Party in Helsingborg

Helsingborg is a city along the coast, just to the north of where we are.  We were invited to a birthday party at Tropikariet Helsingborg, a small indoor aquarium / zoo.  

It is a small place but amazingly well put together.  We had a blast!! 

First, the tanks... 

And then the furry beasties.  

The best part of this zoo is that most of the animals are free roaming.  When you walk in a room, you have to be careful not to step on someone.  And, while you are not exactly encouraged to touch the animals, there's a strong possibility that one of them will touch you.  Or land on you.  Or decide to hang out on your stroller looking as if they plan to come home with you. 

The archaeological dig area (full of large bone-like lumps just waiting to be found). 

And E's moment to shine.  This snake was brought out and everyone had a chance to touch him.  E loved every minute of it and would have stood for hours just watching and petting him.  

Eventually she had the chance to hold the snake. She loved that little guy!
(No photos of it, sorry, I was chasing a three year old around!!)

These little guys are enclosed but there is a distinct feeling that they are the ones roaming free while the humans are fenced in.  They spend all their time watching the curious humans performing the common eating ritual called "lunch." 

Here's the alligator tank.  See that little red alligator to the right?
That's one of the lessor known preschooler alligators. 

S and the birthday girl, M.  They were having so much fun in there.  I'm not sure what was more exciting - the fact that they were in the middle of the alligator tank or the fact that grown ups were too big to get through the tunnel to get there. 

I'm not sure I liked the way the alligators were eyeing my little peachy girl. 

This room had furry critters roaming free, a marching ant army and a loft for human kids to play. 

Here's the ant army.  This was amazing!  In one corner of the building, there was a bush covered in leaves and ants methodically chopping the leaves and carrying them away.  Then the ants marched through tubes like this all over the museum.  In some sections, logs were balanced on water so that the ants could march free (with no tube) without getting out into the rest of the museum.  

As we were leaving the museum past the front desk a couple of floors below this room, I noticed that the ant tube came all the way down to the entrance where it went underwater and the ants came out of the tube on to a water-surrounded branch next to the ticket counter and then continued their trek back into a tube and back up to the ant hill upstairs. 

Baby humans

More ants