kitewithfish (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kitewithfish) wrote2008-02-08 01:09 am
kitewithfish) wrote2008-02-08 01:09 am
The Pitter Patter of Little Simian Feet
Today a marmoset walked on me.
This was not entirely planned. After a lovely night of drinking wine and staying up with my friends in my kitchen and making baked goods while inebriated, I woke up this morning pleasantly late and then went out to do some random life stuff. While doing this, I ran into Colleen, who said that she was going the Haus des Meeres (House of the Sea). I decided to tag along.
The Vienna Aquarium is built from the remains of one of the WWII flak towers that was left in the city. Flak towers are huge and ugly- they look like the way something out of Tolkien feels- like it's just watching you full of malevolent will. And they are hard to get rid of, because walls are generally several meters thick and put up in heavily populated cities.
So Vienna has several of these things left over, and this one got turned into a righteous aquarium. It's nine stories tall, and the star attraction is a huge windowed terrarium thing three stories tall that funs up half the building. It's tiny place of free range rain forest- there are families of crested marmosets, various kinds of jewel-toned birds (some of which are clearly earth-bound), tortoises and some random fish and salamanders stuck in there. They are not separate from people or from each other- you just walk into where these things live, and the only thing stopping you from stuffing a monkey in your purse is how *fast* the damned things are.
But the monkeys have no fear of humans whatsoever, and they are fluffy cuteness of an insane degree, so no matter what the signs say, people still try to pet them. ( I was warned by a tiny blond boy "Vorsicht, er beißt!- Careful, he bites!".) And the monkeys do not mind walking over people's hands on the railing that is clearly intended to be a monkey-highway, not a thing for people going up stairs. So, a monkey walked on my hand. And it was glorious, and really, really cute.
(This somewhat made up for the many unhappy snakes in cages too small with not enough places to hide from the tapping tourists. But, god, I forgot how cute pythons are. Also, apparently puff adder venom is about the vilest way to die in the entire fucking world. Do not get bitten by a puff adder.)
In other news, I am trying to pick out my classes for next semester (too early!!!), I just went out to a great pizza dinner with Nadzia and Colleen, and I am kicking around some random things to do tomorrow in my head. Nothing terrible special, but there are some Museums I have not seen and Nadzia is in the mood to go and see them.
I feel productive and wise. It's a nice way to be.
(Flak towers are horrible to look at, but they tend to have nice things built around/inside them. The Arenberg Park in the third district of Vienna has the only pair of flak towers still standing in Vienna, and it's a lovely cheerful little park full of children playing in the shadow of these huge gun towers. Surreal, but nice.)
This was not entirely planned. After a lovely night of drinking wine and staying up with my friends in my kitchen and making baked goods while inebriated, I woke up this morning pleasantly late and then went out to do some random life stuff. While doing this, I ran into Colleen, who said that she was going the Haus des Meeres (House of the Sea). I decided to tag along.
The Vienna Aquarium is built from the remains of one of the WWII flak towers that was left in the city. Flak towers are huge and ugly- they look like the way something out of Tolkien feels- like it's just watching you full of malevolent will. And they are hard to get rid of, because walls are generally several meters thick and put up in heavily populated cities.
So Vienna has several of these things left over, and this one got turned into a righteous aquarium. It's nine stories tall, and the star attraction is a huge windowed terrarium thing three stories tall that funs up half the building. It's tiny place of free range rain forest- there are families of crested marmosets, various kinds of jewel-toned birds (some of which are clearly earth-bound), tortoises and some random fish and salamanders stuck in there. They are not separate from people or from each other- you just walk into where these things live, and the only thing stopping you from stuffing a monkey in your purse is how *fast* the damned things are.
But the monkeys have no fear of humans whatsoever, and they are fluffy cuteness of an insane degree, so no matter what the signs say, people still try to pet them. ( I was warned by a tiny blond boy "Vorsicht, er beißt!- Careful, he bites!".) And the monkeys do not mind walking over people's hands on the railing that is clearly intended to be a monkey-highway, not a thing for people going up stairs. So, a monkey walked on my hand. And it was glorious, and really, really cute.
(This somewhat made up for the many unhappy snakes in cages too small with not enough places to hide from the tapping tourists. But, god, I forgot how cute pythons are. Also, apparently puff adder venom is about the vilest way to die in the entire fucking world. Do not get bitten by a puff adder.)
In other news, I am trying to pick out my classes for next semester (too early!!!), I just went out to a great pizza dinner with Nadzia and Colleen, and I am kicking around some random things to do tomorrow in my head. Nothing terrible special, but there are some Museums I have not seen and Nadzia is in the mood to go and see them.
I feel productive and wise. It's a nice way to be.
(Flak towers are horrible to look at, but they tend to have nice things built around/inside them. The Arenberg Park in the third district of Vienna has the only pair of flak towers still standing in Vienna, and it's a lovely cheerful little park full of children playing in the shadow of these huge gun towers. Surreal, but nice.)