Busy Week Ahead

This week has been busy and it is only Monday. Yesterday was the gardens at Schonbrunn - they have winter gardens inside big glass houses.


There is a tropical palm-house and a desert-house. And the palm-house has a New Zealand section! Some of it I didn't recognize but they had big tree-ferns, the smaller ferns, all the normal trees, and kowhai.


And then I saw a squirrel! Which of course was not supposed to be in the palm house, and everybody thinks I'm really funny always trying to take photos of them.


There were also turtles and fish, and some birds in a cage that did not look too happy. An Australian section too, and they had a pineapple plant! I have never seen pineapples growing. Here they call them Ananas, and they do in all the other languages too. It is just in English that they have such a funny name as pineapple.


The desert house was even hotter than the tropical house, and it had some interesting plants. None of it was as good as the zoo.


Then it was overpriced italian food and home to work on my presentation which I have to give on Thursday. Again work is really getting in the way of having fun. But tonight I did get to go to the Opera again, yay. It was called Falstaff, a comedy based on Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. It was really very good. I have to make sure to see a few more because once back in Galway there will be no more steady supply of theatre.

And it has stopped snowing, it is now above zero degrees! Spring is definately coming. I have started walking to work, because without all the cold and snow things really are far closer than they seem. Living in a big city is not the nicest for walking to work, but once you get to the Donau canal it is not so bad. And if you can see in this photo, in the distance, a big chimney/tower sort of thing - that is where I work. Or at least right beside that. The building itself is the place where they take the rubbish and burn in, instead of having a tip. I will go take photos of it sometime, it is designed by this architect and is all colourful with odd shapes. The chimney has a big ball on the top and is all metallic and shiny. I could see it well when taking this photo but distances are always large through the camera.