Sunday, November 29, 2009

A Day at the Zoo

Today was a nice enough day to head down to the zoo. We live one short strassenbahn ride away from it. Jameson and I went often last year, and I think we will be going a lot this year too. The zoo is on the Summer Palace grounds called Schoenbrunn Palace. We actually have a great view of it walking down our street. The zoo is over 250 years old! I cannot even imagine what it must have been like 250 years ago! The Hapburgs (the ruling dynasty of the Austrian Empire) were animal fanatics, and hunters (are they one and the same?) They have a ton of stuffed animals from safaris in the Natural history museum and apparently they kept a lot of live animals as well.

While it is a small zoo, there are all the important animals to see: Lions, Tigers, Elephants, Pandas, Monkeys, Bears, with some added bonuses along the way. Jameson was in a bit of a funk throughout our trip. He only wanted to chase the pigeons and ravens on the grounds. Polar Bear? What Polar Bear, give me a pigeon. The craziest and coolest thing is how close you can get to the animals because the enclosures are so small and RIGHT there. We had a tiger inches from us as he strolled by the glass window. Wow, that tail was HUGE and those paws... That made Jameson a little nervous when I tried to put him down to take a picture of the incredible sight. Perhaps he will get braver as we go more often. It being the end of November there weren't a lot of people at the zoo, but more than I was expecting.

Schoenbrunn grounds are very awesome. There are hiking trails, a Christkindlmarkt (christmas market), restaurants, theaters, fountains, a hedge maze, The Palmenhaus which is this massive greenhouse that is built in the art noveau style. We had such a fun time hanging out, and I hadn't realized that Kevin had never been to that side of Schoenbrunn. We will definitely be making a return trip soon!
In front of the Cheetah enclosure

Being pulled by Dad in the (free) wagon.

He hopped out of the wagon SO fast, he could not wait to take his picture with the Elephant!

1 comment:

Alison said...

That wagon is so fun!