Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Hello everyone and Happy Valentine's Day from Vienna!


Alex and I were trying to figure out a way to celebrate Valentine's Day as it is our first one together.  I judged in Kingston last year and I was coaching the year before. Since we're in Vienna we thought it might be fun to go for a visit of the Schonbrunn Zoo, the OLDEST zoo in the world!  It dates back to 1752 and was set in the gardens of the Schonbrunn Palace, the former summer home of the Imperial family.  Originally the grounds were for hunting but then they put more exotic animals on it to be kept instead of hunted. 

The zoo had so many animals!!  There were a lot of animals that I had never seen even in a zoo.  This is one of the only places in the world that you can see Giant Pandas in captivity there are only 27 living in the world outside of China. (The Calgary, Toronto, and Granby Zoos will have shared custody of 2 Pandas starting this year, and this one has 3!!)  We got really close and even took some pictures of the baby sleeping on a tree branch.  Pretty cute.

Eating Bamboo

Alex with Pandas

Sitting like People

Baby Sleeping

 

 

Lunch time!

 These guys were so cute and we stayed watching them for quite a while, even though it was snowing! 

After our Pandas we walked all around the zoo, about 3 hours.  It was snowing today which is a huge change from the temperature (15C or 50F) last week!  We braved the 1/2 inch of snow and continued to enjoy our day.  Some of the other interesting exhibits were the polar region.  They had sea lions and penguins. As well, the aquarium/reptile house was very cool, with a 360 degree aqua tunnel where you could walk right through the tank.  We got to see a baby elephant and orangutan.  There was a huge rainforest house where there was a bat cave, with free flying bats (Alex would not go anywhere near it).  There were some pretty birds in the rain forest as well as some giant flying foxes (or just bigger bats to Alex). 

Koala

Rhino with his keeper

MONKEY!

Penguins

Aaron and a Sealion

 

 

In the Rainforest

Baby Elephant playing with his food!

Alex and her true love

Even though this zoo is in the middle of the city, it a very natural environment.  They even took the time to set up a walkway through the trees just to see the native birds of Vienna which was nice for
me.  Although it is winter most of the animals were very active and although some were in their winter houses, it was still great to see them.  I usually don't enjoy seeing animals stuck in captivity but these animals had awesome habitats and really good caretakers.  This was one of the nicest zoos we had ever been in for sure.   

In the spirit of Valentine's day we thought we'd show you some of the animals also celebrating today...  

Sea Lions snoozing...

Red Pandas Playing

Monkeys Grooming

Tapirs in Love

Elephants eating dinner

Giant Anteaters kissing

And then there were these two....

Training and work has been going really well.  I'm performing every show and recently had to change costumes and learn the other half of the Planche Act.  It's so much fun to learn new roles!  I've been working hard to learn all the skills I need and they are gradually coming.  I feel like my timing and my technique is improving daily.  Here's a picture of my new costume on the day Alex came to watch the show.  We are given two free tickets to the dress rehearsal for our family so Alex will at least be able to watch it in every city once.



Hopefully everyone had a great day!  We miss you all!
'Til next time,
Aa and Alex