Water everywhere...

So we had four days off, four days I was looking forward to using exploring the city. However, because of the holidays, everything closed down, and instead I just wasted four days. The first day we all lost our minds and decided, "Hey, a public holiday, let's go to the aquarium with every single child five-year-old in New South Wales!" So even when we got to Darling Harbour and saw the line curving all the way down the docks, we didn't come to our senses. I blame it on the weather. For the first time since we arrived it was cloudy, cold and sprinkling. It was down to 22 degrees! Anyways, we finally got to the door and in we went. The very first thing we came across was a platypus display. The platypus is a uniquely Australian monotreme, which means that it's an egg-laying mammal. If I remember correctly, there are only three species which are monotremes. Some people say two, some say three, but I'm pretty sure at the aquarium they said three. Monotremes have also developed what is called electro-reception (sharks have it, too), which helps them sense muscular contractions in their prey (worms, crustaceans, larvae of freshwater insects). And furthermore, they are only one of five known venemous mammals. They have spurs on the heel (do playtpus have heels?) of their hind legs, which are filled with the venom, although they don't know what purpose it serves. They think it might have to do with mating, but it will kill a dog or severely hurt a human. It was much smaller than I had imagined, I'm not sure what I had imagined, but it was bigger in my head. Very interesting, though.

The aquarium was like the freak show of aquariums. If you've seen a crab, you've never seen a crab this big. If you think you'd seen a seahorse, you've never seen a seahorse like this. It just was as weird as anything could get. For example the Tasmanian giant crab, which measures 45 cm across the shell, not counting claws or anything! For Americans, that's around 18 inches... Or the weedy sea dragon, which, appropriately enough, looks like a strand of seaweed. It also just lays its eggs down its tail, not in a little pouch like you'd expect. There was also a Great Barrier Reef display, where you could touch coral, see all the interesting fish (including Nemo) and walk through tunnels under the water. To give you a little perspective on the size of the reef, there were little signs on the walls comparing it to countries: Germany is 356,978 sq km, which is only 12,978 sq km larger than the Great Barrier Reef.

And finally, me under the water, displaying enormous faith in glass.