Wednesday we went to the Zurich Zoo, again with Nick's friend, Till. When I bring him along, every one has a buddy and there seems to be less fighting. (For those of you trying to do the math, I am Noah's buddy, and Alexandra is an island unto herself. She can't even talk, trust me, she isn't offended.) The weather was absolutely beautiful, and we all came home with pink cheeks, there was so much sun. Unfortunately, because the weather was so gorgeous, and it was vacation, the zoo was packed. We drove around for about 10 minutes until I finally decided to just park illegally and risk the ticket. I felt somewhat comforted by the fact that there were several other cars parking along the fence, just like I was. You know, solidarity in numbers. Maybe they wouldn't notice my car parked there, since it was hiding among so many others.
We went to the Masoala Halle first, which is an indoor recreation of a rain forest in Madagascar. The kids started keeping a running count of all the different animals they saw. They ended up with 67. Pretty good, considering some days you can be in there and feel like all the animals are hiding. It may have helped that we went really slowly because they were so many of us, and so many other people, we often stood in one spot for a while, waiting for a break in the crowd to move forward. At one point, we even had to stop for a chameleon crossing. Seriously, this rather large chameleon was walking across the people path, taking his sweet time I might add, because apparently the plants on the other side were so much tastier looking. The kids thought this was way cool, and Noah and Sarah even tried to touch him. Just as they were leaning way down, a zoo worker magically appeared and made the crowd all take a few steps back to give him some room. :) Sarah loved that as soon as he climbed on to the plant, he changed from brown to green. Knowing they can do it, and seeing them do it, are two totally different things.
Alexandra liked the giant turtles the best. We thought one was going to take a swim, he crawled rather quickly, right to the edge of the pond. But then, exhausted from all the effort, he went to sleep. Hmmph! I always enjoy watching the kids watching the animals. It is very fascinating to see the different things they all notice about the exact same scene in front of them.
After the heat of the rain forest, outside actually felt rather cool. But only for about 5 minutes. Then we took our jackets back off again, because it really was a warm day. We hung out at the children's zoo for quite a while. The prairie dogs had just been fed lunch, and they were all in a big pile right in the middle of the enclosure, munching on lettuce and carrots. They are seriously adorable. We all cracked up at how they waddled when they tried to move very fast. They also had these adorable little tails sticking straight out. They looked very, hmm, squeezable, is the best word I can come up with. Like Alexandra, but with fur. 🙂
The kids then played on the outdoor playground for a good 30 minutes, eating popsicles, splashing in the water, climbing ropes and generally getting good and dirty. Which is what children should be doing when they are outside, in my opinion. Once they had all tried everything possible, I gathered them all up and we were off to see the rest of the zoo. Noah for sure wanted to see the elephants and the tigers. We all wanted to see the lions, because of the cubs, and the Snow Leopard is a favorite as well. There was a huge crowd in front of the lion area. I had to hold up each of the kids individually, so they could get a glimpse of the twins over the heads of all the adults snapping pictures. Those babies were awfully cute, though. I told the kids we would definitely come back again soon to see them again. Hopefully on a day when less people were there.
When we got to the turtles, Sarah proudly told us all about how the dots on the babies' shells indicated on which day they had hatched. Apparently, at the birthday party tour she went on the week previously, these turtles were one of the animals the guide showed them. The dad is named Jumba, Sarah informed us, but he wasn't in the enclosure with the babies. Again, Alexandra got super excited and wanted to stare at the turtles forever. Maybe I should get her a stuffed one…
Noah had mentioned wanting to see the crocodiles, but by this time we were all getting a bit tired, and several kids were moaning that their feet hurt, so we called it a day and headed toward the exit. Then I remembered that Sophie needed to get her picture taken for her membership card, since she is 6 now, so we stopped and did that. THEN we walked back to the car, where there was no ticket waiting for us. Whew!
Chris wanted us to pick him up from work, since we would be driving right past there, but it was a bit early for him to leave. We hung out at the lake waiting for him, and a nice lady gave the kids a whole loaf of stale bread to break up and feed to the birds. Alexandra was apparently really hungry because she kept eating the pieces the kids would break off for her to throw to the birds. That triggered their hunger, because soon all 6 of them were munching on the least crunchy pieces of bread, leaving just a few crumbs for the waiting ducks. Good thing we stopped off at a grocery store on the way home and bought those starving children some apples and soft bread. I can't imagine that other stuff tasted very good.
