pingüinos y delfines!

Today we had our group excursion to the Oceanográfico, which is the only part of the City of Arts and Sciences that wasn't designed by Santiago Calatrava.  It is a huge complex of different aquariums with creatures from all over the world- Mediterranean, Arctic, South Pole, ect.  It pretty much had everything- beluga whales, seahorses, walruses, sharks, and a bazillion other types of sea creatures. 


It was a really fun aquarium because it had tunnels that you could walk through underneath all of the fish, and there was even a weird "bubble" that you crawled into and sat in which made you feel like you were sitting inside a fish tank.  

sitting inside the bubble

I was thoroughly amused by some of the spanish names for the animals, like pingüinos for penguins, and caballitos del mar for seahorses (which literally translates to "little horses of the sea").  We had perfect weather for this trip (we were outside most of the time), it doesn't feel like November at all because lately it's been around 75 degrees and sunny all the time.  

The best part of the aquarium was the dolphin show (a.k.a. los delfines).  I've seen dolphin shows before but it never ceases to amaze me how clever dolphins are and I always am amazed by how well trained they are.  How do they train them to do two flips in the air? Or spin vertically? Also, how on earth do the trainers managed to stay balanced on the noses of the dolphins while underwater?! I might never know these answers, but I do know that it would probably be awesome to be a dolphin trainer.