Christmas Eve with Trix...

On Christmas Eve, we went to Naturalis, the natural history museum in Leiden, to see the only tyrannosaurus to be permanently on exhibit in Europe.

Trix, named in honor of Queen Beatrix, was unearthed by some Dutch paleontologists in Montana in 2013 after being discovered by an amateur paleontologist and his wife of Dutch descent. They were able to extract 80% of her skeleton, making her one of the three most complete t-rex ever found. Her display differs from the two in the US in that her real skull is used and is thus low to the ground so it can be well supported. Her missing bones were made using 3D printed replications of Sue, a like-sized t-rex in Chicago’s Field Museum.

We had a fascinating long conversation with one of the docents and then enjoyed the other activities in the exhibit. Now that it’s already June, Trix is going on tour around Europe while her permanent new home is built at Naturalis.

Afterwards, we enjoyed some gluhwein at Leiden’s floating Christmas market.

That evening was the first night of Hanukkah and Jimmy made sweet potato latkes, which were yummy (much better than the strange blue wine that we’d received years ago as a gift).