LostCarPark's Journal

Jack and I went to the Natral History Museum in Dublin today. We tried posting an entry through Flickr with phone photos, but it didn't quite work out. The only way I can attach more than one image to an MMS message is to create a slide for each image, so I created slides and wrote text for each photo and sent them to Flickr, which in turn sent them to LJ.

What I would really like to happen is for Flickr to put the photos into my photostream, with the text from each slide as the comment for the photo on that slide, and then create a single LJ entry containing all the photos with the captions under each of them. I was prepared for the possibility that that might be too much to expect, and I'd get a seperate LJ entry for each photo, which would also be okay.

What actually happened fell a little short of that. Although the photos were added to Flickr, for some reason the last one was dropped. However, the text from the last slide became the caption for all of them, which was a shame, because the text from that slide didn't make much sense on its own. So, if I try this again, I'll know to put all the photos on slides on their own, then add an extra slide with all the text. And while I'm at it, I'll send the clever people at Flickr a suggestion and maybe they'll make the MMS processing a bit cleverer.

Anyway...



Jack and I went to the Natral History Museum in Dublin today. The museum is located in an imposing stone building on Merrion Square, next to governent buildings, and is one of the oldest purpose built natrual history museums in the world.



It really is a museum in the old style. The animals on display are interesting, but in a way its even more fascinating to wander through the museum as an example of how such institutions used to be build - and how wildlife "collectors" used to roam the wilderness seeking "beasts" to shoot and ship home and stuff and display for the subjects of the Empire.



Jack has been many times and hurtles through the museum, making sure to see everything at breakneck speed.



The museum is spread over four levels, with many exhibits spanning floors, making great use of space. Some day I'd like to get down to the basement (I'm sure there must be one) to see what else is hidden away there.



Jack said he liked the snakes, lizards and crocodiles best.



Especially the crocodiles!



They had some Archioptrix fossils on dieplay. They weren't there the last time I visited the museum, so things do change. I suspect they were replicas, but I can't be sure because because the only label read "display under construction". Change happens very slowly at the Natural History Museum.



One of the most impressive displays had to be the pair of whale skeletons hanging from the cieling.

All in all, the museum is well worth a visit if you find yourself in dublin. Make sure you check opening times here as they have a habit of closing just when you least expect it.