This is from the British Museum of Natural History, not the one in Zagreb, but you get the idea: skeletons!

This is what happens when you visit the Croatian Natural History Museum with an evolutionary biology major with a specialty in anatomy who happens to be, generally speaking, an enthusiastic guy:

You will have your mind pummeled by facts. For example: you can tell whether an animal had chomping capabilities (or chomped often) by the presence of a sagittal crest in its skull.* 

You will learn that muscles need more surface area to attach (or something), which explains a bunch of stuff related to identifying flightless birds.*

You will wonder how anyone could remember so much after years of not studying it and earning a master’s degree in something completely different.

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As Boris and I were wandering around Zagreb, we kept seeing the well marked signs directing visitors to the local museums. There were the usual: museums for modern art, theatre, ethnography, natural history.

But the one that caught my eye over and over was The Museum of Broken Relationships. What the heck could that be?

Turns out, I really didn’t do any research on Zagreb before our visit. If I had, I would have known that this museum had won awards for most innovative museum in Europe and had started as a touring exhibit. Its collection grew from town to town, until finally it was decided to create a permanent home for it in its birthplace: Zagreb.

So what could possibly be on display at such a museum?

Well, a lot of things. The museum exhibits mementos from past relationships; not all were romantic, although most were. Not all were break-ups, but most were. Each item had an explanation of its significance written by the owner who donated it. Provenance ranged from Bloomington, Indiana, to Kilkenny, Ireland (love you, Kilkenny!) To Manila, Philippines.

For example, one of my favorites was a clever collection of air sickness bags (don’t worry, they were unused), remnants of a long-distance relationship that didn’t make it.

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