The lemurs were loose. The tamarins were, too (and some had babies!). So were the iguanas. The Tropikariet was great, and the kids loved it.
First, we drove to Helsingborg and had a very American Sunday brunch at a place called O’Leary’s. There is a new owner who turned out to be quite the asshole, as he apparently gave Neitha a huge headache when she called to reserve our tables by telling her that they didn’t do the buffet anymore. She held him to the promises the previous owner had made her, and he was rude to all of us, calling her jobbig, and then charged us 129 per plate instead of the 99 kronor advertised on their website. 🙁 She basically ripped him a new one while we were trying to pay. So, I guess we won’t be going back there. Pity he’s a jerk because the food was really good and the pancakes were EXCELLENT.
The Tropikariet is on the 2nd and 3rd floors of a warehouse building, and they’ve done an excellent job with it. There was a crocodile hole that the kids could crawl into, next to the caiman pool and pop their heads up in a plexiglass box to be eye-to-eye with the reptiles. There were snakes and lots of big icky tropical bugs, and little monkeys (tamarin type, mostly) and iguanas and parrots and ring-tailed lemurs that sat above our head and jumped within touching distance. They had one big room filled with sand and a row of spades and brushes that the kids could use to dig for dinosaur bones. That was a big hit, and we had to go back in there twice for extra digging. They had about 9 different bones buried in the sand, and a big dino footprint fossil. The Australia room was a little strange because they had rabbits. I know they have rabbits in Australia and that they are, in fact, a pest there. But I don’t think any really respectable zoo counts RABBITS among their tropical animals 🙂
It’s nasty weather out, grey and rainy. I’ve got a lot of work to do on the AWC website, so must restrain myself from playing around on LJ and surfing the rest of the evening.