Museum Nacht

Before Andrew left for South Africa we had one looooong date.  It was Museum Night in Amsterdam.  Forty-one museums all over the city are open from 7:30pm until 2am with music, food and other cool stuff.  We had a plan to hit a few and we got most of them, until I fell asleep.  Oops.  

First off was the Aquarium.  The definite highlights for me were the bones and the big fish.  The skeletons of stacks of different animals had all been put together in a glass cage/enclosure (can't think of the right word, study brain).  There was a mahoooooosive whale along the top, the elephant paled in comparison to it.  There was a monkey and bear and human and hyena and dolphin and so many other skeletons.  

It was amazing to see them all grouped together to see how different and how scarily similar they are (did you know that elephants have toe bones and whales have finger bones?!).  Then came the BIG fish.  And I mean seriously HUGE. 

 They were swimming around in a big tank, we just sat mesmerised for a very long time. 

 After the Aquarium we had a guided tour by torchlight of Artis, the Amsterdam zoo.  The highlight of the zoo was just being in the zoo in the dark, I was hoping to fall asleep somewhere and be woken in the morning by the zookeepers with a cockatoo on my shoulder (ala Pigs Might Fly).  But I didn't fall asleep there, I kept that for the Planetarium.  Yup, the seats were comfy and I had a nice little snooze.  It was pretty cool though, the bits I did see.  We went whizzing through outer space and it was really beautiful. 

 It was around 1am by then so we skipped our next destination and headed home.  Andrew and I discussed doing this in Newcastle, maybe Live Sites might be interested?!