the american museum of natural history | new york

I'm not a big fan of museums. I'd rather be outside, trying to find living versions of the fossilized creatures in the museums. I'd rather stumble on a mysterious buried shell in the sand of a rocky beach and take pictures and google it endlessly to ascertain to what animal it once belonged - probably a crab - than to see a neatly printed sign beneath a fossil in an AC-fueled building. But every once in a while, I make an exception for an extraordinary museum. Okay, I make an exception when a friend works at the museum and offers me free tickets.

Ellie works in the Mammalogy Department at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. She generously offered Melanie, a friend of hers, and me tickets to the museum and all of its paid exhibits, as well as a tour of her department. So we spent Friday afternoon playing tourist frogger, and I can tell you this for certain about the AMNH: there is no shortage of children in that place.

And we had a really great time. We gawked at the size of the Woolly Mammoth and wondered out loud how whales mate (answer: while swimming or stationary in the water!). But the very best part is what lay behind the established exhibits: I love the museum behind the exhibits.

Ellie helps preserve and put together and catalog the mammals-related exhibits at the museum. She has jars of mice and bats preserved in alcohol on her desk... because her job is so ridiculously cool. She pulled out a mouse to show us, and I jumped back 10 feet and Melanie and Nabila got as close as possible.

She took us up a steep staircase next to a real, original dumb waiter, to the department's library. Stocked with field notes and scientific books, with a glass floor no less, it was stunning. Melanie and I wanted to move in here and live among the old books and read researchers' observations of animals from all over the world over the last 100 years.

Ellie took us into what she calls the "elephant graveyard," where the museum stores non-exhibited jaws and long bones of elephants dating back to the early 1900s, from what we saw. They're housed in an attic with a domed ceiling and enough light shining through that, had I had the time, I would have napped and daydreamed I was in Africa, studying the way these giant, mysterious creatures move.

After winding down several staircases, we came to several white-washed rooms with pull-out drawers. Series of numbers are all that distinguish the drawers from one another -- the earlier the number, the earlier the specimen. Ellie opened drawers of goat horns and skulls and various animal skins.

And then there were these cute guys. I'll confess that I jumped back each time Ellie opened the next drawer or sliding door. Professionals, as always, she chased me down with one skin to make me touch it, and I squealed like a scaredy-cat kid. I just prefer my animals alive or on my hamburger bun, is all. 

Squeamish and all, seeing behind the scenes fascinated me. To make the flashy exhibits takes hundreds of people - from the ones in the fields and jungles in Africa and India and Nebraska to Ellie, working with mice that have found their way to her desk in jars. I have a newfound respect for museums, and if you ever have the chance - the museum behind the museum is the best part of the museum.

A few fun facts I learned at the AMNH: 

+Museums in New York cost money! (The Smithsonian museums in DC are all free.) 

+Whales have penises up to 10 feet long 

+A sperm whale's heart is so large a human child (or a bendable adult) could climb through its arteries

+30% of the food the world produces goes to waste every day while over 800 million people went hungry last year

+All it takes to pickle vegetables is a mason jar, some herbs, including dill, the veggies you want pickled, and some apple cider vinegar left in the fridge for a few days

+There are more nutrients in pickled veggies than raw ones (say what? is that real?) 

+There is a thing called the "Great Canoe" that I am going to google endlessly as soon as I finish writing this 

+The incubation time for whale fetuses is 8-10 months. 

+Blue whales are up to 98 feet and can weigh 380,000 pounds

+Jane Austen had a particular affinity for ice cream, and now I adore her all the more. 

+I want to host an 1800s Rome-themed dinner party. The menu would be bomb. 

If you go...

American Museum of Natural History

general admission tickets: $22 (special exhibits extra)

we particularly enjoyed the whale & global kitchen exhibits