Daze at the Museum

Summer is madness at the Museum. Waves of day camp kids, more numerous it feels than the school groups during the other nine months of the year. And, of course, the weak, though strengthening, dollar brings many tourists from abroad. They are invariably polite, enthusiastic about AMNH and -- for Spanish speakers -- delighted to see my "Yo Hablo Espanol" tag. But on Wednesday it was a young woman from, to judge by the way she spoke English, the Scandanavian countries or Germany who walked up to information lectern and said, "Please, I want to see the human organs." Instead of sending her to 14th and Broadway (previous post) I pointed her straight on to the Hall of Human Origins.

It reminded me of when our Peace Corps group was recently arrived in Chile, still learning Spanish and more eagerly learning the joys of pisco sours. At a reception the PC director had to welcome us one of our group, needing a refill and a greater knowledge of Chilean slang (Spanish being a language where a perfectly innocent phrase in one country becomes a gross expression in another), asked the young woman server for "mas pico," which in Chile translates colloquially as "more prick."

Also recently at the Museum a little boy of seven or so and wearing a Red Sox cap approached me and asked, "Which way to the blue whale, please?" I said, smiling, "You don't get to ask that question wearing a cap like that." He snatched it off and solemnly repeated his question. His parents enjoyed it, part of the vacation fun, what the Museum is supposed to be and almost always is.