Les souris

I got to meet les souris (the mice) today. Any doubt I had that my research could have been done in New Hampshire was erased when I saw the gigantic isolation unit the mice live in to keep them germ-free. The Institut Pasteur is an impressive facility - it's packed into a place much smaller than Dartmouth, but they have every piece of equipment one could want.

After work I went to the Louvre, which is open late on Fridays. Of course I had to continue in my series of bad pictures of famous art, so here is the Venus de Milo:

I was told at the lab that I had to check out the Napoleon III Apartment. I was glad that I did - it was probably the closest I'll ever come to walking through a palace. Here's the dining room:

But overall, I probably spent the most time checking out the Egyptian artifacts. I never knew, but the Louvre puts the British Museum to shame as far as Egyptian stuff goes (with the exception of the Rosetta stone which is probably the coolest archaeological find ever). The had a great display of a mummy taken out of his sarcophagus:

And his organ jars below him:

I don't think I'd ever seen a mummy in such a state, it was really interesting, and I didn't see Brendan Fraser around so I figured I was safe. There was also a cool exhibit of the old Louvre deep in the basement of the new Louvre - it's amazing they built around it the way they did:

On the way home, I got off the metro a couple stops before mine to check out the area around the big station. I saw a place called Cafe Leffe, so I decided to give it a try for dinner. Now this place goes against everything I believe in as a beer lover - it is a chain restaurant owned by the biggest beer conglomerate (InBev) in Europe (and second in the world to A-B). But damn if it wasn't good - the Leffe 9 was pretty tasty (nowhere near as good as a real Triple, of course, but not bad) and the Moules Marnier Frites (mussels with fries) were amazing. The waiter brought a 3 quart pot filled to the brim with mussels with a ton of white wine/onion broth, a huge plate of fries and, of course, bread. There was absolutely no way I could finish it - at 11 euros, it was a great value. I may have to go back.