It puts you at the"Taking the p*ss now!" end of the scale...
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On the Road Again
- Thread starter CGSwans
- Start date
Are you moving to the U.S??
Not in the sense of being settled in one place, but insofar as it is an extended period of time spent in one country I suppose I am, sort of.
I have a one year extended leave of absence from my work. It’s not yet fully determined precisely how much of that year will be spent in North America, but at least half.
I had no idea it would be that long. Nice that you can do it. The USA is a huge country so you will certainly not run out of things to do.
Years and years ago an Australian friend gave me a small taste of Vegemite. I can assure everyone out there it is most definitely not food!
I'd have thought Americans would be able to handle Vegemite as a cheap knock-off of the true nectar that is Marmite, given they themselves are cheap knock-offs of the British
I know @ThylacineAlive has only just about forgiven me for introducing him to Marmite.....
I know @ThylacineAlive has only just about forgiven me for introducing him to Marmite.....
I'd have thought Americans would be able to handle Vegemite as a cheap knock-off of the true nectar that is Marmite, given they themselves are cheap knock-offs of the British
I know @ThylacineAlive has only just about forgiven me for introducing him to Marmite.....
Only because you now have a scar on your hand from serving me dessert
~Thylo
Only because you now have a scar on your hand from serving me dessert
~Thylo
I do indeed
mere minutes after the Marmite Incident at that!
I'd have thought Americans would be able to handle Vegemite as a cheap knock-off of the true nectar that is Marmite, given they themselves are cheap knock-offs of the British
We're okay with being cheap, if it means never paying outrageous taxes on our tea
We're okay with being cheap, if it means never paying outrageous taxes on our tea
Which were still lower than the taxes those of us back home paid
This entire thread (so far) is quite cryptic. He has landed in The States and we don't even know what city or state he is in!
Only because you now have a scar on your hand from serving me dessert
Why does that sound like the two things are connected. "Try to make me eat Marmite? Ha, not so unstabbed now are you?"I do indeed
Zoo #1. Los Angeles Zoo.
Alright. A slow start to this thread, and a slow start to the trip in general. I rewrote my plan for 3 days in Los Angeles entirely just a couple of days before leaving, when I learned that Elizabeth Warren - the presidential candidate for whom volunteering was once the primary purpose of this trip (long story) - was going to be holding a rally in LA about 12 hours after my arrival. Gone was a quiet day in and around Hollywood, recovering from jet lag, and in was a several-hour wait in a queue to see somebody I view as one of the most brilliant, principled leaders of my lifetime. It is a desperate shame, for both America and the world, that she will not be the next President.
As an aside: this isn’t a forum about politics and I intend to focus my election-writing elsewhere, not here, but the 2020 election is a significant part of this trip for me and I imagine I will mention both it and the conduct and character of the current President in passing from time to time. If you don’t like it, don’t read.
Day two of the trip *was* to be Los Angeles Zoo, but the rather delayed jet lag recovery had me waking up at 11:40, with commitments at 5PM. No zoo today, and when I was still lying awake past 2AM that night I was starting to think LA Zoo would have to wait until I come back through the area for my flight home, as I had a bus to catch on Thursday. As it was, I woke up on the dot of 10, with a bus due to leave in 20 minutes, and had a choice: shower and breakfast, or zoo?
Zoo, of course. There are no rules on tour, and I figured there’d be plenty of Eau de Zoologique throughout the day to cover for me. Alas, I missed the first bus anyway, and so it was only a little before 12 before I arrived at the zoo, Oklahoma City Zoo membership in hand. I’ve never been to Oklahoma, of course, but the membership was $35, they happily shipped it to my LA hostel before my arrival, and it will save me at least a couple of hundred dollars (all going well: coronavirus is starting to make me very worried that the logistics of this trip might become prohibitively difficult.) Allowing for a pitstop for lunch - I’d packed sandwiches, but they became breakfast - I had about five hours to explore the zoo, which I was moderately sure would be enough.
In fact, I only needed four, and that was with iPad in hand, checking off species for the North American challenge. LA is a zoo that is worth a look, but rarely a linger: there’s lots to see, not much of it is bad, but little of it is particularly noteworthy. I started off with LAIR, for which I had high hopes: I believe I’ve now come to the right country after a somewhat disappointing standard of reptile houses in Europe (Zurich, Berlin, Cologne, Wroclaw, Zagreb, Vienna: you’re all excused. Moscow, you’re most definitely not).
LAIR is decent, but doesn’t quite excel: enclosures are big and broadly attractive, but I found the mock rock on the exterior of the first few enclosures (Kaiser newts, day geckos, etc for those familiar with LA) overbearing. I can live with a little theming - I’m in America, I suspect I’ll need to - but when all it’s achieving is making it harder to approach and view a tank, it’s too much. I also wondered about species selection when I saw floor to ceiling exhibits in the desert section for ground-dwelling snakes. It means a lot of empty vertical space and looking for reptiles down at your feet. Great collection, though, highlighted by the venomous snakes. Green mambas, bushmasters, gaboon vipers and a bunch of rattlesnakes and other vipers: I do not want to work in that reptile house. Gharials and Grey’s monitors were other highlights.
Australia was next, and the Global Challenge is going to keep me much more interested in my fellow Ohsss-tray-lians than I otherwise would be (I’ll keep working on getting that accent right). It’s actually one of the best parts of the zoo, with a relatively complete set of the basic Aussie ABCs (kangaroos, koalas, devils, wombats, a cassowary and an unseen echidna). The nocturnal hairy-nosed wombat house is actually the best exhibit I’ve seen for wombats: so often when an exhibit is brought indoors under reverse lighting the animals get short-changed for space, but that isn’t true here and I saw both wombats out and about.
Outside, I can forgive the inclusion of Komodo dragons (thanks @TeaLovingDave for informing me that they were once an Australian species), but the mixed exhibit for yellow-footed rock-wallabies and rhinoceros hornbills was flat out weird, and a cruel jest given that there are no hornbills in Australia at all, let alone in the wild. Elsewhere in the zoo is a wonderfully tall, planted walk-through aviary that lists only three common Australian species - galahs and I forget the other two, but one was a duck species - and even if they weren’t birds I see on my morning walk to work each day I’d still think the aviary is criminally under-used.
Alas, much of the rest of the zoo is in that nether-world of mediocrity that leaves little to be said: there’s not much to object to, all-concrete black bear ‘mountain’ and mandrills-in-a-roundhouse aside. The roundhouses have copped some criticism here in the past, and they’re certainly not ‘good’ exhibits, but with the right species selections (not mandrills) they’re mostly fine. In fact ‘mostly fine’ just about covers it. Unless you want to see mountain tapirs and the last uakari monkey outside South America, LA Zoo is pleasant but inessential.
By the way, did I mention that I’ve seen mountain tapirs and a uakari monkey? That monkey is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.
Alright. A slow start to this thread, and a slow start to the trip in general. I rewrote my plan for 3 days in Los Angeles entirely just a couple of days before leaving, when I learned that Elizabeth Warren - the presidential candidate for whom volunteering was once the primary purpose of this trip (long story) - was going to be holding a rally in LA about 12 hours after my arrival. Gone was a quiet day in and around Hollywood, recovering from jet lag, and in was a several-hour wait in a queue to see somebody I view as one of the most brilliant, principled leaders of my lifetime. It is a desperate shame, for both America and the world, that she will not be the next President.
As an aside: this isn’t a forum about politics and I intend to focus my election-writing elsewhere, not here, but the 2020 election is a significant part of this trip for me and I imagine I will mention both it and the conduct and character of the current President in passing from time to time. If you don’t like it, don’t read.
Day two of the trip *was* to be Los Angeles Zoo, but the rather delayed jet lag recovery had me waking up at 11:40, with commitments at 5PM. No zoo today, and when I was still lying awake past 2AM that night I was starting to think LA Zoo would have to wait until I come back through the area for my flight home, as I had a bus to catch on Thursday. As it was, I woke up on the dot of 10, with a bus due to leave in 20 minutes, and had a choice: shower and breakfast, or zoo?
Zoo, of course. There are no rules on tour, and I figured there’d be plenty of Eau de Zoologique throughout the day to cover for me. Alas, I missed the first bus anyway, and so it was only a little before 12 before I arrived at the zoo, Oklahoma City Zoo membership in hand. I’ve never been to Oklahoma, of course, but the membership was $35, they happily shipped it to my LA hostel before my arrival, and it will save me at least a couple of hundred dollars (all going well: coronavirus is starting to make me very worried that the logistics of this trip might become prohibitively difficult.) Allowing for a pitstop for lunch - I’d packed sandwiches, but they became breakfast - I had about five hours to explore the zoo, which I was moderately sure would be enough.
In fact, I only needed four, and that was with iPad in hand, checking off species for the North American challenge. LA is a zoo that is worth a look, but rarely a linger: there’s lots to see, not much of it is bad, but little of it is particularly noteworthy. I started off with LAIR, for which I had high hopes: I believe I’ve now come to the right country after a somewhat disappointing standard of reptile houses in Europe (Zurich, Berlin, Cologne, Wroclaw, Zagreb, Vienna: you’re all excused. Moscow, you’re most definitely not).
LAIR is decent, but doesn’t quite excel: enclosures are big and broadly attractive, but I found the mock rock on the exterior of the first few enclosures (Kaiser newts, day geckos, etc for those familiar with LA) overbearing. I can live with a little theming - I’m in America, I suspect I’ll need to - but when all it’s achieving is making it harder to approach and view a tank, it’s too much. I also wondered about species selection when I saw floor to ceiling exhibits in the desert section for ground-dwelling snakes. It means a lot of empty vertical space and looking for reptiles down at your feet. Great collection, though, highlighted by the venomous snakes. Green mambas, bushmasters, gaboon vipers and a bunch of rattlesnakes and other vipers: I do not want to work in that reptile house. Gharials and Grey’s monitors were other highlights.
Australia was next, and the Global Challenge is going to keep me much more interested in my fellow Ohsss-tray-lians than I otherwise would be (I’ll keep working on getting that accent right). It’s actually one of the best parts of the zoo, with a relatively complete set of the basic Aussie ABCs (kangaroos, koalas, devils, wombats, a cassowary and an unseen echidna). The nocturnal hairy-nosed wombat house is actually the best exhibit I’ve seen for wombats: so often when an exhibit is brought indoors under reverse lighting the animals get short-changed for space, but that isn’t true here and I saw both wombats out and about.
Outside, I can forgive the inclusion of Komodo dragons (thanks @TeaLovingDave for informing me that they were once an Australian species), but the mixed exhibit for yellow-footed rock-wallabies and rhinoceros hornbills was flat out weird, and a cruel jest given that there are no hornbills in Australia at all, let alone in the wild. Elsewhere in the zoo is a wonderfully tall, planted walk-through aviary that lists only three common Australian species - galahs and I forget the other two, but one was a duck species - and even if they weren’t birds I see on my morning walk to work each day I’d still think the aviary is criminally under-used.
Alas, much of the rest of the zoo is in that nether-world of mediocrity that leaves little to be said: there’s not much to object to, all-concrete black bear ‘mountain’ and mandrills-in-a-roundhouse aside. The roundhouses have copped some criticism here in the past, and they’re certainly not ‘good’ exhibits, but with the right species selections (not mandrills) they’re mostly fine. In fact ‘mostly fine’ just about covers it. Unless you want to see mountain tapirs and the last uakari monkey outside South America, LA Zoo is pleasant but inessential.
By the way, did I mention that I’ve seen mountain tapirs and a uakari monkey? That monkey is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.
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How can a Uakari be the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen when you live in Australia?
What do we have that could compare? Platypus? Eh.
I've seen some pretty ridiculous sights in the streets on Melbourne Cup Day...