Meeting a dinosaur?

Last weekend my boyfriend and I saw some amazing dinosaurs. Some were actually moving and some were kind of... dead. Now you maybe wonder, well, where did you see them, as they are extinct for more than a few million years already.

Well, we went to Naturalis. This is a biodiversity centre where they do research for everything nature related. This they do on-site and in Leiden in their research centre. But they also have a museum, where they usually have some amazing things to show. But as that part of the museum is evolving (thought that was funny, you know, as nature evolves too!) we only saw the dinosaurs. And that was just A-MA-ZING. There were even footsteps outside leading to Naturalis!

In the first room we were shown some big dinosaurs, and they were actually moving. They all had information boards and there were some tv's with a man walking under it to tell you all sorts of things about the dinosaurs you were looking at.
The second room also had moving dinosaurs! This time it were T-rex's. Excuse me for not remembering where the T stands for...

Then, in the third room we met Trix. Trix is a T-rex, found in America. It's just so strange to see something that lived 6 or 7 million years ago and being complete for about 80 percent. Of course it were just the bones, but with just bones it already was so big.
It's fantastic that through research they learned so much about Trix, things like if she was a young or old one, a male or female, if she ever broke something or not and all kinds of things.
Oh, and look what a cute little hands (is that what you call them?) she has!! 

The next three rooms where more for children, but still amazing. You first one was with all sorts of play things. This way the kids can play and learn and that's the best way I think. But as an adult-ish woman I still learned quite a bit from that room! As they also give information about all sorts of things.

The room after that had tables where kids could do something, but I don't know what. I walked past it and went to the Dinolab, where they were actually working on something. They also had some 3d-printers, for the missing bits.
In the last room the kids (and this adult-ish lady) could dig for a fossil. If you found one you could go to the table and find out what it was and a very kind man told you about it.
And then we walked in to the restaurant where they had some great food! But that wasn't that exciting anymore after all the great things we had seen and learned.

And last there was the museum shop. Usually the worst part for me and my boyfriend's wallet. But I was strong and only bought a cute bookmark with a baby dinosaur on it, as I'm in a babymood lately. He bought an ammonite, and that looks really amazing too!

I hope you enjoyed this blog, after being away for weeks. Long live the stir of internship and just weekends of doing nothing. Have you ever been to something like this? And did you enjoy it? Please let me know on twitter (@xsjarlieex) (and add me!) or on my guestbook!