the ZOO

Our whole group went to the Kreuzenstein castle on Wednesday. It was built over 900 years ago, but destroyed at one point. So they rebuilt it. We went on a tour, but we ended up being there way less time than I expected. So a group of us decided we should go to the zoo!

Going to the San Diego Zoo or Wild Animal Park is one of my favorite activities while I'm at home. I love seeing all of the animals and I especially love seeing them in their (somewhat) natural habitat at the WAP. I think part of it is because that way I don't feel as bad for them, because then they actually have space to run around, you know, stretch their legs a little. The Zoo in Vienna, the "Tiergarten," is located at Schonbrunn castle and is actually the oldest zoo in the world. That is pretty neat, isn't it? Now, I'm not complaining, but the zoo was a little small. I admit I am spoiled living in Southern California, but really, this zoo wasn't lacking on thevariety of animals it has, it was just lacking on space. The animals are all really close to each other which is fine and also nice for us since we had already been walking around most of the day. Though, I feel really bad for the animals having such small spaces to live. For example, (I don't know if this has to do with his lack of space, but) when we were visiting mister orangutan he was sitting near the window and I went and put my hand on the window and he ran up to the window and put his meanest face on and ran into the window! We were looking at him still when someone took a flash photo (completely allowed) and he ran into the window with this growling looking face again. It was hysterical, and of course at the time we were laughing like crazy. But now thinking about it, I feel really bad for the little guy. MAYBE he wasn't mad about being in a case, but obviously he wasn't very happy about something.

The great thing about this zoo though, was that they (somewhat) recently had baby tigers and lions born. And they are absolutely adorable! Of course everyone was trying to get good pictures of them, so I could hardly see them, and I couldn't even get a picture of the little tigers and only got an okay one of a lion cub. But I did get to see them wrestling with and chasing eachother. Also they have some young polar bears, but they aren't quite as young as the cat cubs, but still looked very cute and cuddly. Another of my favorite parts was going into the rain forest house ( I don't know the actual name) and they had a dark room with tons of bats flying around. I was in the room with Nick, Mirielle and McKinlee and it was great listening to the other two girls scream as the bats flew almost right at them. I can honestly tell you I never SCREAMED, though I may have shrieked a little. One of the bats even landed right on McKinlee and Nick had quite a tough time getting out because one of the bats tried coming out with him and got stuck in between the two doors.

We also got to see flamingos, fish, turtles, giant tortoises, monkeys (a few kinds), panthers, a cheetah, butterflies (one was even coming right out of the cacoon, but he was taking too long so we couldn't wait for him to finish), sea lions, elephants, penguins, giraffes, koalas, pandas, snakes, hippos, rhinocerous, and probably a few others. I would have to say it was a very succesful day. (Jillian and I on the statue elephants)

We wandered around the gardens for a little till we had to leave to Institute. And I enjoyed a great (I'm guessing it was great) lesson in German on Lehi's vision. He even made each of us read a verse which gave me a little angst (fear auf Deutsch) but luckily I didn't get any hard words in mine. And I understood quite a bit of the lesson, which adds to my gratitude that I have a basic understanding of the scriptures so I could know what was going. For dinner we had pumpkin soup and crepes with nutalla and PEANUT BUTTER for dessert. This was my first time eating PB since I've been here, so it was an enjoyable experience, naturally.

Also, yesterday wasn't succesful because I am still in search of a German word for 'awkward.' Absolutely no one has given me a good answer. The answers I have recieved are, lustig (funny), komish (strange), peinlich (embarrassing) and plump (clumsy - I learned this one from a story read in my German class.) It makes me really sad that the German language is lacking this absolutely wonderful word. Though I an finally learning the difference between schön (pretty, hansdome, nice...), hübsch (pretty, cute - but mainly used as pretty) and süß (sweet, cute - this word would be used to describe a cute child.) Well, thats all for today, or yesterday for that matter. Gute nacht alle.