On Wednesday afternoons the Natural History Museum has a showing at their Digital Planetarium that is in English. The kids have always wanted to go to the planetarium, and today it was raining so it was a perfect day to watch the movie at the museum about Super Volcanoes.
We got there a little before the movie began, so we hit a few highlights in the museum. The dinosaur room is a must because James loves to say hello to the animated Allosaurus and the kids all like watching the film about the crater that hit earth and killed all the dinosaurs. Today the kids also noticed there was fossilized dinosaur poop that you can actually touch!
James wasn’t sure if that was exciting or gross. Elora thought it was funny to get everyone else to touch it.
Elora thought the fossilized dinosaur skin was really cool. They also had some fossilized stones that had been in a herbivore dinosaur stomach. Elora said it made her tummy feel weird to touch things that had been in a dino stomach.
The museum has lots of short movies and interactive games and screens everywhere. The kids love this game where you find all the bones that belong to a certain dinosaur. I always think the games and movies are fun, but sometimes the kids are so busy looking at the screens, they don’t look at the 30 foot brachiosaurus skeleton right behind them.
Elora was super excited when she showed Oliver that this is a real dinosaur leg bone that you are allowed to touch!
Our kids new favorite exhibit is “What would you look like as an early human?” A fun time is had by all when you take your pictures and turn yourself into a Neanderthal.
After finding out what everyone would look like as an early human, we headed to the planetarium to see the show. It was really interesting. It had great computer animation showing different ancient Super Volcano explosions. Then it showed Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and had some nice computer graphics showing all the magma built up underneath it – explaining that it is a super volcano that will erupt someday. It is all narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is very talented at making his voice sound dramatic and creepy. By the end the kids were a bit worried about that super volcano erupting in Wyoming soon. Marion declared that she hopes she is already dead when it happens, and Oliver was grumpy at this thought because “Then our kids will all die in the eruption!”
After the movie, the kids got out their journals.
Marion drew a wonderful picture of Toba, the eruption in Sumatra 74,000 years ago that was featured in the film. Oliver declared in his journal that it was amazing that we watched a movie in a museum (because who knew that was even possible?!?), Elora wrote a very informative journal entry, and James drew many volcanoes, while growing more and more impatient at his drawing attempts and Marion’s usage of the red colored pencil. All in all, I decided it was time to go outside, because a movie in a dark room in the late afternoon had made everyone a bit sleepy and grumpy and they needed some sunshine to perk up again!
We went outside to see the fountains. The sun had magically appeared while we were inside so the kids enjoyed walking around on the grass, picking flowers, running in circles around the fountains, pretending to be trains, and checking out the bees that have taken up residence inside the mouth of one of the spitting fish in the fountain.
When everyone started to get tired and hungry we headed for home, stopping to buy milk on the way. And the store with the milk just happens to be next to my favorite Gelataria, La Romana. We stopped to have some ice cream and play in the Kinderecke (kid corner) for a few minutes before heading home. I just read that Austria is home to the highest number of ice cream salons per person in the world. Just one more reason to love Vienna!
