Thursday, May 7, 2009

Natural History Museum

Today, I headed to the Museums Quarter to go the Natural History museum, which about 5 seconds from my apartment. I was surprised when I entered to see that they had live animals, so I went to the area with the live animals first. They had a couple strange looking lizards. One had horns and the other looked like a cartoon. Also, the German names for one of the lizards was "basilisk" which I thought was hilarious.They had a tarantula, some random bugs and large frogs....and a garter snake.

Yes, you read correctly, a garter snake. As though that was an exotic snake! Grant and I used to go searching for garter snakes in our back yard all the time when we were little and we almost always found one! 

Then I went to look at these other tropical fish. First of all one of them had lips which opened quite wide and I thought it was funny. And while I was staring at that fish, since I was the only person in the room at the time, the rest of the fish in the tank decided they would crowd in front of me and stare at me. I am not kidding. They were in this gigantic mass. It was like I was Evan in Evan Almighty except they didn't follow me when I moved! 

So after spending quite a bit of time staring at the live animals, I headed to the rest of the museum. There were lots of fossils and dead animals. There was a fossil of a Giant Sloth which by the way, was giant. Also, there was a fish that died by choking on a herring and it still had the herring in it's mouth but it was a fossil. There was a lightening room dedicated to Benjamin Franklin. When you walk in the room there's a hand sticking out of a fake door holding a kite and then the lightening starts. As I was staring at the lightening light trying to figure out what this weird clicking noise was, the thunder started and I'm pretty sure I jumped about ten feet. Other than that there were a TON of dead animals, some a lot bigger than I would have imagined. Then, there was also the Venus of Willendorf, along with many skeletons and tools. Venus is very small, nothing like the statue we saw in Willendorf. About 2 inches tall. The precious stones were interesting but after a while there are only so many stones I can stare at! 

Oh they had a dead moose so now I can say I have seen a moose, though I would still like to see one in the wild!

Other than the museum, this week was good. Tuesday, Nayeem and I hung out for a long time and talked which was nice. At some point in the near future, we intend to go to the Secession Building which should be fun. We got a new student yesterday, Alejandro, who plays the String Bass at the Burgtheater. He joined me and the usual group for lunch which was fun. He also invited us to see him play on Tuesday which should be very cool! This weekend I don't have any definite plans yet but I intend to have a lot of fun!

Oh and random thought: this is something I forgot to put in my Easter Trip to Hungary entry. Apparently an Hungarian Easter Tradition is for boys to visit the houses of girls and to throw water on them. Or perfume.

2 comments:

  1. Lorenzo: Where do I start with the questions. First of all -- do they STILL run around throwing water on girls at Easter? What is a moose doing in Vienna, dead OR alive? Where and what is the Secession Building? Weren't you going bowling this weekend - or did you chicken out?

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  2. hahaha Yes they do! I didn't experience them coming to Nora's house this time but apparently some came last year! And I'm pretty sure they had every animal that ever lived at the Natural history museum so there was a moose. and like 1000 birds and frogs and snakes and all other mammals. The Secession building is the building with the funny dome on it...Bowling is still in our possibilities but we shall figure it out!

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