This is pretty much how summer in Vienna during COVID has looked like. A tourist from the States asked me last week why there’s a baby elephant plastered everywhere in Vienna. I told him to remind people of social distancing – an elephant is 1,5m long (apparently- I’ve never been that close to a baby elephant) and isn’t a baby elephant the standard unit of measure used by every country in the world? He said no. I was flabbergasted. I didn’t realize the baby elephant was only a Viennese thing!
I set out to find out why. My Google quest took approximately five minutes, so it was a short quest, albeit a quest nonetheless!
In the summer of 2019, a baby elephant was born at the world’s oldest zoo, Schönbrunn Zoo, located inside the magnificent Schönbrunn palace grounds.
A worldwide pandemic called COVID-19 (you might have heard of it?) turned the world upside down around March 2020, and suddenly we could only have a conversation with our grandmothers 1,5m apart. Since nobody REALLY knew what 1,5m exactly looks like, the Austrian government sought out to make social distancing fun! And collaborate with the zoo!
Turns out 1,5m is the size of a baby elephant. Now don’t ask me what the requirements are to be considered a BABY elephant. Is it when they’re born? When they’re six months old? Is a one year old elephant considered a toddler already?
This wooden baby elephant is currently located at one of Vienna’s public pools, the Gänsehäufel, which in my humble opinion is the best pool in Vienna. You have the Danube! You have pools! You have Aperol spritzers! You have a children’s area that’s completely fenced in so you can have the kids roam around wild while you enjoy your Aperol Spritz!
Anyway, so you’re not supposed to sit at the tables with the baby elephant, and I’ve been very good about adhering to the rules, but I’ve been plotting how to steal one of these guys since the beginning of summer. I’m not sure where it would fit in my small city apartment, but I’ll make it work. Now secretly dragging one of these guys out of the Gänsehäufel is another story.
Anyway, so that’s the tale of the baby elephant in the times of corona.
Have a great weekend!