The ZOO!!!!!

photos: komodo dragon; reptile house from harry potter and the philosopher's stone; the python that came out of its cage during harry potter; to prove harry potter was filmed here; a pretty cool sloth bear habitat; penguin feeding; awesome otters;meerkats that sprinted right over to us when we came; african hunting dog that i want to take home with me; giraffe wants out








Boy do i love zoos. Laura and i left for the zoo at about 10:30, and simply walked across the park i live in until we came to the zoo located in said park. I love living in a park next to a zoo. Well, it still took about 15-20 minutes to walk there. Big park.

We hand over our e-tickets and recieve a pin with a baby gorilla on it, thanking us for our optional donation. They are building a large gorilla exhibit that will open in 2007. With any luck i will be back here visiting laura when it opens. We actually wound up seeing everything in the entire zoo....skipping the "Bug House" of course. Really now. Bug House? Why is that interesting? Not interesting.

However, we did enter the mouth of some huge inflatable caterpillar in order to walk around with the butterflies. One landed on me and decided it didn't want to leave. We were friends. I was nervous about hurting it, and i did all the things they tell you to do to get them off, so i had the keeper who worked there take it off for me. It took some effort.

I loved the monkeys. That's all i have to say about that. Nothing could be cooler than being a monkey.

We also saw this animal demonstration where they had hawks and parrots fly right over our heads. Laura seemed slightly less than pleased. I loved it. We saw the penguin feeding, and found out that their rockhopper penguin is actually from a different zoo and was sent here because he was causing fights. What a hooligan. He was also a bit of a bully when it came to the fish, but the keeper was good and made sure every penguin got fed.

Overall the zoo was very well maintained, as it should be since i believe it is the head of the main conservation efforts in Europe. Something impressive like that. They have lovely habitats, and the animals seem to have lots of space to roam around. The zoo has a program entitled "Keeper for a Day" where you can pay 250 pounds and work there for a day. All over the zoo were signs asking "Do you want to be keeper for a day?" I angrily answered YES to all of them in a very bitter fashion . Maybe if they made a slightly less exorbinant amount of money for people who may have decided they want to work in a zoo as a career but need some help figuring this out, i would do it. Can you sense the animosity?

I will not go through all the animals we saw since it is not that interesting and we would be here for days. However, i did remember to go into the reptile house in order to see the enclosure where Harry Potter made the glass disappear. It was pretty awesome actually. The python in it wanted to get out i believe since he was almost entirely vertical on his faux tree trunk. I took some photos for you Potter fans.

All in all it was a super fantastic day and i was very happy. I was more excited about going to the zoo than i was for most things in London. I am strange. I also filled out the little contest entry that i believe was for children in order to win an adoption of an african animal of choice. I want to adopt an African hunting dog, but apparently there is something odd about that since the person i handed it to definitely laughed at me.

Hey. Kids are poor. I am poor. Kids like animals. I like animals. I am a kid.