We survived the plane rides, explored our "immediate" surroundings in week 1, and did the tourist thing over the weekend. I was either feeling confident or crazy (looking at the second week ahead and feeling desperate for something to fill it with) when I decided to attempt to tame the wild beast that is the public bus system and take 3 kiddos to the aquarium.
This aquarium would be better advertised as an indoor, exotic petting zoo. I highly recommend it. One could argue that it was (almost?) worth the (literal) headache it caused to get there and back.
Not pictured: sloths (!!) and the alpaca that we got to hand-feed, but which are a (literal) sore subject because I semi-forced the babies into the alpaca habitat and they all tripped over the decorative boulders and hurt themselves. 🙈
I hope you have appreciated these pictures, because they cost battery life I didn't have to spare.
I wrote out my whole bus saga, but it is too long and wordy and I wouldn't even re-read the whole thing. So here are the cliff notes:
- Google maps isn't precise with their bus stop placements.
- Apparently we looked like homeless people. I turned down chicken nuggets that were offered to the kids. They were probably safe. I should have accepted.
- Just because Google says "stay on this bus" does not mean you should stay on that bus.
- Not all strangers are friendly. A guy refused to let me plug my phone in his charger long enough to look up my route. 😒
- The office at the bus depot cannot help you set up a route if the office is closed.
- Bus route booklets are useless.
- Bus drivers don't know other bus routes or where to catch other buses.
- Bus drivers will believe that you bought a day pass through the app but your phone died if you have 3 cute kids with you.
- Google does know some things - like the fastest way to get home. And for some reason I still trusted it, despite all the bus drivers advising me to do something else that would take 3 times a long.
- I never had to use my back up plan which was to find a kind stranger who would let me borrow their phone (unlike SOME people!) so that I could call Steven and tell him where to pick us up at the end of his work day.
Never had I ever been happier to be "home." Never did I ever want to leave the house again. Buses are hard enough to conquer when you know you city and you don't have 3 small children with you. They are nigh to impossible to conquer in a foreign city with 3 kids over nap time.
We had no other adventures that week because Mama was adventured out.
This aquarium would be better advertised as an indoor, exotic petting zoo. I highly recommend it. One could argue that it was (almost?) worth the (literal) headache it caused to get there and back.
 |
| [here we are on the way there, which went smoothly despite Google maps not tracking the way it was supposed to to tell me when to get off the bus.] |
 |
| [it was difficult to convince Oswald that the inside of the "aquarium" was even cooler] |
 |
| [bunnies to pet!] |
 |
| [sting rays to pet!] |
 |
| [tortoises to feed] |
 |
| [emu and ostrich!] |
 |
| [massive sand pit, which was their favorite] |
 |
| [baby kangaroos!] |
 |
| [lemurs!] |
Not pictured: sloths (!!) and the alpaca that we got to hand-feed, but which are a (literal) sore subject because I semi-forced the babies into the alpaca habitat and they all tripped over the decorative boulders and hurt themselves. 🙈
I hope you have appreciated these pictures, because they cost battery life I didn't have to spare.
I wrote out my whole bus saga, but it is too long and wordy and I wouldn't even re-read the whole thing. So here are the cliff notes:
- Google maps isn't precise with their bus stop placements.
- Apparently we looked like homeless people. I turned down chicken nuggets that were offered to the kids. They were probably safe. I should have accepted.
- Just because Google says "stay on this bus" does not mean you should stay on that bus.
- Not all strangers are friendly. A guy refused to let me plug my phone in his charger long enough to look up my route. 😒
- The office at the bus depot cannot help you set up a route if the office is closed.
- Bus route booklets are useless.
- Bus drivers don't know other bus routes or where to catch other buses.
- Bus drivers will believe that you bought a day pass through the app but your phone died if you have 3 cute kids with you.
- Google does know some things - like the fastest way to get home. And for some reason I still trusted it, despite all the bus drivers advising me to do something else that would take 3 times a long.
- I never had to use my back up plan which was to find a kind stranger who would let me borrow their phone (unlike SOME people!) so that I could call Steven and tell him where to pick us up at the end of his work day.
Never had I ever been happier to be "home." Never did I ever want to leave the house again. Buses are hard enough to conquer when you know you city and you don't have 3 small children with you. They are nigh to impossible to conquer in a foreign city with 3 kids over nap time.
We had no other adventures that week because Mama was adventured out.
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