Crazy Museum Week

I managed to make it to four different museums this week!

On Monday, Rachael and I went to the Museum of Medical History.

It's a small private museum in St. Germain. You aren't supposed to take photos, so I was only able to sneak this one! It wasn't as gory as I had hoped it would be (no body parts) but it still managed to be disturbing enough (thank you, 19th Century medical tools). And it even had surgical tools from Herculaneum (shudder), so that was cool.

Then yesterday, Rachael and I went to the Petit Palais and the Grand Palais. I thought the Petit Palais was great, and because it's so relatively small (and free) compared to certain other art museums in Paris, it's something fun to do if you have a limited amount of time. 

Even though it's small, there's still a lot to see...a lot of ancient Greek stuff, a lot of 19th Century art, a bunch of medieval stuff, etc. 

Then we walked across the street to meet Lewis at the Grand Palais, which was having an exhibit involving relief maps and models of different areas of France.

It was interesting enough but I didn't really understand the hype. Plus, they didn't have one of Bordeaux or anywhere in Aquitaine, so really, what's the point? Also, when you walk into the exhibit you're greeted with a large map of France, and people seem to have been obsessed with locating where they were from, etc (I mean, Rachael and I did the same thing too, so it's really not that silly). Which I found funny because duhh, everyone instinctively knows where their hometown is, and probably no one really cares to look for it when they pass any of the millions of maps and pictures of their country through the year...but I guess it's just more fun to look for your hometown when you're standing on a large map, right? 

Then after the Grand Palais, Lewis and I wanted to take a quick tour of the D'Orsay, but the line was crazy so instead we went to the Legion of Honor museum which is part of the same square.

 It has about a milllllion military medals from about a million countries, and some cool uniforms and stuff!

Paintings within a painting! Something about Charles X.

So it was a busy week. So far since arriving here, in addition to the Medical History Museum, the Petit Palais, the Grand Palais, and the Museum of the Legion of Honor, I've been to the Louvre, the D'Orsay, the Musee Carnavelet (twice), the Cluny Museum (three times), The Holocaust Memorial and Museum, Invalides and the Military Museum, the Concergerie (which is essentially the French Revolution memorabilia museum), the Musee Maillol, the Natural History Museum, the Paleontologie Museum, and there might even be one or two that I'm missing. Mariene and I are sad because the fashion museum is closed until 2013. But I'm going to make up for it by getting to the Musee Jean Moulin, AND to the Vampire museum (I hope!) which apparently exists in the outskirts of Paris, yessss.

TOO MANY MUSEUMS.