Michael Tue May 24 17:50:26 2005
Re: Hungarian moment #n
> i thought hamsters were from syria.
Wait, it's *gerbils*. I've never been convinced there's a difference between hamsters and gerbils anyway, but I know it's one of them because my daughter was just learning about the Hungarian grasslands ecology at school and they have pictures of all the grasslands animals. Which include gerbils, or hamsters, or whatever.
Speaking of grasslands creatures, we saw a rabbit out the window the other day (although, given that yesterday was The Day, I suppose *throwing* the rabbit out the window would have been more appropriate.) I say "rabbit" for lack of a better word. I'm used to cute little Indiana bunnies. This creature was huge, more of a deer than a rabbit, a giant among conies, lanky and with a hungry, somewhat manic glint in its rodential eye. Or so I imagine I would have seen it, had it not been fifty yards away across the street.
Seriously, this was one weird-looking rabbit for a Hoosier boy.
A week ago I was out walking and scared up some pheasants. Real pheasants. They looked like a woodcut or something. It still sometimes freaks me out, after fifteen years, that my wife is a real live European and I'm living in Europe again. (She reports the same freaky notion that she seems to have married and had kids with an *American* of all things.)
> there are probably camel spiders in syria.
Nasty humped things. But they can go a long time without water.
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