continued.. the Zoo in Vienna

Have you ever had a butterfly land on your bare shoulder? It’s a rare occurrence but when it does happen you have to completely stop everything in your life and admire the moment. Maybe even think about why they chose your shoulder. I thought about why this beautiful monarch landed on my shoulder as I walked through the rainforest exhibit at the world famous zoo in Vienna, Austria. Not only were there butterflies, this giant dome contained playful otters, all sorts of big eyed bugs, bats, and even species of rainforest birds flying freely. As I made my way through on the path, I encountered a rare tropical bird that almost looked like a toucan. One bird even landed on a branch in front of me, and him and I played a game, seeing who would loose eye contact first. Needless to say, I lost, as most of the crowd behind me pushed on through knocking me further along my way. Bats hung freely from banana trees and looked like decoration that people put up for Halloween. Towards the end of the exhibit was a small river, which held many alligators and small reptiles. The exhibit was recreated to look just like a swamp I had been to in southern Florida. If it weren’t for all of the writing in German, I would think I was back in America. This place was part art and part nature, but all together it was pure beauty.

In order for one to spend the day at the zoo, you need to set aside at least eight hours. That is, if you want to admire each animal and it’s habitat. Signs with different animals pointed in all directions, but in order to get to some of them, you had to climb up hills, use a skywalk that looks over all of Vienna, and stop for some hotdogs that were stuffed into baguettes. Even the wild squirrels that were just visiting and hoping to find leftover seeds weren’t afraid to be pet.

The artic zone housed friendly penguins that engaged with almost any child that rubbed their finger against the glass. If you’ve ever seen the movie March of the Penguins than you’d definitely agree that the cast from the movie was here.

 A polar bear played with its giant ball in water that looked to be below zero, and then thumped down and rested, as people walked by and tried waving to it.

I never felt bad for any of the animals while I was there. People usually have a tendency to feel bad for the animals locked up in cages, but these animals were fed day in and day out, given toys to play with, and their habitat looked just like it would in the wild. The whole day I watched as birds spread their wings and played boss among the smaller birds. I walked through exhibits where a double pane of glass was the only thing keeping me from a meat eating lion. Lemurs jumped with small babies on their back using man made lily pads to make their way across the water into the tall tangling trees on a man made island. A family of elephants played with a trainer as he sprayed water from a hose onto them in the hot summer sun. If I leaned over far enough, I could pet the back of a giraffe while it grazed on fresh hay.

There were moments where I wasn’t sure if I was in the wild or if I was at the zoo. It was the least amount of money I had ever spent to take a trip around the world.