At the zoo

By Rosebud -
Steven laughs at me, but I love Simon & Garfunkel.  

Lazy morning and then off to the zoo!  

For those of you who have never met our eldest son or heard him wax unending on his favorite subject:  Giant Pandas are kind of his thing.  Since he was 2 years old, they've kinda been his thing.  A lot.  So, since he's not here to give you the lecture, I'll act in persona Jonathan.  Never mind, let me sum up.  There are only 18 zoos in the world (outside of China) that house Giant Pandas.   We've visited the zoo in Washington DC and in Memphis (the other US ones are in San Diego and Atlanta) and once we realized we'd be in Vienna, it seemed a no-brainer to visit the oldest Zoo in the world that also happens to have one of the best panda breeding programs.

First off, it was cold.  But it wasn't raining!  


 Jonathan with Long Hui, the male panda 


Yang Yang, the female 



Grisha loves wolves, so we went to visit them as well.   They are Artic Wolves.  This weather should be positively balmy to them, right?    Ha.


I never knew wolves hibernated.  

 Grisha said, "I LOVE your new camera lens, Mama!"


Karina especially loves monkeys.



I guess orangutans and Karinas also hibernate.  


One of the cool things about this zoo is that the animals are REALLY close when they are in their inside spaces (the outdoor exhibits are similar to most zoos).  Close as in - the sloth's ropes were about a foot above Steven's head. And the otters scampered across the path in front of us.

I have pictures of many of these, but won't bore you.  However, I have no pictures of the room with the free-flying, VERY active bats.  Irene could have stayed all day in there.  I ran through, crouched down, trying not to scream.


This was from the display from the armadillos.  It's "predators" (in the little orange box on the right) are men and cars.  Yup.  



Fu Bao, the baby panda.  The lazy little slug slept in the same place all day long.  We were quite disappointed about that.  

Sunset over the gardens



And a dinner of potato soup, with zimmels, Glühwein, and hot spiced cider.

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