The aquarium in Lisbon is called the Oceanarium, and according to TripAdvisor, it’s “the best aquarium in the world.” TL;DR: They’re not wrong!
Where: Esplanada Dom Carlos I on the Tagus waterfront in Lisbon
Price: Ꞓ25 per person
We opted to spend an extra Ꞓ25 for a private guided tour. Our guide was a marine biologist named Bruno (I’d tell you more, but we don’t talk about Bruno…). a few highlights that aren’t in the movie:
- We missed the otters’ breakfast, but we were there for second breakfast. Bruno commented that the otters pretty much live to eat, so we concluded they are aquatic Hobbits – a mind-worm that is clearly going to haunt Bruno for a long time to come. (I mean, “that was clear when I said it”. but ofc, the later converation cemented it…)
- We had a great conversation about Finding Nemo, in which Bruno pointed out that (a) Dory actually has an anesthetic venom and (b) Marlin.. well… Clownfish live in communities of males all dominated by a single female. She harries and bullies them constantly, which causes a stress hormone to be constantly present in their systems. If the female dies, the stress hormone level drops, and prompts a gender change. The first / meanest male to become a girl becomes the new matriarch, and starts stressing out her former buddies in order to keep them male. So Marlin should totally have turned into a girl the minute he and Nemo were alone.
So of course, I said to Bernie, “you know, somewhere, there’s a Nemo porno about that….”
Bruno laughed himself silly – partly in humor and partly in “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to laugh at that in front of a woman, and I’m SURE I’m not allowed to respond”. I laughed with him and told him that, along with the Hobbitt Otters, he was now certain never to forget us. Once he caught his breath again he said he figured he would hold onto the Hobbit Otter thing. But it was very clear that the minute he got away from us, he was TOTALLY gonna tell his friends the Nemo-porn story. 😉
(He’s also a gamer, and was tickled to hear us relate the fire salamanders to dragons – something he will definitely take back to his D&D games.)
So there ya go – settling into our new country well. Not “fitting in”, exactly – but making the locals laugh. It’s a start. 🙂
We tired ourselves out walking through the Oceanarium, and we’ll need a couple more trips to really absorb it all. Until you can get there yourselves, you can have a look at the video below to join us on a ten-minute trip through our first visit!
