enter – almost off-putting. Most of the larger skeletons were free-standing but the smaller ones were in glass cases. We didn't count them, but there are over a thousand skeletons in the collection (the largest in the world), with some grouped in their families and others arranged to display differences in particular features. For example, they had a case displaying skulls of comparative ages for the orang-utan, the chimpanzee, the gorilla and the human. There must have been at least eight different ages of each. In the Marsupial and Montreme case it was interesting to see four thylacine skulls and one complete skeleton – perhaps this is why they died out! Some of the exhibits could have done with a little Australian advice – the koala was mounted on all fours rather than in its more normal sitting position, and a Sminthopsis looked to be larger than it should have been from our experience. There were some tiny bat skulls which fascinated us mounted under little glass domes sitting on glass stands – we've only worked with their live brothers and sisters. Displayed are the complete skeletons of several whales, elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe, antelope of different species, big cats, bears, horses, etc., etc.

The paleontology section was on the floor above, with some almost complete fossil skeletons still embeded in the rock and some free-standing skeletons of dinosaurs. These were almost as mind-boggling as the massed display downstairs. There was another mezzanine level above this which displayed the smaller fossils – the trilobites, ammonites, and other marine fossils of shells, sea urchins and the like as well as botanical fossils.

Whales

The museum was opened in 1898 and we suspect that not much has changed since. It was purpose-built to gather all this type of material from the myriad collections scattered around Paris. It certainly was impressive, and we were really pleased to have stumbled across it. It was very different to the usual natural history museum full of examples of the taxidermist's trade.

It was then off to a rendez-vous with Allan's podcast author, Laetitia, and her two older daughters. He has been subscribing to her podcast in French for about four years. It is broadcast three times a week and the subjects are just everyday events, almost like an on-air diary. We missed organising to meet up last time, so Allan was very keen not to miss the opportunity this time.

At Laetitia's recommendation we met at the Musée de la Vie Romantique (the Museum of the Romantic Life) which is dedicated to George Sand and her life and times. It was one of those real Parisian experiences – a tiny museum tucked away behind the usual streetscape of tall buildings. We had to walk up a street barely wide enough for a small car, which then opened up into a courtyard with a very nice protected garden with a cafe at the far end to one side of the museum – itself just a modest two-storey building. We arrived early so had time to see some of the collection. George Sand, herself, was an exceptional woman, and as a baroness rebelled against the society she was supposed to be part of. She separated from her husband taking her children with her and had numerous affairs with illuminaries including Chopin, and women, wore men's clothing so that she could mix in society not acceptable to a woman of her background, smoked, was a socialist, and generally a renegade. She was quite an accomplished artist as well as a writer of novels, plays and poetry. Obviously a woman of strong beliefs and personality.

Allan, Laetitia and the girls outside the
entrance to the museum

We went and sat in the café and it wasn't long before Laetitia arrived with Micaela and Felicia. For a self-confessed chocoholic and patisserie-frequenter, she was very slim and petite. Although she could speak English, Laetita and Allan conversed in French and Jill could follow some of the conversation. We bought coffee and cakes, and Jill's chocolate brownie was superb. The girls were fantastic. They had brought some toys with them and just played for almost two hours without interrupting the conversation. Allan really enjoyed meeting with Laetitia as he had heard so many little snippets of her life and was curious about the personality behind them. They discussed both some of the events in the podcasts as well as some aspects of the podcasts themselves. The meeting will allow their correspondence to be more meaningful.

The café was very popular, with people having to wait for tables to become vacant – obviously there were many others who knew the secret of this little hideaway. All the chairs became occupied as the French seem to be prepared to share their table with strangers if there is a spare chair. It was superb sitting in the sun which we hadn't seen much of in the last few weeks.

We walked Laetitia and the girls down to Gare Saint-Lazare to say farewell, then walked back to the hotel for an early dinner as we were off to the 11pm show at the Moulin Rouge which was only a few minutes walk away. They seemed to be very well organised, with heavies directing the queue. The brochures had asked for neat dress and the men to preferably wear jackets, but this was certainly not adhere to. It was actually well after 11pm before we were moved in as they had to get patrons of the previous show out first. This was done in a very orderly manner with people being escorted, in groups of four, to the tables. We had superb seats, right in the middle and the second level up. There were four of us at the table, and we were seated at right angles to the stage so that no-one had their back to it. Although we had declined to pay 23 euros for two glasses of champagne, we still had a bottle delivered to our table so we both had a glass. The other couple queried it, but the waiter said it was included, so we didn't argue.

The show was spectacular, and the supporting shows were excellent. Perhaps because it was the third show for the day, or we were the cheap session, the synchronisation of the dancers wasn't the best we had seen. The dance routines seemed hardly taxing, but then we realised that the girls were restricted with their costumes and enormous headdresses. It was really the combination of the sets, the costumes and the movement of the girls and guys around the stage which provided the spectacle. There was a bit of a story line to each routine, but that was fairly simple. They did the can-can of course, but that seemed a little tired compared to the other routines. The three supporting acts were all quite different and in some ways almost overshadowed the dancing. The first was a pair on roller-skaters skating on a raised platform about 2 metres in diameter. Their acrobatics at speed were something to see. You could see them calculating the precise time to make each manoeuvre as both artists and audience could get hurt if they got it wrong. The second act was a trio of cop and robbers acrobats, and the third a very accomplished ventriloquist. It was a great night, but it was great that the hotel was close by as we weren't back there until 1:30am.