Zoopendous!

So... I think this is the title that I promised to use, but I am not exactly sure. It was a pretty low key day today. Eric, Chris B, and Todd were headed off to go get their posters made and then were planning on working on their presentations for the day. So it was up to Allison and I to find something fun to do.

Depending on how you feel about art, it was either good news or bad news that all of the museums were closed on today, as it was a Monday, and apparently no cool things can be open on Monday's. I suppose this is one way to avoid people having a case of the Mondays... so at least that is something.

So, we decided to go to the Zoo! A baby panda had just been born at the zoo, which made me think about it, and Allison seemed excited. Our stop was on the same metro line as the people actually doing work, and so we all headed out together.

Here we are in the Metro station waiting for the train. Eric is trying super hard not to look at the camera since I mentioned that I like action/candid shots better. I am not sure that is working for him.

So the train ride was pretty smooth. We made the transfer and other than the train losing power on the tracks at a stop, everything went fine. Once off we had to walk a little ways to the zoo, but soon we were there. It almost appeared as if no one was there. In fact, we could barely find any place to get in. We finally found a ticket window and bought our.... slightly too expensive tickets and then we were in. Don't get me wrong the zoo was cool and huge, but each ticket was 18 euros... which was, other than hotels and transportation the second most expensive thing we have done all trip! It would be the most expensive, but my tourist trap lunch from the first day was 19 euros. Curse you chubby spiderman!

Anyway, the zoo was entirely empty... I really mean entirely:

So.... can I just take a golf cart?

The only people that I actually saw were a couple making out by the bathrooms... so, we pretty much had the zoo to ourselves. The first stop was to the flamengoes, there was a little thing of bird seed there, and Allison wanted to feed the birds.
So she got some and tossed it out to them. They were very receptive:

This is the flamengo reaction to food, it is also the typical reaction to sun, rain, wind, yells from annoyed zoo goers and air horns.

So, Allison gave up and I finally just started tossing the bird food as far as I could get it to go and it started bouncing off the flamengoes. After getting hit by like 5 or 20 pellets, one of the birds finally looked around and noticed something. ONE! WE concluded that the flamengoes are just not very smart.

We continued walking and soon found the penguins. They were actually rather boring as they just stop around. A couple swam a little bit, but in general they didn't do anything.

We saw a few more exhibits, including the seal and sea lion and some rhinos, and then we stumbled across the elephants. I like elephants, they are sort of my own chosen animal.... lol... I am not sure you can choose an animal, but, I like elephants...
The next stop was the kiddie zoo, where I got to feed the goats. The goats were very very excited about being feed. A little too excited considering that they were already super fat. I tried to make sure that the little goats got food too since they kept getting butted out of the way.

One of the main exhibits at the zoo was that you could buy a ticket to walk with the lemurs. I have to say, that doesn't look particularly fun, they are all asleep.



In fact I think I make a better and more active lemur than those guys.

Directly across from the lemurs was Allisons favorite animal at the zoo the Leopard. It was pretty cool, even if all it did was yawn and stare at the lemurs hungrily.

Here is Allison with the Leopard scratching in the background. Better watch out Gort!

Strongly challenging the leopard was the giraffe's which Allison has always liked and has many socks of.

This giraffe enjoyed rubbing against the railing.

Oh, hello there. I'm a giraffe!
The zoo had a lot of little antelope things as well as a few camels. This was the cutest little antelope since it would run around and nip and things and then dash away really fast.

So we realized that we could catch the Seal/Sea lion show if we hurried so we ran to the monkey exhibit... which was ... huge as well as stinky and kind of gross. It was just covered in garbage and the monkeys were... not very sanitary. It was kind of crazy.

This little monkey had this doll and he really loved it. He would kiss it. And then he would hold it down by his crotch, and then kiss it again... then it fell and he went sliding down the pole to retrieve it


So after that we hustled to the show and arrived just before it stated. It was a pretty good show. The smaller seal was by far the best and the trainer seemed more into too. The show was pretty good, although all of the music was disney music remade in spanish, which was a tad creepy.
After the show we tried to get food... only to discover that all the places at closed at 4:30. (Note... technically, it was 420 when we were trying to get food so I think that they just closed early since there was no one there)

So we kept walking around and we saw some more antelopes and we saw a lot of chimps, then we saw some orangutans. This one had a baby that it was very protective of. The orangutans were cool... and very smart. One came over to the window and stared at us.


We came across the meerkat exhibit and despite these little guys being the fatest meerkats I have ever seen they were still on the look out for predators.. they couldn't decide about me, the lookout stared at me for a long time:
Finally, we showed up for the dolphin show, which was really cool. The dolphins pulled this little girl around in a boat and then did flips and jumped through hoops. It was great, best part of the zoo I think. My camera did not do a good job capturing this at all... but here is a picture: oh... lol... the first picture is just me sitting there... you can tell the place is pretty full, we were lucky to find a seat.



Here is a picture of the dophins doing tricks!
The final exhibit was the bears, which were really funny, they would roam around and pace and then stop and stare at these pigs and just stare at them. All three bears would do this! The pigs got restless and hid. so the bears started pacing again!



At the exit to the zoo there was a giraffe ride that Allison got to go on. She seemed very excited... almost as excited as the horde of kids that followed her up the stairs.
(Note: Not a real giraffe despite how life like it looks.)

And then we were done. We headed home, hungry but satisfied that we had seen the entire zoo. It had been a good day.

We had to get dinner on our own since the other group ate without us, but that allowed Allison to get snacks for her flight, so that was probably good.

It was sad to see Allison go, since she has been a trusty member of the group since the beginning, but I can't claim the conference would have been super exciting for her.

Eric may or may not guest blog the missing piece of today, since I couldn't be in two places at once.

Until tomorrow loyal readers!