Taxidermy and Taramosalata
An eventful day at the Naturhistorisches Museum!
So I know what you're thinking already based on the picture at the top of this page. Yes, that seal looks wrong. Here's the thing though; he's not alone. On our day off today, a group of us decided to go to the Naturhistorisches Museum, the STEM sister of the Kunsthistorisches Museum that holds a collection of natural artifacts and a lot of taxidermied animals. All of this is built on the bones of a collection started in 1750 by Maria Theresia's husband Francis I who purchased, at that time, the largest collection of natural history objects in the world. What we encountered first were three massive rooms filled with every type of rock imaginable.
As you can probably tell since I'm a History and Film major, science isn't my thing. I'm very grateful for scientists and all they give to the world. I am also very grateful I'm not one. That being said, these rocks were so cool. Obviously, I have learned about the periodic table in other classes but this was my first time getting to see nearly every visible element in the same room next to each other. Walking around it allowed me to see all sorts of colors, sizes, shapes, and textures of rock. I assumed, then, that that would set the tone for the rest of the museum. I was wrong.
From the rock collection, we made our way to the crown jewel of the Naturhistorisches: The Venus of Willendorf. Estimated to have been made nearly 30,000 years ago, the Venus is one of the oldest manmade art pieces I've ever gotten to see. Little is known about its use, construction process, or cultural significance. It is speculated that the figure may have been a fertility idol to the accentuation of its body parts typically associated with fertility and motherhood, though no one can be sure.
You wouldn't know after starting in the rock collection and seeing the Venus that the rest of this beautiful museum was actually home to a gargantuan collection of some of the worst taxidermy I've ever had the pleasure to see. Thankfully, it is, and I'm happy to get the chance to give you a tour. (Apologies in advance, this blog entry probably isn't as history-dense as you're used to).
This should've been a dead giveaway for me. One of the first things you see after entering the animal section of this museum is a room dedicated to life in the arctic followed by a hallway with this horribly outdated and flat CGI depiction of a polar bear snarling at you. My friend Viv and I were the only ones in our group to stay in the hallway for long enough for the video to loop so we could see the bear and I'm so glad we did because I laughed harder than I have in a long time. From this point on, I laughed quite a bit more.
Now, to be fair, I've never seen a lion in the wild. But, I'm assuming based on seeing them in captivity and in documentaries that they aren't supposed to look like this. The mouth is curved weirdly and the expression of smug pride he's giving seems strange. It gets worse.
After the lion, we met our seal friend. I do not know his species, his country of origin, or anything else remotely important about him. What I do know is that he looks extremely wrong. Most of the taxidermy in this museum is pretty good but every 10th animal looks exactly like him and it makes me wonder what happened. I was walking through the museum when I suddenly heard all 5 of my friends laughing. When they called me over, I was greeted by this...smile? I was overjoyed. He has since become a mascot of our group on this trip.
This horse is strangely polite. You know that closed lip smile and head nod you give people on the street back in the US? He looks like he's in the middle of doing that. It's a little weird to witness if I'm being honest.
Not much to say about this one other than "Teeth Zebra." The weird part is, it's next to 2 other Zebras who look absolutely normal. It's only this one that they made smile in the most awkward and unnatural way.
There are more but I want to end for this section of the blog entry on this monkey. When my friends saw it, they pointed at it and said "look, he's British like you" and, truthfully, I see it.
After our thrilling, if not wholly educational, trip through what is now one of my favorite museums in Vienna, we went to Rathausplatz for tonight's film at the Vienna film festival. The other night when we went there accidentally, we had already eaten and didn't get to take advantage of all the lovely food and drink stands there. Today, we planned to eat there and I'm glad we did!
I'm probably a little higher on Austrian food than most of the others on this trip. I love a good schnitzel and can down sausages with the best of them but, at the end of the day, I don't think I could eat only Austrian food for the rest of my life and be happy. At the festival, I got a trio of greek dips that were full of flavor and were pretty different from the more traditional Austrian dishes I've been enjoying up to this point. The taramosalata was my favorite (as it often is) but the hummus and tzatziki were delicious as well. Even with the rain, we had a wonderful night and I can't wait for Salzburg tomorrow!
