Einstein is some kind of gecko, and we're gecko-sitting him for a whole month! Fun times. Einstein is really two pets in one, because he eats live crickets, and we have to keep those alive long enough to feed to him. Meet the disgusting crickets!
How's it going? Well, the gecko is still alive, but he seems kind of... depressed. He hides in his rocks all day and night, and doesn't seem to be eating much. We just fed him, we'll see if most or all of the crickets are gone in the morning. Hopefully they are, because any that are left have to be removed or else they'll start biting him. Ironic!
Here's a picture of his terrarium. It's in the living room.
In more exciting news, I took the girls to one of the baths in Baden today (Baden literally translates to Bath. There are lots of natural thermal springs there, though I don't know if this place was natural thermal spring water or just regular pool water. Does it matter? Definitely was chlorinated.)
The bath we visited is called the Strand Bad, literally the sand bath, because they trucked in some sand for the kiddies. The sand isn't in the water though, it's more like a giant sand box 10 feet from the water. Fun though. The baths were really just swimming pools, which is kind of a let down. I was hoping for some springs in rocks or something. But they were huge! There were really just three separate pools, but two were utterly enormous, and the smallest one (the kiddie pool) was still a good size, maybe 25 by 40 feet. There were small water slides in the kids pool, plus a bunch of fountains. The water was 0.55 meters deep max, which is just about Maggie's belly button, so she had lots of fun. The water was deeper in the larger pools, which I'd wager ranged in temp from 78 to 95 degrees. Then there were a few big water slides, which Nina was brave enough to try all by herself. I was so proud of her!
I didn't take the camera, sorry. But we stayed about 6 hours and had a blast. Funnily, I'd say we stuck out like sore thumbs there. I wore my typical swimming garb (long-sleeved spf 50 cover-up plus hat, even while in the pools of course), and I'd have drawn less attention if I was topless. Truly. No one bats an eye at a topless mom (not that it was very common, more for sunbathers and for a quick change). They probably thought I was a very conservative Christian or something. Though maybe the ultra-white skin marks me as sun paranoid, who knows. The Austrians certainly sport deep tans. I wonder what the skin cancer rates are around here.
The girls also wore their typical swim garb; bikini bottoms and shirt spf 50 swim tops (short sleeves for Maggie, long for Nina). We were the only ones in swim shirts. Most of the girls under 5 (or 6 or 7) wore just bottoms, so even a bikini top would have been a lot. And barely a hat to be seen!
Regardless of dress though, we had a great time! I think tomorrow we'll lay low and rest. The girls were exhausted by the time we got back!
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