[meteorite-list] Meteorites in Paris

From: Mike Hankey <mike.hankey_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 04:05:01 +0200
Message-ID: <CAJak_qV9c=wqGtSPtm_vAJQhnXMjn-UKzPqcNVoxWZnQ6hjw1g_at_mail.gmail.com>

I posted this on FB, but wanted to share with metlist friends too. The
pictures should be accessible to all.

Yesterday was a lazy day in Paris partly because of jet lag, traveling
and touring but mostly because we drank too much the night before --
yes we were hung over. Collectively, we decided to be lazy for a day
and just hang out in cafes and wander the streets aimlessly. While I
enjoy being lazy every once in a while, I never wander aimlessly and
to be honest I had an alterior motive to aimlessly wander into the
Carion gallery. I would use only 'the force', my intuition and my
little knowledge of Parisian geography to guide the way.
Unfortunately, my lack of direction and overall ineptitude for
navigation caused me to believe north was south and south was north,
so while I thought I was walking towards the islands of the Seine, in
reality I was walking away from them. Had I been in America with a
working data plan, I would have been using Google earth mobile like a
champ, but unfortunately this was not a technological possibility with
a US AT&T iPhone in France and I was left to my raw senses and the few
tools available to me.

I expected to find the river after a 1 or 2 blocks, but after the 3rd
or 4th I gave up and realized I was lost. So we wandered aimlessly
until we came upon a building with a military guard out front that we
caught in the middle of some sort of ceremony. After a few minutes, we
realized this was the president's home (the French white house) and
the guards were changing shifts (the changing of the guard). We
watched for a while and then started to move on when a dinosaur
skeleton caught the corner of Tracy's eye and she said 'hey, check
this out'. Through the window we saw a triceratop?s skull and looked
up for a sign of explanation. We had stumbled upon a Sotheby's auction
house and cautiously went inside.

To our delight the business was open to the public and operated much
like a museum except all exhibits were on sale and priced! The
triceratopps head could be ours for a mere 220,000-250,000 euro! As we
explored the gallery to my delight there were a few exquisite
meteorites on display.

And so the universe guided me subconsciously to the finest space rocks
Paris had to offer. If only my nose would guide me to similar material
in the fields of Lancaster. appr?cier les images ci-dessous!

P.S. We found Carion?s Gallery today.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150357707943530.365456.552643529&type=1
Received on Wed 12 Oct 2011 10:05:01 PM PDT