I can’t tell you how much being this close to a tiger at the zoo, even a stuffed one one behind glass …
reminded me of this trip a year ago.
It was an amazing experience, and I’m incredibly fortunate! I’ll never forget the feel and smell of taking a live tiger for its morning walkies! *grins*
Can you believe that was a year ago?!?
Natura Artis Magistra – the Artis Royal Zoo, located in Amsterdam. That was where we decided to spend the last Sunday in August. In the intermittent rain.
I had wanted to go to Artis almost since we first arrived in Amsterdam. Having lived nearby and at one point taking the cats to the Vet opposite, it had been tormenting me ever since.
When we woke up on Sunday and there was yet more rain forecast, I looked at Himself and declared that I’d be willing to dress for the weather just to get there finally! Thank goodness that he is as open to adventure as I am! Off we went with umbrella and raincoat stowed safely in the backpack.
It didn’t take long for the first of several downpours. This one happened as we were nearby the Reptile House, and in we went.
We were reminded that we will need to look up the laws on snake ownership in the Nederlands for our next pet adoption.
Another happened as we were encountering the Lemurs in Lemur Land. You can actually get close and interact with them! Although, at one point all anyone wanted was to be under the umbrella, out of the rain! We all crammed in there together.
Zebras are not wet weather animals. They told me.
With another downpour we were at the Aquarium which is housed within the same park. How cool is that?!? This wee froggy stole my heart! He was about the size of the nail on my little finger.
I guess it makes complete sense that if you have a big cat enclosure, then you’d have a resident taxidermist as well. I wouldn’t want to say good bye either.
I swear these sea urchins wanted to try out to be soot sprites from Studio Ghibli.
The Koi pond will always hold a special attraction for me.
I saw my first ever racoon! And Oh My Goodness! Can you stand the cuteness?!?
My first ever sloth! I like sloths. Always have. Don’t know why.
There seemed to be baby animals all over the zoo. Baby gorillas, baby sharks, a baby giraffe, this baby elephant …
But of course, the best was saved ‘til last. As we were being kicked out of the premises as they had closed a half hour before …
the baby lion.
You can bet you britches that we’ll be going back to see all of the park we missed (and we were there for five hours), very shortly!
Hope you had a good weekend one and all!
Otherwise titled: How to have an Adventure.
I once had a Little Book of Chaos where it advised that you should rip random odd pages out of your street directory in order to make life more interesting.
We may have heeded this advice a little too closely over the weekend.
I’d seen a poster for a medieval fair.
Being us we thought this looked AWESOME! And being in the nearby woods area, we decided to head on over after waking up on Sunday (during the heatwave).
Not being entirely sure where it was being held, we just walked and figured we’d come across it eventually. How could you miss it, we thought?
It seemed like an awful lot of our local community was out and about in the woods, walking in the shade in an attempt to escape the heat. Or swimming in the murky lake.
The light dappled the path through the green canopy, and when we got near the camping grounds, we found a few of these structures which appear to have been built by the bored kids over Summer.
There were some beautiful flowers all blooming in abundance in the sun and heat.
I have decided that I love thistles! They’re so pretty!
It was wonderful seeing new life sprouting from a felled tree.
And given all the canals, there is a predominance of water birds all over!
Have you noticed yet, that there are no pictures of the fair? Yeah. We discovered the hard way that the local woods are massive. We spent several hours walking in the heat, and only traversed the bottom third of the woods. It dawned on me then that I had the web address for the fair, and given that we live in the future with the internet on our phones …
We never made it to the fair. It was up the other end of the woods. Several kilometers away.
Oh well. Next year?
Last Thursday night we took our first ferry across the IJ (pronounced – eye) to the Eye for the Stanley Kubrick exhibition which is being advertised all over town. (I think Alex looks really good as the side of a building!)
The Exhibition is full of props, behind the scenes photos, and personal correspondence of Stanley’s. Being a long time fan of his work, it was remarkably interesting to have a further dimension to some of my favourite films.
Each film had its own space set out with pertinent clips being shown and memorabilia surrounding the walls. Here’s some of the things we saw.
Hate mail from church organisations for Lolita.
The model of the War Room from Dr Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Some of the furniture from A Clockwork Orange. You can see the clip in the back ground here.
The typewriter and axes from The Shining. I also got pictures of the model of the maze. It was such a highlight given how often we watch this movie.
You can see the twins and the maze in the reflection on this case.
Ape costumes and the helmet from 2001: Space Odyssey. Hal, the ship, and the baby were all around this movie too, but in the darkness were difficult to get photos of.
Full Metal Jacket had some amazing propaganda posters.
They also had the helmet from the movie poster, along with the gun. They had the gun prayer posted next to it on a plaque. “This is my gun. There are many that look like it, but this one is mine. My gun is my best friend. It is my life. I must manage it like I manage my life.”
Finally there was the last movie Stanley made. Eyes Wide Shut.
He had finished working on it, but it was released after his death.
He was a genius in his field. There was so much passion, emotion, and power in all his movies. It was a wonderful exhibition, and we’re hoping to go again before it moves on.
It’s amazing what you learn when you pay attention to the advertising screens on trams! I recently read about Molen van Sloten on just such a screen, and resolved that at the next chance we got, that’s where we’d go! I’d had no idea that there was a working windmill so close to Amsterdam!
As directed, we took the tram and got off at the last stop, and just followed the signs from there. And a remarkably picturesque walk it was too!
Can you believe these are the back of peoples back yards? I’m so jealous!
This was the best sign so far, and had me giggling.
It directed us to walk through Sloten, a thousand year old village which only got annexed to Amsterdam in 1921. It’s so tiny and quaint!
I love the atmosphere of this village. If it was further away I‘d want a Summer house here. But it’s so close that I can visit whenever I want!
Out of a tree shaded walkway we then saw the sight that had drawn us here.
The massive rotating sails of the mill. This particular mill is a water mill that, by use of an Archimedes Screw, keeps the polder of Sloten above water level, if not sea level.
This is the only public mill in Amsterdam and being able to go up inside it as it was turning was such an amazing experience! We both had huge grins on our faces!
Being us, on the way home we stopped off in Leidseplein and sampled a few more of the delicious cocktails off the menu at the Bar Americain.
Pretty good way to end the day if you ask me! I hope your weekends were both productive and educational too!
ghoti industries 