Lesson Learned: Don't Mess with the Orangutans.

I went to the zoo today and almost wet myself. Not because it was wet outside or because I couldn't find a bathroom. No, it was because I thought I'd have a sweet moment when I would put my hand on the glass of the orangutans display and then he would slowly put his hand up like they do in movies. No, it doesn't work that way. I held up my end of the deal and squatted down to his eye-level and slowly put up my hand. You know what that little monster did? He smacked his big ol' orangutan hand right in my face, given that I was on the other side of the glass, but still: not exactly cinematic. There was some heavy swearing involved, along with what people have told me was a very impressive jump.

We had plans to go to the zoo all week and not rain nor wet socks was going to stop us. What almost stopped us was our lack of directions. We didn't realize that the #19 bus first of all was actually a tram, not a bus. Secondly, we didn't realize that the #19 took you all the way to the entrance of the zoo. We got off 3 stops before, which here is a good 2 miles. Oh, did I mention it was raining? On the plus side, I got to use my "Jacket in a Packet" for the first time, which is a rain coat that folded up nicely into the pocket but now just barely fits...

Once we got into the zoo, found the guy we were meeting up with, who, the poor guy, had thought we ditched him and had started heading back after waiting for 1 1/4 hours for us, we had a lot of fun. We accepted the fact that the weather sucked and was grateful there wasn't any crowds.

You already heard about my orangutan fiasco, which apparently was the highlight of the trip for my friends. We also saw the usual zebras, lions, tigers, chimps, apes, wallabies, and seals. I realized that I had not been to a zoo probably since I was 8, so I had a blast making a complete fool out of myself with my friend making animal noises.

Estimated time getting there: 2+ hours
Estimated time getting back: 45 min...