Joined at the Hippo

Flickr

2009-02-16T02:52:00.001-08:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Berlin and Back

2007-11-21T18:07:00.000-08:00

The Hippopotamus Service was exhibited at the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin, Germany from July 27th to November 4th, 2007 with great success! Photos and More coming soon!

Hippos at the Tribeca Film Festival! May 5, 2007!

2007-05-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

Join us for the Tribeca Family Festival Street Fair! The Hippopotamus Service will be exhibited along withh our friends Owen and Mzee (www.owenandmzee.com)

The Street Fair will be filled with bubbles, sports, kite-flying, food, fun, stilt walkers, face painters, athletes, talented performers and more!

Come on out to Greenwich Street between Hubert and Duane Streets this SATURDAY from 10am-6pm and join the Family Festival as we celebrate films, sports, families, and the local community.

It is going to be a beautiful Spring day, so take a moment away from your work and enjoy the Festival for FREE!

We hope to see you at the 2007 Family Festival Street Fair!

Hippos to Berlin! 27 July to 4 November, 2007

2007-04-02T08:49:00.000-07:00

Sotheby's Olympia, London

2007-03-29T12:01:00.000-07:00

The Hippopotamus Service will be exhited at Sotheby's Olympia in London from June 3rd to 10th. More details soon!

Hippos 2007 Calendar Preview

2006-09-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

To preview the full calendar click here.

CBC Radio One Interview - Wednesday, September 20th, 2006

2006-09-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

Check out CBC Radio One's national afternoon show "Freestyle" (Canada's National Radio Program) on Wednesday, September 20th at 2:35 p.m. to hear my live interview with Kelly and Cameron.

Live streaming on the Internet:
Freestyle is broadcast live on the Internet between 2:06 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Click here or go to the map at http://www.cbc.ca/listen/index.html and select the location SYDNEY to hear the broadcast.

Sotheby's Exhibition September 7-13, 2006

2006-09-15T13:21:00.000-07:00

2005-01-13T22:32:00.000-08:00

And in the end...

2005-01-13T21:53:00.000-08:00

Trying to tell someone that you get paid to travel the world photographing hippos in zoos for a living is like trying to explain why you like to wear your underwear on the outside of your clothing. Its just not a normal thing to say.

When I first accepted this job, my mother thought I was nuts. She told me that I was jeopardizing my future by taking it and who on earth was this man who was going to pay me to do it? My brother agreed and after several long phone conversations I was able to convince him that yes, my boss was a normal person and yes, it really was going to happen. When I called my dad to tell him he just laughed in disbelief. I’ll believe it when I see it he said.

I packed up my belongings and shipped them home to my mother’s garage for storage, it was hard to believe what I was about to undergo. I was living and working in Minneapolis at the time and like any recent college grad I was desperately trying to earn money just so that I could travel some day, any day. I wanted to get away from the snow and the cold, whisk myself and my debts away to some place warmer. Some place where sarongs and sombreros are completely acceptable attire. And then this fell right into my lap. After accepting my job, I laid out my world map on the floor of my apartment and mapped out each destination. When my roommates came home I proudly showed them where I was headed. They could only shake their heads. An all-expenses paid year taking photos of hippos in zoos. Who DOES that?

My hippo trek would last just under one full year and would take me from all corners of the earth—thirty-three countries in all to be exact. As I bounced from one country to the next, spending my life in hotel after hotel, zoo after zoo, I met scores of fascinating people—backpackers and business men, elderly couples and taxi drivers, hotel staff and school children—all of with whom I had the pleasure of sharing just a brief snippet of life. Every four days it was a new country, a new city, a new zoo—a most importantly, new hippos. I would wake up each morning feeling bewildered as I tried to remember just what city I was in and at the same time pinching myself to remind myself that this was real. This was my job.

From zoo to zoo I took on the role of the “crazy American girl” whose bizarre behavior and strange questions prodded even the most enthusiastic of zoo keepers. I finagled, pestered, pleaded and haggled left and right, questioning not only the names of the hippos but furthermore needing someone to point out just which hippo was which—which at some zoos was clearly too much to ask.

At home I quickly lost all identification of who I was before this adventure began and I became known solely as “the hippo girl.” I wasn’t referred to as “Sarah” or any other nicknames that I have previously held but rather was referred to as anything relating to hippos (and in some cases rhinoceroses for all those who for some reason kept getting the two confused). To every hippo lover out there (yes, there are plenty) I became the hippo spokeswoman extraordinaire. I even became the hot topic of my friend Barb’s grandmother’s weekly bingo club. Now that was something.

This blog was originally written for my friends and family, as well as those that make up the hippo collector’s world, to keep track of me while I was away. My hope is that after reading about my crazy year, you can all gain a small appreciation for not just hippos and zoo animals, but for those moments in life that are just crazy.

When I first started, I have to admit that I had no particular interest to these lumbering, pigment-sweating beasts. However, it only took but a short time for me to warm up to their hippo ways. I mean, who could resist these magnificent creatures that rank as the “most dangerous animals in Africa” while remaining faithful to their vegetarian diet? Who could resist the only animals that have perfected the art of being both extraordinarily graceful in the water yet supremely unwieldy on land? I certainly could not resist these four legged fiends who grunted and lunged at me, stared aimlessly, and took it upon themselves to shat in my general direction—on more than one occasion. I could not resist these beasts who pressed their noses to the glass as I pressed mine, whose uniqueness shone as they patiently posed and stood beautifully for each and every picture.

I will say, however, that I am not, I repeat NOT fanatically obsessed with hippos now that my trip is over. I am not en route to becoming a full on hippo collector—never will you see MY house decked in hippos from floor to ceiling or me driving a hippo themed car or me toting around my hippo stuffed animals wherever I go. There are plenty of people out there who fulfill that role quite happily.

You will see me, however, at the zoos visiting with the animals that changed have my life entirely. Yes, when you visit your zoo—if they have hippos, of course—you might find me wearing my “I HEART HIPPOS” pin on my bag, proudly taking photos and checking up on my new found friends. But don’t worry, I won’t be asking silly questions like their names anymore.

I already know them.

2005-01-12T22:23:00.000-08:00

Photo--Me...signing off.

Fresno, California—Phoenix, Arizona—Los Angeles, California—San Diego, California—Days 345/346/347

2005-01-12T21:52:00.000-08:00

I flew from Fresno to San Diego via Phoenix which was funny because Phoenix is not really on the way. I was glad to be leaving Fresno in search of something a little warmer and more beachy.

After a short layover in Phoenix where I had to de-plane the same plane that took me from Fresno and would take me to San Diego. I arrived into San Diego, rented my car and went straight to the zoo.

I got to the zoo by three o’clock after all of this and the weather was still foggy and misty. I had been to the San Diego zoo before and remembered it being quite a ways from the city. However it is not so my senses must have been way off last time. Anyways, I made it to the zoo and bought my ticket and was warned by the ticket man that the zoo would be closing its gates at 4pm and the grounds at 5pm.

So I rushed off to find the hippos and after quite a bit of searching and dodging construction, I found the 150,000 gallon hippo pool.

There was one hippo in the pool—I would later find out that there were three hippos at the zoo (not five like I had originally found out!—and to my utter joy there was a sign telling us the name and age of the hippo in the water!! Today it was Jabba, the male born in 1983.

What wasn’t so convenient was taking pictures of the hippo as he swam around. I had to go back and forth from one crammed viewing area to the next. When I mean crammed, I mean that there was only one good spot to stand at each of them to get a semi-good photo of him. Plus he was swimming back and forth like there was no tomorrow so I had to rush from one end of the pool all the way around a bend and to an upper level to get a second view. It was madness!

Plus I had to dodge around all of the people that were also looking at the hippo and thinking that they too needed to get a good picture of him. It was the first time too that I had seen foreigners at a zoo—Australians, Japanese, New Zealanders—everyone seemed to NOT be from the USA which was a first at a US zoo.

I spent the rest of the afternoon (the two hours that I had) doing my best to shove people out of the way and to stop Jabba from swimming around (this included waving and calling his name much to the amusement of people around me).

Soon it became dark and I decided to head out of the zoo. I hopped in the car and drove three hours north to Los Angeles. It shouldn’t take this long, however I was stuck in traffic at rush hour AND in the California storm of the century. But I finally made it with enough time to meet up with my brother who lives there and two of my friends Anna and Brian from Macalester who also live there. It was great.

The next morning after having breakfast with Anna and dropping Simon and Brian off at their different work places, I headed back to San Diego. The sun was out and the rain had cleared. It was a truly perfect day to be at the zoo. I made it back to the zoo early in the afternoon only to find Funani (the female hippo) and her baby Jazi swimming in the water.

It was so cute! But unfortunately everyone around me also thought it was pretty darn cute. This meant that they would all move en masse when the hippos did and I had to fight through them to get a good picture. I eventually booted people out of my way when the pair settled down for a bit. The crowds came and left and at the one point when I was finally, FINALLY alone, Jazi and Funani settled into the cutest, most perfect pose ever.

Jazi was mashed up against the underwater window with her nose pressed sideways against the glass (a profile shot if you will) with Funani lying next to her. Both had their heads propped on a rock. I was a great picture and I snapped furiously and feeling pretty darn good that the crowd had disappeared just in the moment of true hippo glory.

People eventually came back and caught on and again I was left with the crowd blocking my perfectly good view.

Never mind, I had some great shots of the pair. I left the zoo and spent the rest of the afternoon driving around San Diego, finding at hotel in the Old Town area. I stopped there and wandered around after checking in, eating at a great Latin American restaurant for dinner.

Because the hotel was full tonight, this morning I had to check out and go in search of another hotel online. I packed up my bags and after breakfast, got my stuff back into my rental car (a white Chevy Impala which is like, huge and boat-like) and I headed back to the zoo.

My last day at the zoo.

Oh, it was so sad. I went back to the hippo enclosure on this bright, sunny day and found Jabba again but this time he was on land. So I spent the morning photographing his various moves and stances until he eventually slumped down for a nice looooooong nap.

Because I didn’t want to leave, I got out my book and read for a bit next to the enclosure. Then I decided that I was being ridiculous and pathetic and gathered up my things. I found a zoo store near the hippo enclosure which sold all things hippo (amazing discovery!) and so after buying up practically the entire store, I went back one last time to say goodbye to Jabba.

To say goodbye to the hippos.

I eventually did leave the zoo—grudgingly of course. I even got my hand-stamped just so that I had the option of returning even though I knew I wouldn’t. Pathetic? You bet. I left through the big gates feeling a sense that almost felt like a loss, and I guess it was. I mean, you spend your whole life doing one thing and then one day its over. The end of an era. Its hard not to feel sad about it.

But I have so much to be happy and grateful for of course and I am leaving this experience with a whole new outlook on life.

That, and just about a bazillion photos of hippos.

2005-01-12T20:00:00.000-08:00

Photo--Me with Jazi (in foreground) and Funani (in background), San Diego Zoo

2005-01-11T18:00:00.000-08:00

Article--The Odd Couple...

2005-01-11T17:55:00.000-08:00

Article--The little red hippo...

2005-01-11T17:35:00.000-08:00

Web link--More about the San Diego Zoo hippos

2005-01-11T17:34:00.001-08:00

Web link--San Diego Zoo hippos!

2005-01-11T17:34:00.000-08:00

Web link--San Diego Zoo!

Salt Lake City, Utah—Fresno, California—Days 342/343/344

2005-01-09T22:08:00.000-08:00

Well, when my friends heard that I was going to Fresno, those who were California natives said “ewwww---have fun.”

I didn’t know quite what they meant until I landed and found that there is a whole lot of nothing in the Fresno area. I got my rental car and immediately drove to the zoo. I had a map and found it with no problem and pulled into the Chaffee Zoological Gardens parking lot just before a big gust of wind blew a tree over near by.

This was not good.

The weather has been awful while I have been here and Fresno has had its fair share of wind and rain. I headed into the zoo and found it to be seemingly closed (it was just turning 10am when I arrived which is the time it opens in the winter) and there was a sing on the door saying that entrance to the zoo today was “free due to inclement weather.”

So, I wandered in.

Problem was that there were no maps in the zoo and no one around to help me. This left me to a lot of wandering and guessing as to where I thought the hippo would be. Yes, just a lone hippo. According to my notes, I should find only one.

And after a while, I did. I had to ask a keeper who l eventually found cleaning up some debris. He redirected me past the tigers and it was at the end of a short walk that I found the hippo in the water. He had a small enclosure and a big blue ball in the pool with him. He was lying in the water with his head sticking out in a

Very…

Lazy…

Manner.

I took some photos and was happy to see the “hippo feeding 1:30pm” sign by his enclosure. Alright! I decided to just come back at 1:30 to talk to the keeper one on one.

So after taking pictures of the enclosure and the outside of the zoo, I left and headed to downtown Fresno where I found, well, not much.

Fresno’s downtown area is truly out of 1965. I walked around a bit trying to find a place to eat breakfast but only found a homeless guy preaching about how “religion started in Fresno!!!” and that “Jesus is walking the streets right now!!!” I turned, looked, and couldn’t find him.

I finally found a café that served breakfast stuff and sat around it for a few hours trying to kill time before going back to the zoo. When 1 o’clock finally rolled around I went back to the zoo and waited in my car until 1:25 to avoid the downpour of rain.

I got to the zoo entrance and found it locked shut. Oh no! I guess due to the weather they decided to hut the entire place down.

Luckily I have two more days to spare to come back to the zoo.

So I headed off in the northern direction, namely to Yosemite. Its about two hours from Fresno so I drove off thinking excitedly about the beautiful views I might see ahead. My adventure began as I passed several signs warning me that I needed snow chains, which I ignored of course (hey, I’ve driven in Minnesota! Who needs chains?!?!) but ended when I finally got up to the top of the mountain where you had to pay to get into the park—and where snow chains were obviously needed. Opting not to get tuck on a mountain overnight, I headed back down and called my friend Dave who lives in San Francisco. We decided to meet up in Santa Cruz the next morning (along with his girlfriend Julie who is also from Macalester) so I drove around the countryside until finding a hotel to stay in overnight (after of course taking several wrong turns and getting on highway 5 where every exit is like 17 miles from each other! I went almost 40 miles in the wrong direction…)

The next morning we had a little reunion at breakfast in downtown Santa Cruz and despite the rain and wind, Dave and Julie took me on a tour of the surfing museum in Santa Crux and of the university there. We then parted ways and I spent the rest of the afternoon driving around Monterrey and to Salinas. Then I headed back to Fresno, staying the night in a slightly sketchy hotel off of the freeway before driving the rest of the way back to Fresno this morning.

I then made it back to the zoo at 10am and found no hippo in his enclosure but instead the keeper who was cleaning it. However the keeper told me that the hippo, named Buldgy, would make an appearance at 1:30pm for the feeding time.

So I left the zoo (again) and made a plan to come back again at 1:30 (again) and hopefully this time the zoo won’t be closed. I bided my time at a local mall (blah) and got back to the zoo just in time for the feeding.

Luckily it was open and the sun was trying to peek through the clouds which was nice (its been raining ALL weekend!). I was of course the only person however at the hippo enclosure and the keeper almost forgot about the feeding time. But luckily she didn’t and eventually emerged carrying a big bag of hippo treats—carrots, gourds, even bell peppers! She told me ALL about hippos (I nodded with enthusiasm as if I didn’t know anything about hippos of course) and I found out that Buldgy was 53! I snapped away as Buldgy got out of the water and came over to be hand fed by the keeper.

I, of course, was loving it and got some great pictures. I thanked the keeper when it was all over (she left Buldgy and I for some goats—GOATS!) and I left Buldgy and headed back out to take on the ever exciting city of Fresno. Whoooopeee.

Well, the time has come. Ok, its not quite here but sadly, tomorrow I head to San Diego.

My last, and final, zoo on my hippo adventure.

Right now I don’t want to talk about, don’t want to THINK about it all being over, so I won’t go into it now. But I definitely know that tomorrow when I am at the San Diego zoo, tears could definitely be shed.

Until then.

2005-01-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

Web link--Chaffee Zoological Gardens, Fresno California

Tucson, Arizona—Salt Lake City, Utah—Days 339/340/341

2005-01-06T13:54:00.000-08:00

As I flew from Tucson to Salt Lake, I had to get myself back into the hippo mode. I had gone over a week without anything hippo related (or travel related for that matter). But, getting back into the swing of things was not hard.

A tad turbulent, my flight up to Salt Lake was nice and I tried to get a look out of the window without staring too directly at the woman sitting next to me. The mountains were beautiful and we landed in Salt Lake on time, with the warning that it was 4 degrees outside.

Perfect.

I didn’t find it as absurdly cold as I would have though when I stepped out of the plane. I walked for what seemed like miles to the baggage claim where I found my bag and proceeded to the rental car center. Soon I was on my way to downtown Salt Lake.

I found my hotel just fine (the roads here are huge! Plus they are totally unoriginal in their naming system—every street is either 600 South or 400 east or 1300 North). I dropped my stuff off at the hotel, found the zoo on my map and headed out.

The zoo is set sort of near some hills (or what could be mountains really!) and I pulled in thinking that I must be the only person at the zoo. I bought my ticket and headed in despite the wind that had picked up. Brr! I found the hippo house (as it was called) and one lone hippo inside, which was what I had expected. Poor guy! He was sitting out of his water lying on the concrete trying to suck up something room the ground. I couldn’t see a water hose or anything like that—it seemed like hw as just sucking the ground.

I snapped away and waited for him to do something a little bit more exciting. I got distracted by the mating penguins next door (seriously—they were separated from the others so that they could “copulate”) and went back and forth between watching the bored hippo and the silly penguins (who weren’t copulating when I saw them I promise!). When the hippo finally settled down into that familiar “I’m not getting up ever” stance, I headed back out to figure out what the hippo’s name was. I stopped by the gift shop to pick up a few things and was impressed by their wide selection. I then asked the teenage guy working at the ticket counter what the name of the hippos was.

He told me Moe and spelled it out for me. I wanted to trust him, but since he wasn’t a full on keeper, I would make sure to ask again tomorrow, asking someone else at the zoo, just to make sure.

I went out of the zoo and spent the rest of the afternoon aimlessly driving around Salt Lake City. With no interest in visiting Mormon temples or figuring out just how Salt Lake was founded, I bypassed the museums and historical sites in favor of an early dinner and a movie. Its funny, whenever I think of Salt Lake (this being my first time that I have been here) all I think about are the Mormons. Its probably bad, I know, I am sure there are plenty of non-Mormons here, but I just begin to think about all the things that must be regulated—alcohol and caffeine for instance—and wonder how many root beer drinkers there are in this state.

Plus I was slightly disappointed that there was only one hippo—only one male hippo. Shouldn’t he have like, twelve wives? Heehee. Okokok, that isn’t fair. But still.

The next morning I got up, had breakfast and fiddled around on my computer. Its amazing all the things that you can fiddle around with while you are meaning to do something productive. I eventually made my way back to the zoo. By this time it had really began to snow (it had been snowing all morning) and I drove to the zoo with my hat and gloves on, and with the defroster at full blast.

I pulled into the zoo and realized that today I really WAS the only person at the zoo. Hardly any cars were in the parking lot and I was greeted by a snow blower who was paving the way on the walking path. I went up to the window and bought my ticket, then asked the man at the desk (different person from yesterday) what the hippo’s name was.

He told me Moe (aha!) but then said that actually, the hippo wasn’t here any more.

What? Did he like DIE last night?

The ticket guy told me that in fact, Moe had left last week to “go be with the ladies.”

I told him that I had seen Moe yesterday (only slightly embarrassed that I was admitting to the fact that I came yesterday too) and another guy appeared in the ticket room with the guy. They had a conversation and it was decided that Moe in fact hadn’t left yet, but would leave sometime soon. They didn’t know what was delaying him “moving in with the ladies.”

Aha! I knew there would be ladies involved!

So, apparently, Moe is due to move anytime soon to somewhere (they didn’t know where). I went back to Moe and found him just in the water but getting ready to get out. To my luck, I happened upon feeding time where a keeper came out, threw some gourds into the water, then heaved out some hay and lettuces to him. Moe got out of the water and I snapped away taking pictures as he chomped on the hay and threw back chunks of lettuce.

I said goodbye to Moe and headed back outside into the blizzard that was coming down. Okok, it wasn’t’ a blizzard, but it was definitely snowing. I have been away from snow for a year (although I did spend almost five winters in Minnesota) so it was nice to have it for, oh, five minutes until I got back into my car and had to drive in it.

I drove around a bit, stopped for lunch at Crown Burgers (boasting the “best burgers in Utah”) and settled in at a bookstore to read and drink tea for the afternoon while the snowstorm blew outside.

Today was much of the same—snowstorms and hot tea. If only I had my skiing stuff will me! I did go on a driving spree to find some cd cases to mail my hippo cds back to my boss in New York which took me to other parts of Salt Lake. But now I am back at my hotel feeling warm and looking forward to going to Fresno tomorrow (actually I am excited about San Diego, but Fresno is the stop in between).

2005-01-05T17:13:00.001-08:00

Photo--me at the Hogle Zoo--brrr!

2005-01-05T17:13:00.000-08:00

Photo--Zoo sign at Utah's Hogle Zoo

2005-01-05T07:51:00.000-08:00

Web link--Utah's Hogle Zoo Hippo

Tucson, Arizona—Days 328-338

2005-01-03T13:21:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone.

I had a great time being back in Arizona. Christmas was celebrated with my brother, my dad and myself jumping out of airplanes, failed skiing attempts, reuniting with my friends and lots of unpacking and repacking on my part. It was great to be back at home—somewhere that I have only been for something like three days this past year.

Tomorrow I am off to Salt Lake City, then onwards to Fresno and last, but not least, the infamous zoo in San Diego. That will finish up my hippo adventures and I cannot say in the least that I am excited to be done.

2004-12-27T23:29:00.000-08:00

Photo--My Skydive!

2004-12-27T10:26:00.000-08:00

Photo--On my way down

2004-12-27T10:24:00.000-08:00

Photo--My Dad!

2004-12-27T10:23:00.000-08:00

Photo--My brother after his skydive

Winston, Oregon—Eugene, Oregon—San Francisco, California—Days 324/325/326/327/328

2004-12-24T09:21:00.000-08:00

I drove up to Eugene from Winston and spent a day wandering around the University of Oregon campus trying to look as much like a student as I could. Its pretty easy considering that I practically look like I am a freshman despite the fact that I am 24 (ok, maybe a sophomore) so when I asked at the local bookshop where a post office was and then was told “oh, in the student union” and then of course I had to ask, “um, where is the student union?” I was prepared for the looks of confusion on their faces. Wasn’t I a student? I just smiled politely and told them that I “wasn’t from here.”

I probably downgraded myself to freshman status by admitting this as I turned into “that poor freshman who doesn’t know their way around campus.”

Anyways, it was weird to be back on a college campus—UofO is pretty nice. I could see myself there. Doing something but I still don’t’ know what. However I did like Portland better.

Anyways, so I spent the rest of the day bumming around Eugene, driving in search of that cute shopping street that really should exist in all towns. You know the one, the little boutiques and corner bakeries. I didn’t find it (but I’ll give Eugene credit for probably having one) and instead spent the rest of the afternoon at the mall (blah blah blah) and seeing a movie to kill time.

I then found a hotel close to the freeway and spent the evening wrapping presents that I have accumulated on my way for my family. Its ridiculous the amount of stuff you can find yourself carrying around with you when you have room in your suitcase. I was picking up things left and right and was warned by the guy at the Eugene airport the next morning that I was “one pound under the maximum limit” and that I “better not put anything else in it.” I kept my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t find any cute things to buy in San Francisco but somehow I knew this wouldn’t happen.

I flew to San Francisco sitting next to a U of O junior women’s and gender studies major. The only thing major about him (yes, there can be WGS majors who are men!) was his braces. We didn’t talk the whole way until we started to land. He started up the standard airplane chit chat (where are you going, what do you do) so I launched into the hippo story but tried to play it off causally when he asked “well, where have you been?”

This question always gets me. Here is this nice guy who is just wanting to know where I went on my travels (he was interested in going to Amsterdam on a study abroad program) and so I tried to just shrug it off. But then they always probe farther. Do I start listing off the countries in order? I’ve done this approach several times and just feel plain snobby for some reason. I try to play it off like it is no big deal (“oh yeah, you know, just hopped over to South Africa for a few days”) but it never comes across right. So I watched as his eyebrows lifted as I began rattling off the countries I had been to.

His response? “Woah.”

He asked me where I was going to next and when I told him “Salt Lake City” it turned out that he was from there. Thus began the awkward, “well, when are you going to be there cause I don’t go back to U of O for a while….” Good god! No no no. I smiled politely and told him (well, lied really) that I had really not a clear idea of when I was actually going to be there.

We landed in San Francisco and I forgot my sweater on the plane which gave an abrupt ending to my conversation with braces boy. I waited for all of the passengers to deplane before I could get back on and get my sweater. I then boarded the shuttle to the main terminal and headed towards baggage claim where Elizabeth—my German hippo adventurer extraordinaire—was waiting.

Elizabeth!! Yay! I had been waiting months to see her again and reunite. It was as if nothing had changed (I was still wearing the same clothes really as when she saw me last) and we did the usual “oooh, cute haircut! Are those NEW jeans?” as we waited for my luggage. We then went and got my rental car (always an adventure really) and then headed off towards the San Francisco Zoo.

Elizabeth has a younger sister Rachel who is four and just so happens to be in the Zoo camp program this week with her little 4 year old friend Sienna. Elizabeth had made arrangements for us to pick them up which was perfect because this meant that we could pick them up at my favorite place (the zoo of course!) and then we could go see the hippos with the girls.

This meant that I had to follow Elizabeth as she zipped around in her little black Volkswagen bug in front of me (she brought her car to the airport) and follow her to the zoo. After we found the zoo and then searched for two parking spots we were able to head into the zoo to pick up the girls exactly on time.

The girls were excited to see us (well, Elizabeth really) and we took the girls back into the zoo to find the hippos. We had lunch first consisting of cheeseburgers and chicken fingers and after having lunch (which is always an adventure with four year olds) we ventured to the hippos. Maps in hand, Sienna and Rachel led us to the hippos.

When we found them one hippo was out of the water. I snapped away (I think Elizabeth was equally excited to see the hippo out of the water!) while Rachel and Sienna played on a hippo statue nearby with other little kids. Luckily they were happily distracted with playing and weren’t paying attention to how long we were at the zoo. I took pictures for a while and was keeping my fingers crossed that something would happen.

To my surprise, the keeper came out.

Not only did she come out but she came bringing a bucket with hippo goodies! Feeding time!

I was thrilled—so was Elizabeth. The keeper was behind the gates with a group of people who seemed to be on a tour of some sort. She got her bucket ready to throw the hippos some food as I waved my arms and shouted at her. Excuse me! EXCUSE ME!

One of the people on the tour tapped her and pointed to us on the other side. I asked her which hippo was which (Puddles or Cuddles) and she told me that Cuddles was the female (out of the water) and Puddles was the male (in the water). Having my sidekick back, Elizabeth also took mental note of this as I kept snapping away.

The hippos weren’t all too interested in being fed though. The keeper eventually had to come around to the side that we were standing on to get their attention. When she did, only Cuddles was interested in feeding. Puddles eventually (and when I say “eventually” I mean like ten minutes into the feeding time) came around and opened up his mouth. The lighting was horrible—the sun was reflecting right behind the hippos so you were basically staring into the sun the whole time—but I managed to get a few good shots before all of the food ran out.

Luckily Rachel and Sienna found all of this just as exciting as Elizabeth and I did.

The crowd eventually dispersed and Cuddles and Puddles eventually settled back down into their pool into that “I’m not getting up EVER” mode that hippos go into after eating. We eventually said goodbye to the hippos (Eliz took the girls on a little walk while I waited just to see if they would move again) and we made our way out of the zoo after riding the steam train around. Who could resist?

We visited the beach right next to the zoo and then dropped Sienna off at her parent’s in downtown San Francisco. We took Rachel back to her house (Elizabeth’s dad’s and step mom’s) and eventually got ready for dinner. The five of us went out for dinner at a gorgeous little Italian restaurant and then they dropped us off at a the M.Ward show in some little bar somewhere in San Francisco.

Oooh, I love San Francisco already.

The next morning we hit Haight & Ashbury and then picked the girls back up at the zoo for a second time. We went back and visited the hippos to see what they were up to but today was less adventurous than yesterday. They weren’t moving around and there was no sign of the keeper. But I was able to get some more pictures of the two to satisfy my needs before we headed back to Eliz’ house to drop the girls off. Elizabeth and I then battled overweight tourists on trolley to fisherman’s wharf! It was SO touristy but really fun. We walked around the wharf and Ghirardelli’s square before taxi-ing it back to our car. We then drove up to Petaluma which is an hour north of San Francisco where Elizabeth grew up. Her mom and sister live up there so we had dinner with them and then woke up surrounded by hills and beautiful country side.

Love it love it love it.

We spent the day driving around Petaluma and visiting Elizabeth’s grandmother who lives in this amazing old farmhouse surrounded by green fields. It was just wonderful. We then drove up the coast to the beach, walked around a bit and then headed back to her grandmother’s. I dropped Elizabeth off (sniff, sniff) and then headed down to Berkeley to visit two more friends from Macalester, one of which is studying in Berkeley and the other who lives and works in Pacifica. We had dinner at Anne’s place (in Berkeley) then headed up to Dave’s house (in Pacifica) where I spent the night before heading to the San Francisco airport to head home for the holidays.

2004-12-22T09:31:00.000-08:00

Photo--Rachel, Sienna and Elizabeth

2004-12-22T09:30:00.000-08:00

Photo--Sienna, Rachel and me at the hippo enclosure, San Francisco Zoo

2004-12-22T09:29:00.000-08:00

Photo--Our map readers at the San Francisco Zoo! Sienna (on left) and Rachel (on right!)

2004-12-21T07:53:00.000-08:00

Web link--San Francisco Zoo Hippos

Winston, Oregon—Day 323

2004-12-19T22:31:00.000-08:00

Talk about fog. I woke up this morning and could hardly see out my window of the hotel. Checking the weather online showed 100% humidity and a 0.8 visibility level. And of course today I had to drive through a safari-style zoo in search of hippos.

Yeah right.

But I was up early anyways and went tot eh zoo right when it opened at 10am. It was almost a joke—you could hardly see anything in front of you while you drove. My luck I was going to run over a zebra or something.

But I got my ticket and had a nice little chat with the girl working at the ticket booth. She promised to find out the hippos’ names for me and if I came back later to check she could tell me. She went over all of the rules and regulations for the zoo (did she say “don’t stop your car”—I wasn’t sure) and I headed in.

The road was completely fogged over and as I drove, animals would emerge from the mist. It was truly a surreal feeling—almost stuff I dream about—with animals just sort of appearing. It wasn’t as if you wouldn’t see them and then run them over, it would just be that they would gracefully emerge from the shadows. Giraffes walked along the road next to my car and ostriches stood in the way.

Where were the hippos?

I finally came around a bend and down a hill and spotted the hippo enclosure. Thankfully there was a huge sign on it saying “Hippo Pond—Home to Morrey and Blippo.” Now THAT is what I am talking about—their names posted right there where I needed them.

Now I know you were wondering when I was going to find a hippo named Blippo but now my search is over. 

So I pulled up, stopped my car and did a sort of desperate “yoo-hoo! Excuse me!” to the keeper who was spraying down the area with a hose. “Excuse me!” I shouted, waving my hands out of the passenger side window as far as I could reach.

Now its one thing to be in Europe or Asia doing this—you know, the arm flail, the desperate shout, looking like a complete moron. I could handle it. But something about being back in the States—back where they actually speak your language—you can’t pretend that you are just some crazy American. No, here you really ARE a crazy American.

So I shouted and waved until she finally heard me and stopped spraying. I asked about the hippos and she told me that they were out in the paddock—that I could see them for sure. I asked her who was who and she told me that Morrey was Blippo’s father (both are males) with huge pink spots on him.

With that I figured it wouldn’t be hard to tell them apart. So I thanked her with another less frantic wave and drove down around the enclosure to see where they were.

Oh they were there alright—almost completely submerged in the water! With their bodies just so that they looked like two huge rocks—at this rate they weren’t going to be moving anytime soon. I stopped the car and waited for a bit and tried to communicate my frustration to the keeper via telepathy. Couldn’t she obviously see that I was only here to see the hippos and that now was the time for her to round them up for me?

Nope.

So I turned the car around (probably an illegal zoo maneuver—I think you are supposed to just go one way) and I drove back to where the keeper was. I parked the car again and did the wave thing, although a bit more patiently this time. She could obviously see that I was there yet continued to hose down the enclosure. Hellooooooo?

Finally she stopped and came sort of over to me. I apologized in that embarrassed “yes, I’m really asking you these things” type of way and she just laughed. She turned out to be really nice and told me that the hippos come out of the water when the sun breaks (I looked at the sky—would it really be breaking today?) and usually around 3 o’clock or so to eat. I could come back then.

I thanked her and decided to do just that.

When I came back at 2:45 the fog had burned off a bit but it was still hazy and gloomy. I drove around the enclosure to see where the hippos were. I parked where I did the first time (when the hippos were submerged) but couldn’t see them. They weren’t outside, they weren’t on the grass, and hopefully they weren’t in the water where I couldn’t see them. Just then I caught a glimpse of a leg moving INSIDE their little barn! Ah-ha!

So they were inside. As I waited for them to come out I called Pedro, keeping my eye on the barn. When the hippos finally started to emerge I almost dropped the phone. I told Pedro that I had to call him back and started clicking away on my camera.

The first hippo that came out was Blippo. I could tell this only when Morrey emerged because he really did have huge pink stripes on him. Like hippo birthmarks. It was amazing and never have I seen anything like this---in all of the hippos, Morrey is truly unique.

I turned my car around again and went back up to where I had spoken with the keeper before. Click click click. The pair were huffing and grunting to each other and I realized that this was the first male-male pair that I had seen at a zoo. Usually there is like 1 male and 3 females. (I’m waiting to see what it is like at the Salt Lake City Zoo—heehee) so I was surprised. I wanted them to start roughing each other up or something to get some action shots, but they calmed down after a bit.

Perhaps it was me, sticking my entire body outside of the passenger seat and calling to them that pissed them off.

Whatever it was, I got some great pictures. Blippo was definitely showing me who was boss by threatening with his jaws and when I didn’t go away from that gesture he promptly turned around and flicked sh*t in my general direction.

I could feel the love, really.

I snapped away until the two both turned around. Happy with my photos, I headed out of the foggy zoo and back to the hotel. By the time I headed out to the zoo it was getting late. Dinner tonight was had at Denny’s after I tried to find a different place to eat. I tired to eat at “Taco Time” but apparently 9pm is not the time to try and eat there. So Denny’s was my option.

Tomorrow I drive back to Eugene. Then San Francisco! I cannot wait. Puddles and Cuddles are the hippos at that zoo (I did my homework in advance) and I will go with my good friend Elizabeth (you will remember her from my Germany escapades).

Until then.

2004-12-19T22:12:00.000-08:00

Photo--Wildlife Safari entrance, Winston, Oregon. Check out the fog!

2004-12-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

Weblink--Winston Safari Park website

Winston, Oregon—Day 323

2004-12-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

Portland, Oregon—Eugene, Oregon—Winston, Oregon—Day 323

2004-12-18T13:52:00.000-08:00

Getting from Portland to Eugene really should have been just a quick flight—nothing over 45 minutes. My flight was scheduled for 9am and I arrived at the airport with an hour and half to spare. When I got my ticket I noticed that it showed me on a flight leaving at 11am, not 9am. I realized that my initial flight must have been previously cancelled or something and so I wasn’t really bothered by the fact that I would now have over three hours to wait at the airport until my flight boarded.

I killed time reading and wandered around the Portland airport. People watching is my new favorite sport so I did just that. I also spent a while probably talking too loudly on my new cell phone (which I got yesterday) and trying to figure out how to program it.

When it was time for me to board I wandered over to my gate which was actually below the rest of the gates. You had to go downstairs into a little waiting area. That’s when I saw the sign.

“Flight 6302 to Eugene CANCELLED”

Cancelled? Oh man.

So I got in line and when it was my turn to talk with the airline people they told me that yes, my flight had been cancelled because there was too much fog on the ground in Eugene. Their little planes simply weren’t allowed to land with so much fog. Great.

So what was my other options? I could wait for the next flight that would leave at 4pm (which still had the chance of not actually leaving) but could also opt to take a bus from Portland to Eugene. I would take a few hours but I would be guaranteed to arrive.

Of course I opted for the bus and was given directions as to where to meet it: Baggage Claim 10. Not any specific place around #10, just the baggage claim itself. Great.

So I went out past the security and to the baggage claim where there were just hoards of people. How was I supposed to meet anyone here? On top of that I had to find my luggage in the midst of everything and it was supposed to show up on the belt.

I waited and after quite some time it finally did. Thank god. I also found several other people in with the same situation because we were all in the luggage claim department asking about how where we REALLY were supposed to meet. We stuck together and found others by spotting anyone carrying the little yellow ticket that they gave us.

Finally the baggage area cleared out—all except a woman and an emergency crew who was helping her. She appeared to have fainted and dint’ look to be in such good shape. Our airline employee who was in charge of us finally showed up and we started walking towards the bus outside.

Our group comprised of a woman clearly distressed by the whole idea of taking a bus, a girl who was just done with her first semester of medical school, a young marine who had just finished boot camp and an ex-marine who had, as of yesterday, just retired from the navy. And then there was me—the hippo photographer.

We boarded the bus and after much complication (there were one too many people on the bus than they had names for—such drama!) and an hour later we were off. The woman behind me chose to talk on her cell phone LOUDLY SO THAT EVERYONE COULD HEAR HER and once the driver attempted to put on some loud holiday music which was greeted with “TURN IT OFF!” from the passengers. We were not happy to be having to take a bus (I actually didn’t mind but it was annoying) and wanted to get to Eugene as quickly as possible.

I fell asleep, woke up right before we hit our pit stop and chose to walk around for the ten minutes we were there. I went to the restroom and it was quite funny—a mother and her four children were all in one stall. It was like one of those scenes were someone opens up a small car and out comes twelve people---she opened the door and they came out one after another (just after you thought there couldn’t be any more in there!).

Back on the bus I tried to read a bit but found my attention wavering. So I watched Oregon go by out the window until we finally made it to the Eugene Airport. I got off, got my bags and went to rent my car. Its funny when people get in situations like this---a missed flight, a broken elevator, things like that—because you develop this sort of comradery with them. You have to say goodbye and wish them a happy holidays—hope that Aunt Susie’s fruitcake really does turn out ok. You know, things like that.

I was excited to be off the bus and on my own terms again but not looking forward to driving down to Winston. Its about an hour south of Eugene or so. Luckily my car had cruise control which made up only slightly for the lack of good music on the radio.

The further I drove the denser the fog became. When I arrived at my hotel you could hardly see anything around you. It was quite cool yet exceptionally eerie at the same time. I pulled into a hotel off of the freeway that was just five miles from the zoo and checked in. I then left to go find some dinner at an Italian restaurant. I got take away but it took so long that the waiter even brought me free cheesecake before my food arrived for me to “snack on it.”

My food finally arrived and I drove back to the hotel to eat in my room and called it a night.

Portland, Oregon--Day 321

2004-12-17T17:58:00.000-08:00

Here's the email I received back from one of the keepers at the Oregon Zoo which I thought was quite funny since I saw Don Ho perform in Honolulu while I was there:

"Mukenko" is the larger one, also known as "Poppy". Personally, I've always thought that was a dumb name for a hippo, so I took to calling her "Tiny" instead. There were two reasons for this: the incongruity of naming the larger one "Tiny", and the fact that it lends a certain "Don Ho" flavor to the area. "Tiny Bubbles...in the zoo..."

So, "Mukenko" is also known as "Poppy" who is also known as "Tiny" leaving "Kiboko" with the nickname of "Bubbles."

Phew.

2004-12-17T13:26:00.000-08:00

Photo--Mt. Hood

Portland, Oregon—Days 320/321

2004-12-17T13:13:00.000-08:00

I have spent the past few days in Portland figuring out just when in my life I am going to be able to live here. It feels a lot like Minneapolis and St. Paul (where I went to Macalester) in its small town/big city set up. Plus there are loads of things to do and great little shops and restaurants to check out. Plus while it feels a bit like Minneapolis, there is no snow!

I spent most of one morning driving to Mount Hood which was just great. I drove along the Historical Highway and stopped at every waterfall along the way to take a picture. There were several people doing the same thing and we obviously kept running into each other at every stop. Two guys had their cameras with them as well and one enthusiastically told me “If you do it to me I’ll do it to you!”

I laughed and what he meant was that if I took their picture, he would take mine.

The drive was really beautiful and I drove to Mount Hood on a sort of back road that had multiple signs warning me that I needed chains. I ignored them.

The dense fog that covered the road and everything around me didn’t deter me. Nor did the snow. I was preparing myself for some full on snow but it never came. Instead I came around a bend and the fog literally disappeared into bright blue sky and BAM! There was Mount Hood.

It was truly a fantastic sight—the snow covered mountain set against the brilliant blue sky.

I made my way back to Portland and spent the rest of the afternoon riding the trolley and walking around the downtown area. The next day I spent again in Portland, this time going over to the 21st and 23rd streets for some great window shopping.

Tomorrow I fly to Eugene and then will drive down to Winston, Oregon to go to the safari park there.

2004-12-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

Web link--Oregon Zoo website

Dallas, Texas—Portland, Oregon—Day 319

2004-12-15T17:53:00.000-08:00

I flew from Dallas to Portland today finally leaving the lone star state in search of something a little bit greener. I sat next to a hilarious woman and her husband. She walked onto the plane wearing a ridiculously huge fur coat (I’ve never seen anything like it) and while the rest of the plane ordered juice with their breakfast snacks, she ordered a beer.

We started talking and but the time we had landed she knew a lot more about me than I did of her! She was delighted to see pictures of the hippos and hear all about the past year. We landed in Portland and they headed off to Bend, Oregon to visit their children (her step-children) and I set off to find myself my rental car.

I was soon on my way to my hotel in Portland. I drove to the downtown area and through a series of one way turns found my hotel. But then I decided that since the day was still young, I could stop by the zoo instead of going straight to the hotel.

So I did this—luckily the zoo was really close to the hotel and to downtown Portland. I parked, got my ticket and headed in.

Finding the hippos wasn’t hard. Photographing the pair wasn’t hard either. The two of them showed off quite a bit for me—the larger one getting in and out of the water while the smaller of the two would come over and open her mouth for me on command. It was quite a delightful sight seeing the two of them together swimming around and playing. The weather outside was really cold so I kept having to move around a bit to stay warm. At least the hippos looked content in their pool.

The enclosure had an underwater viewing area and an overlooking area onto the pool which was great for me to get pictures of them. There were also sound effects set up so that when someone walked into the underwater area sounds of hippos grunting to one another turned on.

When walking out to the overlooking spot I walked past a man and his son. As we crossed in front of the speakers the little boy asked his father, “Dad! What IS that?” The father told him, “Well son, that’s the hippo.”

And the little boy replied, clearly disgusted, “Doesn’t the hippo know that its rude to fart??”

Heehee.

With that said, what was hard however was finding out the hippos names. I went to ask the woman at the information desk and she had their names on file: Kiboko (a common hippo name—its means “hippo” in Swahili) and Mukenko, which means “volcano” in Swahili apparently. I thought my job was almost halfway through—now I just needed to know who was who.

Well the woman at the information desk didn’t know but agreed that she really should have that information handy. So she sent me in the direction of the main office. In there I met three happy looking employees who gladly helped me. “Ummmm” says the first one. “I think Bubbles is the one with the patches over her eyes….or is that the other one?” They debated for a bit until I interrupted.

Bubbles? Who is Bubbles?

I told them that I had the names Kiboko and Mukenko…not Bubbles. Hmmm.

Oh! They said, They must have nicknames! So one of the women gets on the phone to call someone who would actually know the truth. I was connected with another woman who told me that the hippos nicknames were Bubbles and Poppy, but she didn’t know which was which, or if Kiboko was Bubbles or Poppy, or if Mukenko was either. But SHE knew someone who was. But this person (apparently an avid hippo lover) was on the phone so I would have to call her back. But, she told me, I could call the hippo keepers themselves too.

So I tried the keepers but they weren’t there so I went back into the main part of the zoo to try and find a keeper. I ended up running into some other volunteers who didn’t know a thing about the hippos but did know anything and everything about the elephants. But they agreed to find someone who would help me and we walked over to their offices. I waited outside while the two woman disappeared and soon thereafter the talkative one (the one who told me all of the elephants’ names during our walk) came out with a slip of paper. She handed it to me and told me that “this was all I could get.”

She walked away and I looked at the paper. Mukenko and Kiboko were written on there as well as Bubbles and Tiny being their names. Tiny? Wait a sec, how can two hippos have three nicknames and more importantly WHO WAS WHO?

Since it was getting late (and I was told that the keepers probably had already left by now) I decided to call once I got back to the hotel. I left after hitting up the gift shop and drove back to my hotel which is located right in the city center. I checked in and spent the rest of the evening catching up on things and leaving phone messages and emails for practically half the zoo employees at the Oregon Zoo. I would get to the bottom of this hippo nickname silliness somehow!

2004-12-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

Photo--The Alamo

San Antonio, Texas—Days 317/318

2004-12-14T10:30:00.000-08:00

I spent the past two days in San Antonio visiting the Alamo and traveling up to Austin to check out the city that I have heard so much about. I spent a good hour or so walking around the Alamo which was interesting and then the afternoon driving up to Austin and trying to find the University there. I never did find it (how you can’t find a huge university is beyond me) but after having lunch and cruising around a bit I decided to head back to San Antonio.

The next morning I headed back to the zoo to check out what Uma and Tumbo were up to.
Uma was outside again and there was no sign of Tumbo. The weather was cold and I stood in front of Uma hoping that Tumbo would just magically appear in the water with her. He never did of course so I left the zoo after a while and spent another day in San Antonio and its surrounding areas doing a bit of Christmas shopping.

Tomorrow I head to Portland and leave Texas. Then I head to Eugene, Oregon, then finally to San Francisco where I will meet up with a few friends from college that I have there. Then back to Tucson for Christmas which is shockingly NEXT weekend. This year went by extraordinarily fast. It just feels like yesterday when this whole trip was in its planning stages.

And now I have been to 92 zoos this year.

That’s 262 hippos!

2004-12-12T15:52:00.000-08:00

Web link--San Antonio Zoological Gardens and Aquarium website

Houston, Texas—San Antonio, Texas—Day 316

2004-12-12T10:13:00.001-08:00

Well my friend is right. San Antonio is a wonderful place. It actually feels a lot like Tucson in a way and I immediately felt at home. My flight this morning was short and sweet and I made it to San Antonio early. I rented my car from Avis. The man was a little too excited to rent it to me and REALLY excited that I was an Avis “wizard” member (their frequent renter’s club). Oohhh.

So I got my keys and took the shuttle over to the rental car part just outside the airport. The woman driving me there was also very excited. “Is this your first time in San Antonio?” she asks. I told her yes and she just about let out a whoop of excitement. “Well, well” she says and proceeds to tell me how I needed to drive to downtown. She helped me off of the shuttle when we arrived at the second Avis building where all of the cars are located and waved as she drove away.

I checked in with the guy at the desk who handed me my keys to my exciting Chevy that I would have the privilege of driving today. I went outside with my stuff to my allocated spot but found a much nicer SUV in my spot instead of the car that I rented. So I started walking back to the office when a shuttle bus driver pulled over. He got out and helped me try to locate the missing car, but we couldn’t find it. So I continued my walk until the shuttle driver called back to me. “Miss! Its over here!” He had found my car which was nowhere near the spot it was supposed to be in . and drove away waving.

I popped the trunk when another woman (equally as enthused) came over and apologized for the car being in the wrong spot. She also informed me that the car was “not cleaned” because their car wash was broken. But, if I wanted to, I could take it to a carwash myself and they would reimburse me. I looked at the car and told her not to worry, it seemed just clean enough for me.

But then I got in.

Good god, it was awful! It was like the combination of bad body odor AND bad cologne all wrapped into one horrible stench that permeated the entire car. I didn’t think about the INSIDE of the car. Everything smelled like nasty man. Throwing up was not an option but gagging certainly was. Good lord, did people REALLY have to smell like THIS?

I masked my disgust as I drove away, smiling and waving.

I headed straight to the zoo and since it was Sunday, there were quite a lot of other people there. I got my ticket and went in and found the hippo enclosure. It was a big concrete pool with an upper area that lead into the hippos’ indoor enclosure. There was one hippo outside but I knew that there should be two hippos there. I went over and to my luck there were signs giving me the names of the two hippos, Tumbo (the male) and Uma (the female). I watched the hippo in the water for quite a while and it didn’t seem to have any intention of moving about. A keeper eventually walked by and I stopped her to ask about which hippo was in the water. She seemed to be keen on hippos and went over to look. She told me that it was definitely Uma in the water and that Tumbo was inside. They were separated because Uma had had a baby hippo recently who was just shipped off to the Phoenix Zoo on Thursday. They had separated the two due to safety reasons (as do many hippos with new babies) and were hoping on reuniting the pair later on in the day. “It should be interesting” she told me.

So I thanked her and waited for this interesting thing to happen.

After spending most of the afternoon sitting first at a table by the snack bar next to the hippo enclosure then on a ledge overlooking the hippo enclosure, I was getting antsy for the hippos to reunite. Uma had at one point gotten out of the water and wandered around on the upper part for a bit so I snapped away until she resigned herself back into the water.

No sign of Tumbo.

But I patiently waited, and waited, and ignored the stares I was getting from people passing by. Eventually a keeper appeared in the hippo enclosure and shut a gate between the pool and the upper level. Then the door to the indoor enclosure opened and viola! Out stepped Tumbo. So I took pictures of him walking out and for the next hour or so of him in the enclosure. But there seemed to be no sign of a keeper and little chance that he was actually going to be let into the water with Uma. I waited and waited and took pictures while I could. Tumbo and Uma grunted to one another and Tumbo rested his head on the gate between the two sides, clearly wanting to get out. Poor guy.

After quite sometime Tumbo seemed to lose all hope of going back into the water and went and stood next to the door that let him out. Soon it opened and he went back in. What? What about this reunion I had been waiting for? The keeper came back out and locked the door that had shut behind Tumbo. Checking my watch there was only an hour before the zoo closed so I guess I missed my chances today.

So I got my things together and headed out of the zoo. I drove into downtown San Antonio and found my hotel. I parked in the parking structure across the street and checked in, spending the rest of the afternoon catching up on work before heading out for dinner. I came across the infamous San Antonio River Walk without realizing what it was. There were tons of people out—I guess it being a Sunday—and I walked along the river while carol-singing school children passed by on boats that cruised up and down the river. I eventually settled on a Mexican food place for dinner and left for my hotel completely stuffed with chimichangas and margaritas.

Lufkin, Texas—Houston, Texas—Day 315

2004-12-11T18:47:00.000-08:00

I headed back to the Ellen Trout Zoo this morning for a second chance to get some more pictures of the hippos. I arrived and had five minutes to kill before the zoo opened. With the weather finally getting on the colder side, I sat on a bench by the entrance absolutely freezing. The zoo finally opened (a.k.a. the woman at the desk told me could now go in) and I headed back to find the enclosure.

To my luck, the hippos weren’t out yet which was a good sign. This meant that I could photograph them as they walked down into the pool. Sure enough, just a few minutes passed until the big heavy door to the inside enclosure opened and there appeared a hippo head.

It was Pancho so I waited while he made his way out to see Mara and Nakili. Specifically I wanted pictures of Nakili. So I waited while Mara decided to stand in Nakili’s way—preventing her from leaving. Despite the keeper’s shouts of “move out! Get out!” that she was obviously shouting to at Mara, Mara stood her ground. Eventually though I think that Nakili got the best of her and moved Mara out of the way due to sheer force.

The door behind them closed and I snapped away.

They did their thing as hippos do—stopping, standing, (posing!) and I was happy to get some pictures of Nakili but unhappy about the sun’s reflection. There was no really way to go about it—the direction that I had to take their pictures in was the exact spot that the sun was rising. But I didn’t let a few rays and glare get in my way.

Despite the sun, the weather was still cold. I waited until the three hippos immersed themselves in the water (Pancho, then Nakili, then Mara) and then stood in front of the underwater viewing glass where I watched Pancho and Mara show off for the camera. Seriously, they were both floating along and would stop and press their noses RIGHT up against the glass. It was extremely cute—especially of course with Mara—and I was delighted. I left the zoo a little earlier than yesterday but with much better photos.

I spent the rest of the morning driving back down to the Houston area. I stopped for some cold medicine at a drug store and proceeded to have a funny conversation with a girl who knew that I “obviously wasn’t from here” after I asked her where the post office was. She gave me directions but wanted to know more importantly WHY I was in Lufkin “of all places.” I told her that I was working as a photographer right now and she just looked at me dumbfounded. “Well what the heck do you have to photograph HERE?”

I left with directions for the post office which I never succeeded in finding. Never mind—since it was Saturday it was probably closed anyway. I made it Houston just after lunchtime and found a hotel near the Bush Airport where I would be flying out of early in the morning. After checking in I went straight tot eh FedEx store and shipped some things to my boss. The woman working at the counter was most impressed with my job—but not in any sense that she REALLY cared as to what I was doing. She was more interested in the fact that I was a photographer because I could buy this really nifty PHOTO CALENDAR and make one for all of my family for Christmas! Or, since I told her my boss loves hippos, she exclaimed, “Well, you could make him a T-SHIRT with your photos on it! Here’s a brochure!”

This went on for a few minutes. She even wouldn’t let me leave without taking with me a full on catalogue that showed just about everything that I could print, scan and ship to my loved ones for Christmas.

*sigh*

Tomorrow its off to San Antonio which I am excited about since a friend of mine from college is from there. While he won’t be there, I have heard enough about it to want to know for myself what it is like. Until then.

2004-12-10T11:37:00.000-08:00

Web link--Ellen Trout Zoo website--check out the sound effects! Go to the "Animals to See" link on the left side bar and then click on the "Hippo" button under the "Animal Highlights" section at the top of the page (the first link on the left above the DeBrazza's Monkey picture)

Lufkin, Texas—Day 314

2004-12-10T11:35:00.000-08:00

After a night hanging out at my fab hotel room just south of downtown Lufkin, I was ready to get out and go to the zoo. Problem was finding it. My directions led me in a not-so-right direction, and I eventually pulled over to a gas station to ask directions. The woman working there (who looked like they had been working there for years) told me to go down “such-and-such loop and then on the side road, then turn right, then….” I couldn’t follow but nodded and smiled the best I could. Once I had my “directions” I headed out of the gas station and to the left (the only direction that I was able to follow). I then drove for a bit until I saw a huge sign for the zoo—complete with hippos on it.

Problem was that the zoo sign said “Straight ahead 1.8 miles but the road then split off. You could go either “straight” left, or “straight” right. Hmmm.

I chose to go to the right and finally hit the road that my original directions told me to turn on. My gut feeling told me to turn left, so I did and barreled down a road that seemed to lead to nowhere. But then I spotted the zoo across the end of the road (which ended up at the freeway again—I probably really could have gone straight either left or right and ended up there!) and I went into the zoo. I parked my car and headed in.

By this time it was just bout 9:30—the zoo opened at 9am. I was clearly the first person there. I paid my three dollar entrance fee (pocket change compared to Busch Gardens!) and headed in. I first noticed a small enclosure on my right with a sign saying that the zoo’s two “new” hippos (Pancho and Nakili) were in the new hippo enclosure in the African part of the zoo. Because there was no map of the zoo (“Sorry”) I had to find this Africa section on my own. After a bit of hunting (there weren’t ANY signs in the zoo) I found it. It seemed that this old looking area that I first came across was the hippos’ old enclosure. The must have had a hippo before Pancho and Nakili, it must have died or something, and then they got the pair and moved them to this new part.

Anyways, I finally found the two—and it turned out to be three. There was a big baby hippo fast asleep on the sand in their enclosure and two bigger hippos (presumably Pancho—the male—and Nakili—the female). I knew who was who when Pancho decided to spread it against a wall and knew that Pancho was the male from the zoo’s website (Click on the link—it comes with sound effects!).

Anyways, I set up shop and watched the hippos for almost three hours. Because they had just gotten into the water before I showed up, they weren’t really going to get out often. But Pancho eventually did and he wandered over to the Baby and started licking it. It was cute until gobs of saliva started gooping out of his mouth which was a rather disgusting—yet still endearing—sight.

Nakili didn’t come out of the water at all and I finally gave up when the Baby got scared by a passing tractor (yes, a tractor) and went into the water. The underwater viewing area was decent and every so often the hippos would glide by. The baby was especially cute as she/he would come right up to the glass and press its nose against it, checking me out just as much as I was checking HER out.

After quite some time I decided to head out of the zoo with the intentions of coming back in the morning. I left the zoo, first stopping at the gift shop and then asking the staff what the baby’s name was. They told me Mara (and I made them spell it to be sure!) and I headed out of the zoo.

Now I had a slight problem. There is NOTHING to do in Lufkin. It was just before noon and I had the entire rest of the day to do something. I thought I would catch a movie, but all of the movie theaters I found were closed. Even the local mall wasn’t that exciting. I got lunch at a Chili’s (again, just to find a place to sit down and read) and then wandered around Target (my new hobby) and ended up back at the hotel that I had checked out of in the morning. I checked out because I was hoping that I could get the zoo done in one morning. But I thought it would be best for me to stay to get some better shots of Nakili. So I checked back into the hotel, doodled around on the computer and finally it was a decent enough time to get dinner.

So I went out to the local supermarket and grabbed a microwave macaroni and cheese, excited by the idea of making dinner IN my room. I then went back to the hotel, found my key to all of sudden not work and spent a good ten minutes waiting for the receptionist to come back “from helping a customer” to give me a new key.

Hotel life in the USA is just not the same as in Europe. There are only so many options to choose from and none of them involve killing time looking at gorgeous Roman ruins and sitting in Spanish cafes.

*sigh*

Dallas, Texas—Houston, Texas—Lufkin, Texas—Day 313

2004-12-09T11:09:00.000-08:00

This morning was a first. I missed my plane!

How it happen remains a mystery. I set my alarm and somehow it didn’t go off. Why I didn’t get a wake up call from the hotel is also a mystery. Anyways, I was having a fabulous dream when suddenly my conscious knocked in and I bolted up in bed.

Looking at my clock I saw that it was 7:30. My flight was leaving at 8:30.

So I threw everything into my bag, threw on my clothes, and threw myself into the car. I made it to the rental return at the airport at 8am and to the check in counter at 8:15. Obviously there was no way that I would make my flight.

I handed over my I.D. and my trusty gold Aadvantage card, hoping that they would just let me on to the next flight since I was such a valued customer. To my luck, they did! They girl just laughed at me when I said that I missed the alarm and checked me onto the next flight which wasn’t departing until after 11. So I now have three hours to kill (most of it spent catching up on my blog!) and sitting in the Dallas airport waiting for my short flight to Houston.

I made it to Houston, picked up my rental car (an SUV! I fit RIGHT in now!) and I was soon on my way headed north to Lufkin. Lufkin is in eastern Texas and yes, in the middle of nowhere. However, three hippos are at the Ellen Trout Zoo and I will be spending the next few days here before heading back down to Houston, then on to San Antonio.

2004-12-08T19:48:00.000-08:00

Photo--Sign at entrance to Fort Worth Zoo

Dallas, Texas—Days 311/312

2004-12-08T19:44:00.000-08:00

Its funny because I have met a lot of people on my trip this year who have instantly thought I was a cowgirl because I was from Arizona. Mostly its these people who have no idea how drastically different Arizona is from Texas. (Is really any other state like Texas? I doubt anyone would dare to think so). OBVIUSJLY me being from Arizona meant that I was a boot wearin’, plaid lovin’ rodeo queen despite my protest that I wasn’t. Now I do admit that these types do exist in Arizona (and yes, we do have “Rodeo Break” which allow us two and a half extra days of vacations in February) but let’s face it, I don’t live on a ranch and I definitely don’t have a horse and more importantly, I do not own a cowboy hat. Clearly those are the makings of a cow-person, none of which I have. Plus my family is British so we’re really more of the fox hunting type when it comes down to it.

Anyways now that I was in Texas, I wanted to see them for myself because obviously they are not anywhere else other than the lone start state of Texas.

You know, the real cowboys. The pickup trucks. The families with matching mullets.

Yeeeeeeeeehaw! Welcome to Bushland!!

So far Texas has proven to be all that I thought it would be, more or less. Lots of truck drivin’ Republicans sporting their “W2004” bumper stickers and actually, truly wearing cowboy boots in public.

My god. It really exists!

I was able to spot several of them at the Fort Worth Zoo, where I spent the two mornings I had in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. The zoo is actually a really nice zoo despite the five dollar parking fee they throw at you upon entering. Both days I bought tickets (although Wednesdays are half price!) and I located the hippos on the first day without a problem. They were near the elephants (as always) and while the elephants had THEIR names posted outside their enclosure, my hippos didn’t.

Luckily the two were out of the water just as I arrived. As the first one literally dashed into the water (and as I fumbled with my camera) I got just a few shots of him/her before taking almost 100 or so shots of the second hippo who causally finished up the last bits of their hay before wandering down into the water. I cornered some zoo workers who were leaving the employee lot right next to the hippo enclosure (nicely located for my benefit of course) and they told me that the hippos names were Daisy (the stroller) and Jonsey (the dasher). I was confused to how “Jonsey” was spelled (its pronounced Jones-see so I thought for sure it would be spelled Jonesy but I cleared this up on the second day when I actually talked to the hippo keeper himself (after a nice man radioed him in for me) and he told me that sure enough, it was spelled J-O-N-S-E-Y.

I watched the hippos for a bit the first day and then decided to come back the second morning which turned out to be a good move. The second morning (half price Wednesday!) the hippos were not only NOT in the water, but not outside yet. This was a good sign for me because this meant that I could get pictures of them whenever they did come out. So I patiently waited and soon a keeper came out, laid out some hay, and the doors opened for the two hippos.

I could tell the two apart very easily and the keeper pointed out even further how much smaller Daisy was, and how much darker Jonsey was. The woman who helped me on the first day weren’t quite sure who was who—their discussion about which hippo was which involved one of their sister in law’s sp-and-so who talked with so-and-so who thought Daisy was the lighter one—well, this woman turned out to be right.

So I happily took pictures of them chomping away and then when they were finished, gracefully easing themselves into the pool which was just filling up. They swam around a bit and drank from the huge fountain of water shooting into the pool and filing it up which delighted several families around me. I took pictures and videotaped for a bit and decided that my job was done.

After going to the zoo on both day I had nothing to do but to kill time. I spent the first day reading all about photography at a Barnes and Noble (its just like a library! They let you just SIT there and read!) and doing a variety of aimless things like driving around and checking the internet. The second day I was more productive and went to the John F. Kennedy museum in Dallas (I ventured to the other side which was over 20 miles away!) and spent the afternoon completely fascinated. The museum is amazing and on the 6th floor where Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy (ok, ok, so we don’t REALLY know that he did it but c’mon…) and looking out of the window was completely eerie. Anyways, it was really quite something and I drove back to my hotel after spending a good few hours there. I then went and grabbed something to eat (last night it was sushi at this great little sushi bar, tonight it was a salad at Chili’s) and went back to the hotel.

I set the alarm for 6am for my 8:30am flight to Houston.

2004-12-08T19:34:00.000-08:00

Web Link--Forth Worth Zoo website

Orlando, Florida—Dallas, Texas—Day 310

2004-12-06T19:13:00.000-08:00

Today I flew from Orlando to Dallas. First I had to get Lyda up and ready for her flight back to Tucson (via Chicago) that left at the lovely time of 7am. This meant waking up at 4:45am and getting ourselves to the airport before the sun rose. We made it, turned in the rental car and checked both of us in at the first class desk—a little AAdvantage perk.

I saw Lyda off at her gate and literally signed her away—signing her unaccompanied minor sheet. We said goodbye and I waited for an hour and half until my own flight to Dallas. The flight to Dallas was fine—uneventful really—and I got into Dallas on time.

I have never actually been to Dallas, or Fort Worth, but have landed at the airport countless times. Whether it be going home from college, or really anywhere, I always seem to end up in the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport. I practically have the whole layout memorized. But this was really the first time that I would leave the vicinity of the airport.

I decided to get a rental car and headed to the rental car location via shuttle then rented a car from a company who would gladly rent to a person under the age of 24 and gladly slapped on a young renters fee and was soon on my way to the hotel. I found the hotel just fine—and found it to be RIGHT across the street from the 6 Flags amusement park! Ahh! No more amusement parks!

I checked into the hotel and spent the rest of the day biding my time catching up on things regarding work and eventually venturing out to a local mall to catch a movie. Driving there was a bit of an adventure—what started as a nice sprinkle turned into a huge flash flood warning in the entire area and I was stuck on the freeway going 5 mph in gusty, torrential rain.

Ohmigod. I was going to die.

Amazingly I made it of the mall in one piece (thank god) and parked under a sheltered parking lot away from the storm. I perused around the mall until my movie started and kept my hopes up that the rain would pass once I had to leave the sanctuary of the mall. Luckily it did and I made it back to the hotel safely and much quicker than when I came.

Tomorrow I am heading to the Fort Worth Zoo to see two hippos there. I’m expecting to see them in full cowboy get up and to chew their hay like real Texans.

I’ll keep you posted.

2004-12-05T08:20:00.000-08:00

Photo--Lyda at Disney's Animal Kingdom

Orlando, Florida—Days 307/308/309

2004-12-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

So if you think that you can’t handle three days in Disneyworld, you are probably right. However, if you do have the chance to swing by or find yourself here for any reason, you’ll find it all not that bad. In fact, you might even enjoy yourself or even have a really great time, just like I did.

Lyda and I hit up MGM studios, Cirque du Soleil, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, the Magic Kingdom AND Typhoon Lagoon all in three days. Oh, and through in two movies in there as well and you will have our itinerary. We had a great time, despite the fact that I was feeling sick the first day (who knows why but I was definitely ready to throw up at any point which is not like me at all). By the second and third days I felt fine and was actually impressed with my stamina on the rides. We conquered the Tower of Terror, let our jaws drop as we watched the amazing Cirque du Soleil performance, watched Canada in 360 degrees and traveled to the moon at Epcot, got knocked over by the wave pool in Typhoon Lagoon and plummeted down Splash Mountain at the Magic Kingdom, screaming all the way. It was great but I have to say that I won’t be ready to go back again any time soon.

Part of the deal was that we had to visit Disney’s Animal Kingdom so that I could actually see what the Disney hippos were all about. Lyda agreed, just as long as we could fit in the Magic Kingdom AND Typhoon Lagoon all in the same day as well. I agreed and we set off early on the third day to the Animal Kingdom. Since we had bought park-hopper passes, we were able to go from one park to the other without having to buy separate tickets. This worked out in our favor but I still wasn’t happy with the hefty admission prices. We headed in and walked over to the Africa area where the hippos were. We found one lone hippo in an underwater viewing area and since I knew that there were at least twenty hippos, I asked a man working there were the others were. He told me that they were on the safari ride and that we could see them on that.

So Lyda and I got in line for the safari and were soon on a bumpy safari tour through an “African reserve.” Sure enough, we passed the hippos shortly into the tour. They were on both or left and right sides and I scrambled to get some pictures of them. The jeep we were in couldn’t stop—this was an actually RIDE we were on—and so I managed what I could. We then drove through the rest of the “reserve” area, eventually finding and defeating some “elephant poachers” in the area. The ride was pretty impressive but I Wasn’t impressed with the lack of hippo access. Couldn’t it at least stop at the hippos so that people could get a good view?

When we got off I turned to Lyda and informed her that we would have to go on it again. Despite her groans and her “but why’s” she knew that she had to. We decided to get “fast passes” (a new Disney thing where you get a little ticket that allows you to come back at a certain time and not have to wait in line again) and had any where from a half hour to an hour and a half from now to go on the ride. So we decided to go on a river rafting ride and the dinosaur ride in the meantime, getting sufficiently soaked AND freaked out by loud dinosaurs. We then headed back to the safari ride where we bypassed the long line and were soon again on our way to the animal reserve. This time I videotaped the tour and I think Lyda really didn’t mind THAT much that we had to go on it again.

After we made it back safe and sound after capturing the poachers AGAIN (didn’t they get the point the first time?!?!) Lyda and I headed out and spent the afternoon at the other parks, then caught a movie and dinner before crashing back at the hotel. Phew.

2004-12-05T08:01:00.000-08:00

Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 12:51:16 -0800
To: "Sarah Galbraith"
Subject: Re: Hippos (KMM14332562V91509L0KM)
From: "Disney Guest Mail"

Dear Sarah,

Thank you for your latest email.

Sarah can take as many photos from the "show" side of the attraction as you want. However, the husbandry staff cannot disclose any information about the collection to the general public.

Once again Thank you for expressing interest in our collection but at this time the Animal Kingdom Husbandry staff are not going to be able participate in your project.

We hope you understand and wish you well in your endeavor.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Charlene Hobot

WDW Online Communications

Original Message Follows:
-------------------------

Dear Charlene,

I appreciate your emailed response. I understand 100% that it is against Disney policies to allow non-Disney employees behind the scenes at your theme park.

With this in mind, would it be possible for me to photograph the hippos
at their "on" stage location (i.e. where they are on display for the entire public) but also to meet with their keeper at this same location so that I could also get their names as well? I would not need more than 15 minutes of their time.

I have included several pictures of the hippo porcelain service (from an emailed attachment from my employer sent to a hippo enthusiast group) so you can get an idea of the project. This is truly a unique opportunity and certainly something that we would love to include the Disney hippos.

Sincerely,

Sarah Galbraith
sarahlouise612@hotmail.com

2004-12-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 11:38:11 -0700
To: sarahlouise612@yahoo.com
Subject: Hippos (KMM14247581V13668L0KM)
From: "Disney Guest Mail"

Dear Sarah,

Thank you for waiting so patiently while we research your request.

Unfortunately, because of overriding company access policies this is not something we will be able to participate in.

At this time we can not have non-Disney cast members in specific back stage areas for safety reasons, not only the individuals safety but also for the safety and health of our animals. Also at this time we do not permit non-Disney photographers to photograph anywhere that is not considered an "on" stage location.

Sarah, the Director of the Animal Operations team at the Animal Kingdom as well as the entire husbandry staff wanted me to thank you for your expressed interest in our Hippos, but at this time we are not going to be able participate in your project.

If you have questions or need further assistance, feel free to contact us.

Please include your full name, E-Mail address, and reservation number if applicable on all correspondence.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Charlene Hobot

WDW Online Communications

**************

Message:
To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Sarah Galbraith and I am currently working for a private porcelain collector and avid hippopotamus lover who has commissioned the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Company to create a unique dinner service with representations of zoo hippopotami. Since February 2004 I have been traveling around the world photographing hippos in zoos to be used for the porcelain service. This comprehensive project will be completed in 2007 will be internationally exhibited.

We hope to represent your hippos in the service. I will be arriving in
Orlando on the 1st of December and will be in the area until the morning of the 6th of December. I would like to arrange a meeting with the hippo keeper during that time to learn about your hippos (their names and ages) and photograph each of them. According to my notes, you have quite a large number of hippos at your zoo so your assistance will ensure that they secure a place in the collection.

I look forward to your response: sarahlouise612@yahoo.com

Thank you,

Sarah Galbraith

2004-12-02T16:59:00.000-08:00

Web Link--Busch Gardens Tampa Bay

Tampa, Florida—Orlando, Florida—Day 306

2004-12-02T08:15:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning and headed to Busch Gardens. I had been here during the spring of my senior year of college for a psychology conference and of course didn’t think I would ever come back. I didn’t even remember there being an animal section to the park. I drove in and found a parking spot, then headed into Busch Gardens after paying my ridiculous $58 admission fee. I took my map and quickly found where the hippos were—in the Edge of Africa portion of the park. After a bit of walking, I made it to the area and soon found the hippo’s enclosure with a nice big underwater viewing area.

Unfortunately, there were no hippos. Actually, this was good. This meant that the hippos hadn’t been let outside yet and I would be able to photograph them coming out instead of just them in the water through the glass. So I got myself ready. I picked what I thought would be the best place to stand and made sure no one got in my way. Since I was standing right up next to the glass, I didn’t think this would be a problem. But, as small children came and went, apparently I was standing in a prime spot to see the turtles in the water. So I moved a bit, letting people come and go, always keeping my eyes out for the hippos.

Did I mention that there were a TON of fish in the enclosure? I mean, TONS of fish. I have never seen so many in an enclosure and the water was sparkling blue so you could see every blue and yellow and green and silver fish that swam by with great clarity. It all seemed so fake, yet so stunning at the same time. I stood there for a good hour before anything exciting happened. That’s when a group of elderly people came over—probably five or so all together—and they stood there for a long time with me examining all the different types of fish. “That’s a catfish!” one would announce and the others would turn and try to see just where it was and if it truly was a catfish. I watched in amusement until I heard a big SLASH! “The hippos came out!” one shouted and indeed, they had.

Two hippos had somehow been let out and had seriously plunged into the water causing a great stir with the fish. And I missed it! That’s what I get for watching the funny old people. Dang. I tried to get into a good spot to see the hippos in the water but fortunately the pair decided to get out of the water just as quickly as they went in, but getting out on the opposite side to which they came in.

Ahh, I see. There was a huge pile of hay laid out on the other side and the hippos began munching on it eagerly. This would mean that I would have yet another wait—the time it takes two hippos to devour a pile of hay—and so I took my spot again by the window, this time not budging until those hippos went into the water.

My determinism finally paid off. After about a half an hour and many strange looks (“ What IS that girl looking at?”) the hippos finally finished their breakfast. You could tell that they were a mother and baby pair by their size. Mom finished her food first and nicely eased herself into the water. Click click click. Baby soon followed and I took pictures with my camera as she eased herself into the water with the same grace that Mom had, stopping every so often which was great for me. Click click.

“Oh Ray,” exclaimed one woman to her husband as I stepped down from my perch, “We missed the getting into the water! That would have been a great photograph!”

Ha-ha.

The hippos swam around a bit and I watched them and tried to take pictures when I can. Problem with hippo enclosures such as this are that they usually draw crowds once the hippos are in the water making it difficult to get a good picture with everyone vying to see the hippos all at once.

When the hippos finally settled down after a bit of swimming and when it seemed like they wouldn’t move again for a while I decided that enough was enough—I would wait until my tour to get any more photos. I left and after catching the end of a stage show (and being the only one in the audience under the age of 65) I got lunch and went to my meeting spot for the tour and waited for 1:15 to roll around.

When it finally did I checked in for my tour and waited for the tour guide to show up. HE finally did and it turned out that the other people on my tour were a family that stayed at my hotel last night (whom I recognized form breakfast). They were an overenthusiastic father with dyed blonde hair with some sort of business that allows him to work whenever he wants while “raking in the money,” the mother who didn’t really talk the entire time which made me wonder how on earth they were even married because he wouldn’t stop talking and their two slightly chubby children who seemed content to be dragged along on Dad’s “dream” to show his children the animals at the park. Both children seemed like they were having a good time (although the poor little boy was too scared to pet any of the animals).

Anyways, our tour guide was Fred—a mid-thirties guy who actually went to Carleton (a college near Macalester where I went in Minnesota) and his trusty assistant whom I can’t remember her exact name. I think it was Christina. Anyways, Fred and Christina took us first to the Clydesdale horses (the Budweiser trademark horse) and we got to pet several of them. I played along and pretended that I was interested in the other animals but of course we all know that I wasn’t! I tired to play it cool when they asked me why I was on this tour alone (as if being alone is some sort of disease) and I told them that my boss loves hippos and sent me to photograph these ones. Their eyes widened and I could tell they were excited. Really? He LOVES hippos? I smiled and played it off—I didn’t really want to go into the whole description of what I was doing. Plus I practically had two more hours to spend with these people and I really didn’t feel up to fending questions the whole time. So I left it at that—my boss loves hippos and I am here photographing them for him, which, I might add, is totally true.

Luckily it didn’t take us too long to get to the hippos. We watched the pair from the underwater viewing area and then headed behind the scenes through a gate around the other side. Alright, THIS is what I was talking about!

We headed in and there had to be six zookeepers standing with one of the hippos. It was like they were all there at once. Since I already had an idea of the hippo’s names (I had emailed Busch Gardens two days ago and got an emailed response with their names) I was able to ask who was who. Turned out that Moxie (the baby) and Cleopatra (the mother) were outside and there was Kiboko (Moxie’s father), Moyo and Eva inside. Apparently it was Moyo standing in front of me. Click click. They were doing a training session wit Moyo, something I had never seen before. They were training him to stand in certain places so that they could do medical checks on him (drawing blood, taking his weight, things like that). They had this huge pole with a white knob on the end which they would place on Moyo’s nose. He was doing a great job and would move back and forth according to their calls and demands. It was great! Luckily my tour group members humored me and we were able to stay for a long time watching them. They eventually brought Eva out too (the oldest of the hippos—and the biggest even though she was just put on a diet and lost 2,000 pounds!) and I was able to get pictures of the two of them.

We left the hippos and I was satisfied. I didn’t get pictures of Kiboko but that was ok, I had four out of the five which was great considering we didn’t even know about them before.

The rest of the tour was pretty cool—we went all around and visited all sorts of animals, listening to Fred and Christina’s extremely enthusiastic descriptions of them all. Feeding the black rhinoceros was the highlight for me since it is SO funny to watch them eat. They have his bizarre nose bit that is just truly weird to watch. We fed the giraffes and rode around on a safari truck, then went to the animal hospital where the babies are raised. The tour ended and I headed out of Busch Gardens back to the car, happy with the day.

I drove back to Orlando, found my hotel and checked in. I then went back to the airport and picked up Lyda, my twelve year old little sister from my dad’s second marriage. Since she was traveling as an unaccompanied minor, I was able to go into the terminal area with a special gate pass. It was odd walking through the airport with absolutely no one in it, and without carrying any luggage! I waited at the gate as she came out. We headed to the grandma mobile and loaded her stuff into the car, then drove back to the hotel. Lyda was unable to hold back her excitement as we planned the three days of Disney that were ahead. As we settled down into our beds, I couldn’t help but think, what had I gotten myself into? I mean, I could handle anything—time zones, language barriers, 5,000 pound animals—but I knew that I was definitely in for it now.

Birmingham, Alabama—Orlando, Florida—Tampa, Florida—Day 305

2004-12-01T08:14:00.000-08:00

Today I drove to the Birmingham airport and then flew to Orlando via Charlotte, North Carolina. As I prepared myself for the land of Mickey Mouse, I sat in the Charlotte airport waiting for my plane to board, noticing just how many small children were around. Boarding the plane, I had to squeeze past tiny tots and their parents, making my way to my aisle seat. The plane didn’t seem to be full at first, but slowly filled up. People seemed to be just sitting wherever—several people just chose seats to sit in without them being their real seats. This would normally have been a problem—finding other people in your seats—but no one seemed to mind, their eye glazed over with the thoughts of Space Mountain and Donald Duck.

We landed in Orlando and I went straight to the baggage claim before getting my rental car. It was complete and utter chaos—people and children everywhere. I’ve never seen such a disorganized sight—people were clamoring over each other, trying to get to this black bag and that black bag. Everyone was claiming that this and that bag, only to have someone else say no wait, that’s mine. I watched an elderly man do this several times—take a suitcase off of the conveyor belt only to have a couple come over and argue with him about it being their bag. By the ribbons attached, you would think it would be easy for them to realize it. Turned out to be the couple’s bag, which the man finally succeeded. I think he was just tired of waiting!

Luckily my bag is not just black and I was able to spot it once it finally came into view. Worried that someone would take it, I eyed my bag on its route and dashed forward once it got close enough. I left, passing a woman talking on her cell phone. She was picking up her friend’s bag for him while he was getting the car (oh the joys of listening in on stranger’s conversations!) and he was trying to describe it to her. “Black?” she said, “JUST black??”

She’s going to be here all day!

I left, rented my car (which turned out to be an oh so stylish grandma type red impala) and headed to Tampa. Since I was unable to photograph the hippos in Orlando (damnit) I had located some at the Busch Gardens in Tampa Bay. Tampa is about an hour from Orlando—straight East—so I headed towards the other coast of Florida, feeling appreciative of the heat and humidity.

In my discovery of the hippos in Busch Gardens (which is sponsored by Budweiser beer, btw, and if you don’t know has an amusement park area and an animal part), I also discovered that they offered a variety of tours in the gardens. You could hire your own private tour guide for the park—allowing you to get on all of the biggest and best rides first. This cost some hundreds of dollars. I searched and found special tours for the animals. I could go on a tour called the “Serengeti Safari” which would be a half-hour tour of the animals for thirty dollars. I called to sign myself up but had to leave a message. When they finally called me back at the hotel, I found out that the Serengeti Safari did NOT cover the hippo area (as I assumed) but that I could pay for the adventure tour that was a private 2-hour tour of the animals (behind the scenes) that would definitely include the hippos. Great! Sign me up!

So $100 later, I had my tour booked and was actually looking forward to it. My tour wasn’t until 1:30 tomorrow, so I had all day to get to Tampa, find a hotel and kill time before tomorrow morning where I would head straight to Busch Gardens, try to catch the hippos in action before my tour, then hopefully get pictures on my tour.

I did just that—I made it to Tampa and found Busch Gardens and a great hotel right nearby. I checked in and amused myself on the computer before heading out to find dinner at Panera Bread Company. I brought my dinner back to the hotel and after watching some really, really bad TV (Nick and Jessica’s Christmas Special---sooooo awful), I went to bed.

Birmingham, Alabama—Days 303/304

2004-11-30T18:20:00.000-08:00

Well shoot. Being here in Birmingham makes me wanna talk like this. Seriously. It’s a struggle to not want to just pick up the y’alls just to blend right in.

Monday morning I went to the zoo bright and early—in fact, I arrived fifteen minutes before the zoo even opened. So I sat in my silver Pontiac and waited for the gates to open at 9am. Thank god for renting a car yesterday. I would have stood out in the cold if I had been dropped off by a taxi.

The zoo gates finally opened and I continued my tradition of being the first one at the zoo. I paid my admission and went in before even some of the staff walked in behind me. I had a map and figured out where the hippos were and set off.

Finding the hippos wasn’t hard—there were two of them in an inside enclosure. Problem was that the lighting was awful (not to mention the indoor pool that they were in) so I was eager to get photos of them outside where they had a nice big enclosure with a pool, albeit an empty pool.

So I watched them for a bit and decided not to ask the keepers working with the elephants next door about the hippos. I could wait until some sort of non-busy looking person walked by. Eventually, one did and it turned out that he was the hippo keeper! I asked him what their names were (Mama Petite and Tadpole—Tadpole being the male of course) and he enthusiastically told me that they would be fed outside after he did some work with the wolves. So I thanked him and set off to kill forty five minutes or so. I walked around the zoo, snapping photos of the flamingos and various other birds before ending up at the gift shop where I loaded up on zoo paraphernalia. After a substantial time had passed, I headed back to the hippo enclosure and sat on the bench outside, near the hippos’ outdoor area. I waited and waited, and could hear a bit of hippo commotion going on inside. So I went to look and it seemed like Tadpole and Mama Petite were getting anxious about being let outside.

I went back outside and sat down, as different groups of mothers and their children came and went, mostly in search of the elephants. I waited and soon the keeper came out of the door leading to the outdoor enclosure. A few more minutes! He yelled to me. I smiled and waved.

Then he and another girl whom I assumed was a trainee began laying out all of the hippos' food—hay, carrots, big fat brown pellets and lettuce—making four nice little piles of the goods. I doubled checked with the man about Mama Petite’s name (whether or not it was all one word or two separate words) and soon they were done with distributing the food. The keeper than gave Tadpole and Mama Petite their medicine which he did by dumping it into their mouths which were accessible through a small opening in the door between the indoor and outdoor enclosures. The door had been opened just so that they could stick their noses and mouths out but not their whole bodies. Once this was done, the keeper and the trainee went inside and the door opened automatically, letting Tadpole and Mama Petite into their outdoor enclosure.

Boy did they move slowly! It seemed a pained effort for the two to waddle themselves over to their food. Perhaps they were both just stiff—but the sure did take their time. Munch munch munch. I snapped away as they ate up their food. It was almost perfect—the two of them would rotate who was munching on the two piles nearest me (a.k.a. the best photographic shot) and would sometimes end up munching side by side. Click click click. I say “almost” perfect here because there was this annoying fence that was going across their enclosure which was just so that it got in my way. I had to lean over the fence in front of me and put my camera almost to my knee level to shoot through the fence to get a good picture. Sometimes the hippos would stop and look at me with that, what the hell are YOU doing look.

Yes, hippos can make that face. I swear.

I was at the zoo for a good two hours which meant that a lot of keepers would come and go by me, several of them commenting about me coming at the right time to the zoo “cause they sure don’t get out much those hippos” and things like that. Perhaps they were mocking me—I didn’t care. I didn’t think that they were, they were just probably thinking that I was completely nutsy. That’s ok, I’m used to it.

Photographing the hippos in the USA (so far) has been a complete breeze to what I have encountered in the world. I mean, how great is it to just GO UP to the keeper and ask them what the names of their hippos are? There is no gesturing needed, no translation involved, just the pure, simple question. Unfortunately though, what it lacks is the excitement, the stress, the satisfaction that has comprised the past 10 months of my life. Its just point, shoot, and you’re done.

I headed out of the zoo after the hippos were fully done with their breakfast and the two were standing waiting to go back in their indoor enclosure. When Tadpole took the opportunity to spread the love (ahem) all over the door to the enclosure, I figured my time was up. I headed out of the zoo and stopped to take a few pictures of the entrance before getting into my car.

“Get some good shots?” I turned around and saw three keepers walking towards the entrance. I smiled and shook my head, muttering to myself about how it is was my job to take pictures at the zoo thank you very much. They just laughed and I realized that talking to oneself doesn’t really make you seem less nusty. Oh well.

I spent the afternoon trying to visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (a.k.a. Museum) but found it to be closed. Actually, I was told it was close by this great homeless guy who not only told me it was closed but proceeded to take me on a tour of the park across the street—the famous Kelly Ingram Park. As he showed me around, reciting the history of the area and the struggles that he and his classmates, family and friends went through in the 1960s, I had to admit I was captivated by it all. When my “tour” was done, I handed him what money I had in my wallet and thanked him for his insight. He told me that giving these tours was just his way of making a little bit of money.

Since the museum was closed, I had an entirely free afternoon ahead of me. This was spent driving around the outskirts of Birmingham and stopping at a local mall just to kill time. IT was killing me, this killing time. I was bored. Bored! Can you believe it! Its been 10 months since I had ever even felt the slightest twinge of being bored and now it was hitting me full force.

Time eventually passed and I made it back to the hotel with the only thing on my agenda for tomorrow being going back to the museum. I did just that—after waking up this morning (Tuesday) I spent a while figuring out the hippo situation in Florida (where I will head tomorrow for five days) and visited the museum in the early afternoon. The museum was truly amazing and I left the museum a few hours later feeling troubled and fulfilled at the same time. Birmingham was the most segregated city in the nation and this is where it all happened—the American civil rights movement. As I walked to my car I noticed my homeless friend from yesterday, standing there with his cane and hat on just as before, waiting as a group of people walked up towards him. He approached them and started talking, then started walking him over to the first sculpture in the park.

I smiled and got into my car, driving away back into the suburbs, the middle of nowhere.

2004-11-29T17:36:00.000-08:00

Web link--Birmingham Zoo

Columbia, South Carolina—Birmingham, Alabama—Day 302

2004-11-28T18:15:00.000-08:00

After dropping off the rental car and checking in for my flight to Birmingham (via Charlotte, North Carolina) I sat in the Columbia airport terminal slumped in my seat, barely being able to keep my eyes open.

I was exhausted. It wasn’t even that early and I was just ready to go back to sleep.

I wasn’t able to sleep on the flight over to Charlotte, nor in the airport waiting for my slightly delayed departure to Birmingham. I arrived into Birmingham and was hardly in the mood to deal with anything except taking a nap in my hotel room.

That’s when I decided to take a taxi to the hotel, rather than just renting a car. This was to be my big mistake of the day.

After getting my luggage, I hailed a taxi and climbed in. My taxi driver, a middle-aged man of Indian origin, asked me if he should take me to the hotel going via stoplights or on the freeway. I told him whatever was fastest—I guess the freeway.

He agreed.

Perhaps was this way of getting me to agree to the longer route. It seemed to take ages to get to the hotel and I noticed a bit of double backing as we turned from one freeway to the next.

The hotel seemed to be in the middle of nowhere!

I was so tired and irritated that I thrust my money at him as I climbed out of the taxi, leaving a mediocre tip. I took my bags and ignored the driver’s insistence that I call him whenever I needed a taxi. I went inside the hotel where I was greeted with warmth and reassurance and was even shown to the elevator (as if I could have gotten lost or something).

I was tired. I was cranky. I needed a nap.

I got into my room and shut the curtains and climbed into bed.

I woke up an hour and a half later, feeling slightly more rested and slightly out of it. You know, that woah, I just took a nap in the middle of the afternoon feeling. I got up, took a shower (much needed after two days of avoiding getting clean) and headed downstairs to seek the “rental car” desk that the hotel boasted. When I found that there was none, I was told that I could call one and they could bring a car to the hotel for me.

So I went back to my room, found the numbers to call and then found the car rental places to be closed. I checked on the internet and discovered that the car rental places that were open were at the airport.

Argh.

So I tired to get a cheaper shuttle to the airport (the hotel doesn’t provide one despite the exorbitant cost to stay here) and I was reluctant to call a cab but had no other option if I wanted to do anything while I was here. I dialed downstairs and asked them to call me a cab. Shortly thereafter I headed downstairs to wait.

As I stood outside a big basketball-type looking guy came out and asked me if I had called a cab. I told him yes, and he proceeded to tell me that he needed to go to the mall. He was about my age (actually a bit younger since it turned out that he was on his college basketball team) and was in town because his such-and-such team had a game against the University of Alabama’s team.

Pretty soon my “cab” pulled up---turned out to be a bright red Lincoln continental. That’s your cab? The basketball guy asked. I smiled and shrugged.

The cabbie was a big black man in his mid fifties. I opened the door to sit in the back and my new basketball friend asked the cab driver if he could take him to the mall. I said it was no problem and the guy jumped in the front seat after the driver moved all of his stuff off of it.

We headed to the mall—wherever it was, surely it was not on the way to the airport—and I became very much amused by my two driving companions. The basketball player guy introduced himself to me (his name I didn’t really catch) and asked me if I had any lotion. When I told him no, the cab driver told him that he might have some in the glove compartment.

So basketball guy looks in the glove compartment (by the amount of junk in the car I would assume that he had to dig to find anything) and I listened to him and the cabbie debate as to whether or not the cocoa butter that he scrounged up in the compartment was lotion or not. Basketball guy kept looking and finally produced some lotion and proceeded to slather it all over his hands.

Then the cab driver put on rap music. Quiet at first, then slowly increasing the volume until my butt was vibrating from the booming of the bass behind me. Both of the guys did that head bopping guy dance thing (you know, that thing) and were clearly enjoying the music. Basketball guy even knew the words, most of which I cannot repeat on here due to profanity. Mostly because I can’t remember them.

We cruised along and pulled up to some stoplights and I thought, how funny this must look to other people. Two big black guys cruising in their continental jamming to the music and, what’s that awkward white girl doing in the back seat?

We cruised along as the two conversed about the music and the taxi driver whipped out several mix cds that he just so happened to have in his car. The basketball guy flipped through them and ended up buying one for “five dallas” from the cabbie. Nice.

We pulled up to the mall, basketball guy got out (saying goodbye to me) and we pulled out of the parking lot. The cabbie turned down the music—in fact, turned it on to STING—and we headed out of the mall towards the airport. Shoot, he says, you know, I just hadda show that guy where its at, you know? He says to me.

I knew. I knew that if basketball guy hadn’t come in the car that I would have not been shown his music. That I would have been driven to the airport in basic silence (or polite conversation) and would have listened to Sting—or perhaps Michael Bolton—the whole way. I knew that once the driver dropped me off he would put his rap back on and cruise back to the hotel, where he would switch back to Yanni and then some. I knew this, and for these reasons, it made me sad.

After a mini tour of downtown Birmingham (driving past it on the way to the airport) the cabbie dropped me off and as I headed into the airport (again) the cabbie shouted, good luck gettin’ back! Shoot—yo’ hotel is in the middle of nowhere, girl!
.
He was right. Luckily I did make it back just fine and spent the rest of the afternoon idling around the hotel and the various shopping plazas nearby, which I was able to explore now that I had a car. Tomorrow I will go to the zoo bright and early to get my pictures. Until then.

2004-11-27T14:39:00.000-08:00

Web link--Riverbanks Zoo and Garden's website

Greenville, South Carolina—Columbia, South Carolina—Day 301

2004-11-27T14:38:00.000-08:00

By the time 10:30am rolled around, I had already woken up, eaten breakfast, checked out of the hotel, got a shuttle back to the airport, rented my car (a red Chevy Monte Carlo!), had driven over 90 miles to Columbia and was pulling up into the Riverbanks Zoo and Garden’s parking lot.

Phew.

I grabbed my gear and headed into the zoo, neglecting to bring my scarf and gloves despite the chilly weather. I bought my ticket and went in and immediately found the hippo viewing area. Despite the fact that there was only one hippo, much to my disappointment, I was excited to see the hippo out of the pool in his enclosure which was rapidly filling up with water. He munched away on some hay in his enclosure with his bottom facing me (never a great picture really!) and so I waited patiently for him to turn around.

After a while, he finally did. I snapped away as the hippo munched some more and as I felt my fingers getting numb from the cold. I was the only one there appreciating the hippo and his presence, and I’d like to think that the hippo appreciated me being there too. As the hippo made his way down his little path to the pool, I got ready to capture the moment of him entering the water.

Click click click.

The hippo immersed himself in the water (luckily this “immersion” was really only knee deep) and I snapped away as the hippo moved towards the waterfall pouring out water onto its back.

Click click click.

My luck ran out with the hippo decided to turn his back on me, move out of my viewing area behind some bushes and go to sleep. At least I had gotten some good pictures of him eating, so I was happy.

I went out to find someone to help me with his name and wandered into the gift shop where I bought hippo Christmas ornaments (tis the season!) and some other zoo souvenirs. I then went out and found a keeper walking by and asked him about the hippos name. After a brief moment to think, he told me “Monty” and agreed that it was sad that there was just one hippo but offered no other information about whether they used to have more.

I thanked him and walked out, double checking with the ticket people on Monty’s name, although none of them seemed to know. Even the volunteer membership guy didn’t know, but he (like the others) claimed that he was “new here.”

I went out back to my car and zoomed off towards—well, I didn’t know. I cruised around downtown Columbia and after finding not much around there to do, I decided to go back to a mall that I had passed on the highway coming down. Since the weather was terrible (rainy and cold) I thought that the best thing would be to take an easy day, check out a movie or something, and find the hotel early.

Most of this happened—except I didn’t find a good movie to see. None of the theaters I found were playing anything decent (of course, just when I want to see a good movie!) and so I spent the afternoon killing time Christmas window shopping and at Barnes and Noble reading all about wildlife photography and getting free samples of egg nog lattes.

When I had had my fill, I then headed to find a hotel to stay in near the airport—I drove almost to the airport and then backtracked to a hotel down the freeway a bit. I checked in, dropped off my stuff, and then after a bit headed out to find a late dinner. My hunger pangs passed as I dined on the all you can eat salad bar at Ruby Tuesday’s as I waited for my dinner to arrive. I ate my “New Orleans Seafood” like there was no tomorrow—then headed back to the hotel, thinking of tomorrow and of the god-awful time I would have to wake up to get the rental car back and to catch my early flight to Birmingham, Alabama.

Tucson, Arizona—Chicago, Illinois—Greenville, South Carolina—Day 300 (THREE HUNDRED!!!)

2004-11-26T14:20:00.000-08:00

My brother Simon and my mom dropped me off at the Tucson International Airport with plenty of time for my 1:42pm departure for Chicago. I said goodbye to them and to Tucson but felt refreshed from a good time back home.

Since I was the only one in the American Airlines line, I didn’t have a problem checking in. The airport buzzed with passengers who did a “stop-over” Thanksgiving like me—in one day, out the next. I went through security (again amused at the almost anal-retentive security staff) and milled through various magazines as I waited for my flight to start boarding.

Now that I have been permanently upgraded to “Group 1” I got to board first and soon we were on our way to Chicago. The flight was fine—I had an entire row to myself and worked non-stop on my Portuguese lessons (muito bem!) before we landed in snowy Chicago at 6pm. I looked outside at the frost on the ground and felt glad that I had spent my holiday in Arizona snow-free.

I then had to wait it out in the Chicago airport for my flight to Greenville, South Carolina! Whohoo! What a place! The only reason I am flying to Greenville was that I could get a frequent flier ticket on American Airlines for Thanksgiving and that was the closest airport (that AA flew to) to Columbia, where the hippos are. So I had to fly to Greenville, then in the morning would rent a car and drive myself to Columbia.

I waited in the small terminal for the “really tiny planes that only go to small airports” after grabbing a salad from some “corner market” store in the airport, noting that it was not a market, nor was it on a corner. We boarded (there was only a “general boarding” call since there was hardly anyone on the plane) and flew to Greenville. Again, the flight was fine (I think I have become permanently immune to flying now) and landed into Greenville/Spartanburg. I located my bags and the courtesy phone to call the hotel to come pick me up. I was happy that the hotel had a shuttle and that it was so near the airport. It was 10pm (8pm Tucson time) and I was ready for bed.

I got to the hotel, checked in and did some emailing before I crashed, knowing that the 6am wake up call would come far too soon.

Tucson, Arizona—Days 296-299

2004-11-25T19:21:00.000-08:00

What more can I say—being with the family, stuffing myself silly with Thanksgiving day comfort foods, sleeping in my HOME, seeing my friends—these past few days have spoiled me rotten. As I contemplate leaving tomorrow for the Columbia Zoo in South Carolina, I have to admit that its going to be a long three weeks out on the road again before Christmas, after having been back home for FIVE DAYS (give or take). Considering I have only been home for three other days since the beginning of this trip, this Thanksgiving break in Tucson was much appreciated. Tomorrow its off to Greenville, South Carolina via Chicago, then I will drive to Columbia on the morning of the 27th to catch the hippos in action there. Until then...

Shreveport, Louisiana—Dallas, Texas—Tucson, Arizona—Day 295

2004-11-21T19:14:00.000-08:00

Ohhh bed bugs.

After sleeping with a little bit more company that I have had lately, I took a shower (which is difficult yet surprisingly manageable when you have no towels) and packed up my stuff into my car. I went to have breakfast which turned out to be this ridiculous mixture of food and people. Shreveport—for all of those who don’t know—appears to be this casino town. The hotel ran a 24 hour shuttle back and forth from all of the casinos in the area. The crowd at breakfast seemed like a mixture of those either going out to gamble for the day or coming in from gabling all night. Plus it was served in this “Chinese” restaurant attached to the hotel which was sketchy just in itself. Luckily the rain that had accompanied me into Shreveport late last night had stopped.

I had breakfast, checked out, and was on my way to the hotel where I passed several other really nice looking hotels. I returned my rental car to a girl who looked no older than 13 (although her heavy makeup was making her a passable 16) and found myself waiting for the earlier flight to Dallas on standby along with two other burly guys. Yay for being a gold member—priority standby! The people at the Shreveport security take themselves very seriously—no reasons why the shouldn’t—but I was really the only person in the security line and they made me take off everything (ok, you know not everything) even though I knew that nothing I had on would make the metal detector go off.

Anyways, I got on the standby flight which was nice. I arrived into Dallas two hours early, and then caught the next flight to Tucson which brought me home two hours early and had me seated next to this crazy dread-locked forest service guy who, like me, was learning Portuguese. We started talking (basically him telling me all about his ridiculous escapades in Brazil) and before I knew it (and after I knew waaaay too much about his personal life, ahem) we had arrived into Tucson. My grandparents (visiting from England) and my dad were there to meet me, although my luggage had another two hours to arrive.

I was home. I was happy. I was tired. No more hippos—at least not for a few days. Not that I can complain—surely I will feel lost with out my four legged companions tomorrow or the next.

Turkey and stuffing will just have to suffice.

2004-11-20T18:51:00.000-08:00

Photo--Map of Louisiana! You can see where I had to drive back and forth!

Monroe, Louisiana—New Orleans, Louisiana—Shreveport, Louisiana—Day 294

2004-11-20T18:44:00.000-08:00

Waking up early again this morning (before 6am), I had a few hours to kill before the zoo was even going to open at 10am. Luckily the hotel had “free internet” in each rooms, so I was able to get some work done on things while I waited for the zoo to open.

I decided that I would start doing some research on the zoos that I would be hitting up on my USA leg of the trip (I only have zoos left in the USA now). I opened up my notes with the lists of zoos that I need to go to and scrolled down the list.

Oh my god.

As my eyes scanned over the “Louisiana” section, I saw the worst thing I could have seen.

“Audubon Nature Institute. 6500 Magazine Street. New Orleans, Louisiana 70178.

NEW ORELEANS?!?!

Are you kidding? Are you telling me that there was a zoo in New Orleans that I MISSED? That I drove RIGHT PAST yesterday on my way to Monroe?

Yes. Its true.

How this happened is unexplainable. I could blame it on all sorts of things—jet lag for instance—but really I think it was just me subconsciously deciding, hey, I like a challenge. I will make things as difficult as possible for Sarah RIGHT before she wants to go home for Thanksgiving. Stress is my favorite thing.

Oh man. So what I would need to do is go to the zoo here in Monroe right when it opened at 10am, photograph the lone hippo there, then book it BACK to New Orleans and get there around three o’clock or so where I would photograph the hippo there, then book it BACK up to Shreveport where, tomorrow, I would drop off the rental car and get my flight to Tucson.

So I killed time on the internet while I anxiously waited for time to pass. By 9:30 I was ready to burst. I called the zoo in New Orleans to confirm the existence of hippos (the person I talked to claimed that they had three!) and I mentally prepared myself for my big day.

After getting my “free” continental breakfast and checking out, I headed to the Louisiana Purchase Gardens and Zoo. I was there before it opened and was, of course, the first person in line. I was standing in line before they even opened the gates. Once they did, I bought my ticket ($4—a deal!) and asked the girl at the ticket booth what the hippos’ names were. She told me that there was just one, and that the hippos name was Penelope.

Great. I ran off (literally) to find Penelope, wherever she was. I didn’t have a map of the zoo but searched around for signs, luckily spotting the hippo sign close to the entrance. I ran past the birds (who called to me “hello!” as I ran past!) and passed a keeper and two teenage girls who looked like they were doing some sort of internship at the zoo.

I found Penelope, eating a huge thing of hay. I snapped a few pics then ran around to the side to get a better view of her.

That’s when the most amazing thing happened to me.

Just as I set down my bag and camera case and got ready wait for Penelope to stop eating (or for me to get a good shot of her), Penelope stopped eating and came RIGHT over to me.

She then proceeded to POSE for me, opening and closing her mouth (I’m assuming that she was expecting food from me) and it was a beautiful moment. As I clicked away, Penelope surveyed me, turned a bit, put her head down, lifted it up, opened her mouth—you know, all of the things that I would ask for from a hippo. Penelope just KNEW.

After about five minutes of modeling, Penelope grew tired of me and the lack of food I was providing her. She turned around and went back to her hay as I shook my head in amazement that THAT actually just happened.

I went to find Penelope’s indoor enclosure and found a ghastly indoor pool behind huge bars. The bars were so that you couldn’t even see the pool clearly at all. It was disgusting. I had no time to spare and dashed out of the zoo as quickly as I came—all this happened in under fifteen minutes—a record for sure.

I got in the rental car and sped off, thanking Penelope for providing me with such fantastic photos. The drive down to New Orleans was fine—rainy at times. In fact, it was pouring with such a strength at one point that I thought I would have to pull over at a rest stop and wait (thus narrowing my chances of getting to the zoo on time) but luckily the rain came and went.

I pulled into the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans with sore feet and a tired, well, everything. I got out and raced to the ticket booth where I got my ticket. It was three o’clock—I had an hour before the animals were “put away” and until five before the zoo officially closed.

Perfect.

I asked a stringy teenage boy directions to the hippos and he told me with great enthusiasm. I made it to the African Safari area as fast as I could (the zoo really wasn’t that small so this was easy) and found just one lone hippo in the enclosure—swimming around in circles over, over and over. I took pictures whenever the hippo came up to breathe (every few minutes or so) and after a while of this I decided to find out the deal about the hippo.

Secretly I was happy that there was just ONE hippo, not three!

So I wandered over to the elephants where the keepers had just finished up a talk to various visitors. I asked two teenage volunteers what the name of the hippo was—and it turned into a huge debate. Several other volunteers (all under the age of 17 practically) came over and there was a great discussion about the hippo’s name. Then they pulled in reinforcements—actual zoo keepers (who were all at least 35) and I got the enthusiastic reply from one of them, Jerry I think was his name. He was quite a character—seemed like the crocodile hunter type—and he proceeded to tell me all about Tony (the male hippo) and Tony’s history—how there used to be another hippo (Rosebud) but that Rosebud passed away after giving birth to a baby, then the baby passed away after refusing to be fed once the mother died. Tony, after surviving his loss, has managed to survive as one of the oldest hippos in captivity and, more miraculously, as the only original animal in the zoo.

While Jerry worked out just exactly how old Tony was (this took quite some time until he settled on the fact that Tony was born in 1952), I jotted down the notes about Tony. Apparently Tony swims in circles all day because he and Rosebud used to be separated on two sides of the enclosure. Now that the enclosure is opened up for both sides to be accessed at once, Tony continues to use just his one side. Poor guy.

I thanked them and headed back to Tony who was doing much of the same thing that he was before. I watched for a bit longer and then wandered over to the Louisiana Swamp exhibit to check out gift shop and the famed white alligator exhibit and then came back to Tony.

I stayed there until closing time—until of which Tony did not do another thing that warranted me taking photos of him. Especially since it was getting very dark with storm clouds rolling in, and because of the horrible mosquitoes that really should go away in November (at least I think so!) I was ready to get out of the zoo. I said goodbye to Tony and headed out of the zoo and hit the road back up to Shreveport.

Funny how the drive back up to Shreveport wasn’t all that bad. I don’t know—maybe I was delirious from the five hours of driving I had done this morning—I don’t know. Somehow I managed to drive all the way back avoiding the rain and not losing my mind either. Nothing was going to stop me from thanksgiving turkey and my mom’s chocolate pecan pie. My only stops were for gas and I pulled into a Renaissance Inn in Shreveport for the night. The hotel turned out to be a skeeeetchy place, complete with rickety beds, no towels, and bed bugs. Yuck. I was so exhausted from the day—and considering it was 11pm when I pulled in—that I cut my losses and turned out the light, hoping that morning would come quickly and feeling happy about going back to Tucson for a much needed break with the family.

2004-11-20T17:59:00.000-08:00

Web Link--Audubon Zoo, New Orleans

2004-11-19T23:56:00.000-08:00

Web Link--Louisiana Purchase Gardens and Zoo

Pittsburg, Pennsylvania—New Orleans, Louisiana—Monroe, Louisiana—Day 293

2004-11-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up bright and early to catch my shuttle to the airport from the hotel. Since it was so early (6:15) there was hardly any traffic and we made it to the airport at 6:45, giving me plenty of time for me to check in and get my 9:20 flight to New Orleans.

The flight to New Orleans was just under three hours and I passed my time reading and trying to master the Portuguese language. We landed in New Orleans and I went to the baggage claim where I collected my bags and headed straight to the car rental desk where I picked up my compact car that would take me five hours north to Monroe.

The man renting me the car was quite a character—big and bushy with those thick plastic glasses straight out of 1985. Because I am just one year shy of 25, they slap on a $25 “under-age” surcharge for renting a car. The woman whom I spoke with on the phone when I made the reservation warned me that I must “have a clean driving record” and I will admit that my record isn’t spot on clean. I was hoping that he wouldn’t discover this and turn me away.

He just typed in my info and after charging my credit card, handed over a rental agreement and sent me on my way to the shuttle bus that would take me to the rental lot, where I could pick “any compact car that I wanted.”

So I went out to the “second curb on the left” and waited for the shuttle to come. It pulled up and I hopped in (ok, hopping is not the right word, I dragged my stuff up the steps into the van and collapsed with heat exhaustion) and we pulled away to the rental lot.

We were soon there and I waited for my compact car to be cleaned, disappointed that I wasn’t able to pick just any car that I wanted. They seemed to be out of cars! So I waited and finally a guy pulled up in a silver Chevy cavalier and handed me the keys.

I was off. I pulled out of the lot and made my way to Interstate 10, which would take me as far north as Lafayette, then I would head north to Monroe.

Heading over the swamp land that makes up the area around New Orleans, through Baton Rouge and on to Lafayette, I was really impressed with the scenery. The fact that these freeways were just built right over the swamps was really something I hadn’t seen before.

I coasted onwards to Lafayette, stopping for a bite to eat at a Subway off of the freeway around noon. I drove on and on, and ended up taking a smaller highway up to Monroe where the speed limit wavered between 30 and 60 miles per hour. It was nice though—stopping at traffic lights and being able to look around. So THIS is Louisiana.

I made it to Monroe around 4:30pm where I actually passed the signs for the zoo. I knew it would be the best thing for me to get a hotel near the zoo and luckily I had quite the selection just down the road. I checked into a Hampton Inn and collapsed on the bed exhausted from my long drive.

I asked the girl when I checked in, who seemed to be just one of those ambiguous people who look like they are just out of high school but on the other hand might be thirty something—you just couldn’t tell. I asked her how I could get to the downtown area of Monroe. She just looked at me.

“Well,” she says, “what part do you want to go to cause there ain’t much there.”

Hmm.

“Well,” I said, “how about a movie theater? Any nearby?”

She nodded and proceeded to give me directions to the nearest theater, which was just off of highway 20.

“You can’t get lost” she told me.

I thanked her and headed to my room where I lied down for a while stretching out my tired feet. Still feeling slightly jet lagged, I could most definitely have gone to bed then but I forced myself to get up. Who knows what god-awful time I would have woken up if I went to bed at 5pm!

So I headed out around 6:30pm to see just what Monroe was made of. I drove on the freeway and exited where the receptionist told me to go—but didn’t find this “easy to find” theater. In fact, I drove all around and all I could see were Wal-Marts and McDonalds. No theaters to be found. I gave up my search and ended up at “Martha’s Catfish Buffet”—this all-you-can-eat buffet place.

I walked in and told the girl standing at the entrance “One please.”

The waiters around her all just kind of smiled and told me to head right in, pay first, find a seat and then the server will help you. So I did this—I went and paid $13 bucks for my dinner and my drink and sat down at a table. I waited for a bit until the server came up to me.

“Honey, are you waitin’ for anyone?”

“Nope.” I smiled.

“Well, shoot, did ya pay? Cause all you gots to do is get your tray over there, get your dinner and then I will bring ya a drink.”

Ohhh, right. I went and got my tray and started helping myself to all sorts of fried fish, fried cheese, fried shrimp, fried potatoes. Everything was fried.

“You aint from here are you?”

I turned around and looked at the man questioning me, who was obviously an employee (I could tell by his bright blue “Martha’s Catfish Buffet” t-shirt). He introduced himself as the owner and I smiled. He asked me where I was from and replied with arched eyebrows when I said Arizona. “Well, how did you end up HERE?” He asked. Rather than explaining, I just told him that I was “passing through.” Satisfied with this answer, he proceeded to show me all the food that I should eat. “Did you get a bit of the fried catfish? How about this baked bit?” I assured him that I was trying the house specialties and thanked him for his help.

Once my plate was full I went and sat down. My waitress brought me my drink and I ate my dinner. Several employees came over to “check on me” while I was eating, just to see if I needed anything else. It was obvious that I was the only non-local there! I finished my dinner and headed out feeling stuffed full of Louisiana food and hospitality. I drove back to the hotel where I ended up falling asleep at 9pm, exhausted from my day.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania--Pittsburg, Pennsylvania—Day 292

2004-11-18T10:01:00.000-08:00

Flying to Pittsburgh (the land of Steel) this morning was fine. My flight was so early (6:30!) that it wasn’t delayed and I was probably the only person on the plane not in a suit. I got my bags in Pittsburgh and a shuttle to my hotel and found the distance from the airport to downtown Pittsburgh quite impressive.

I checked into the hotel and threw my bags down on the bed, noticing the hotel’s offer of “free wireless internet.” So I plugged in my computer and sat down to figure out the Pittsburgh Zoo’s opening hours. Sadly, at this point, it was still before 10am which is when may zoos opened. I had already been up for almost five and a half hours.

So I checked the website and searched for the hippos. When none came up I thought, hmm, this is strange. So I typed it again (afraid of misspellings) and again found nothing regarding hippos. I decided to call and a nice woman at the zoo picked up the phone.

“Hello, I was just wondering how many hippos you had at the zoo” I said (how nice is it to be able to ask JUST what I want!)

“Hippos?” She replied, “We don’t’ have any.”

WHAT?? “Uhh, no hippos, really, are you sure?”

There I was asking the woman, who WORKS at the zoo, are you sure you don’t have hippos? Aren’t you forgetting the most important animal EVER?

“Nope, no hippos, sorry.” The woman sounded apologetic and I thanked her and hung up. What? No hippos?

I checked our hippos database online and sure enough, it suggests that there is one hippo at the Pittsburgh zoo but that must be wrong. Now what was I going to do? I was supposed to have three days here!

After much debate, I contacted the airline and after forty-five minutes on hold (I kid you not) I was able to change my flight to New Orleans (the next hippo stop) to tomorrow instead of killing time in dreary, cold, rainy Pittsburgh. I then sorted out a rental car for the New Orleans zoo (which turns out to be in Monroe, Louisiana NOT New Orleans which is a five-hour DRIVE from where I am flying into—that will be fun!). I then had the sudden realization that there was a slight chance of me being able to go home for Thanksgiving given this new sudden absence of hippos. Sure enough, after another forty-five minutes on hold with several airlines and canceling of hotels, I had a frequent flier flight to Tucson for just a few days over Thanksgiving—something that wouldn’t conflict with the hippos. I would fly out of Shreveport, Louisiana (after dropping the rental car off there on Sunday morning) and be back in South Carolina to Columbia for the hippos there by the following Friday, making both Thanksgiving and “hippo-graphing” possible.

How wonderful! I was thrilled and am so, so looking forward to being at home for the holidays. While South Carolina seems nice (I haven’t been…yet) the idea of spending Thanksgiving at a Denny’s didn’t really sound appealing to me. This was much better.

I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Pittsburgh and impulsively getting my hair cut (always an adventure with me) and reemerged from the hair salon with a passable cut. I am not sure, however, if this is better than my memorable zebra-stripe experience but what can you do after the fact.

I then went back to the hotel, got dinner at a rib place (taking pleasure in the luxuries of barbeque sauce) and went to bed early at the hotel, finally feeling like I could get more than five hours of sleep. Problem was that I still had to wake up early in the morning (5:30) to catch my 9am flight to New Orleans.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—Day 291

2004-11-17T17:58:00.000-08:00

My day in Philadelphia was spent doing great things. I got up and visited my new friends at the UPS store where I shipped home all of the souvenirs-slash-unnecessary accumulations that I have being storing up like some squirrel for the past few months and have yet to part with. Seriously, who needs to be carrying around SEVEN extra books?

With that taken care of I stopped for breakfast at this fabulous little Philadelphia born and bred diner, complete with waitresses with thick East coast accents serving up the daily special like there was nothing else on the menu. Everyone in the place was eating the daily special—the same friend eggs, bacon, toast, fried potatoes, juice and coffee—including me.

After breakfast, I called my friend Annie (whom I met while studying in New Zealand and who now works in Philadelphia) and ended up walking something like twenty-six blocks to meet her. This was entirely my own doing—she was not able to answer her phone while she was at work but I knew that she had her lunch break at noon and that she worked on 30th street. So I started trudging towards 30th, which took me just over a half an hour to get there. It was actually really nice to walk the whole way—the sun was out and the sky was clear—and moreover really interesting to see the changes (economically, socially, culturally, etc.) in Philadelphia the more you approached crossed the river over to the UPenn and Drexel University side of Philadelphia. You have to wonder if the students at UPenn even cross over to the other side of the river unless they are doing urban studies projects.

Anyways, meeting Annie was great. We only have a few minutes to talk since she had to get back to work earlier than she had anticipated. If there is anyone that I have ever met in my life who is truly, truly kind and caring its Annie. She is always just so wonderful to talk to and it was nice to be able to catch up with her for a bit while we strolled around until I dropped her back off at her office at Drexel University where Annie works as an admissions counselor.

After saying goodbye to Annie I wandered over to a place near both campuses for lunch. It turned out to be this “bubble” tea place where they serve you tea with these “bubbles” in them (I have had them before in L.A. called “boba” tea) and they are of Asian influence but are basically these chewy balls of, well, chewy stuff. They are not bad but surprise you when you forget that they are in your drink and then you suck one up. Anyways, I had a good lunch and then wandered around UPenn for a while before taking the subway (ahem, I mean underground tram—there is a difference!) back to City Hall.

I then made my way back to Philadelphia’s national park—the liberty bell and hall of independence. Its quite funny to see park rangers in the middle of the city, but don’t tell them that. They take their jobs very seriously. I visited the bell (which, if you didn’t know, doesn’t ring anymore due to the crack) and the independence hall where our forefathers signed us up for our own country. The park ranger giving the tour (which was free and very interesting—definitely do it if you are in Philadelphia) had all sorts of really interesting factoids all about our nation’s history. He kept quizzing us on different things (“Which president’s wife was named Dolly?” things like that) and it felt almost like back in elementary school where you sat in anticipation, dreading the idea of him calling on you.

On our way to the actual room where the constitution and all the other goods were signed (“the most important room in the USA” by the way) I asked the guide about how long settlers were in the USA before independence. The man just looked at me like I was nuts (I recognized it immediately—it’s the same for when you ask about hippos names…) and told me, “well, what’s the first colony of the USA?”

As I stuttered and stammered and tried to recall my American history (its been almost seven years since I had it but really is no excuse) he told me “Jamestown.” Of course, Jamestown! I remembered immediately as he said it and told me that the colony—the oldest in the USA—was just about to celebrate their 400 year anniversary.

I thanked him but before I got away from being asked any more questions he turned to me, shook his head sadly and said, “Where have YOU been?”

Well, if you really want to know…

2004-11-16T23:54:00.000-08:00

Web Link--The Philalephia Zoo Website

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—Day 290

2004-11-16T17:19:00.000-08:00

It seems fitting that my reintroduction to the US begins in Philadelphia—the place where it all began, where Americans severed their British ties back in the 1700s.

More importantly, its also home to America’s very first zoo, The Philadelphia Zoo.

After a shaky night’s sleep—going to be at midnight and waking up every hour until finally getting up at 5 a.m.—I spent some time poking around on the internet before getting ready to go to the zoo. I finally made my way downstairs to find out the best way for me to get to the zoo.

I asked the woman at the reception. She proceeded to tell me driving directions (all of which I was unable to follow of course) and I had to interrupt her to tell her that I didn’t have a car, but could I walk?

She just started laughing. No way could I walk, but I could take a taxi.

Fair enough. Before heading to the zoo I found a UPS store and sent off the last of my European hippo cds to their respective places and got some breakfast at a Cosi café—ordering my “tall chai tea and vanilla-cherry scone” feeling very American. The ability to just order exactly what I want and not scan the menu for translations is astonishing to me. I sipped on my latte and ate my scone (which, by the way, lacked cherries) feeling on one hand happy to be back in a place where you pay four dollars for a drink but its exactly what you were expecting (except the cherries of course) but on the other hand feeling great sadness for the anonymity I have so cherished the past year. Seriously, its been wonderful to know that you can’t understand people or be understood.

I finished I found a cab. The driver was blasting “Sports Talk Radio” or something of the sort on his radio and the commentators were ferociously debating some touchdown of some game of some team—all of which they were getting quite enraged about. As the cabbie laughed, I sighed and looked out the window again struggling with what I was feeling.

We avoided going on the freeway and drove on side streets to the zoo, passing the infamous Philadelphia Art Museum. Its not necessarily famous for its art—it could be, I didn’t go—but because that is where Sylvester Stallone ran up in the “Rocky” movies. We drove on and twenty dollars later, I was at the zoo entrance.

Handing my twenty and then some to the cab, I couldn’t stop thinking about how expensive it was.

Just under two years ago, I had been right here at the Philadelphia Zoo. I was in New Jersey for my previous job (yes, I did have a life before hippos) and that brought me, my friend Rachel, and the boy that I worked with Jonty to the Philadelphia Zoo for the day. We must have missed the hippos while we were here but it was funny that I was back in Philadelphia twice in just under two years, all just to go to the Philadelphia Zoo. Considering that I hadn’t even been to Philadelphia before—or since then—I thought this was pretty funny.

I went in ($15 dollar entrance fee!) and quickly located the hippos. The day was warming up so they well could have been outside but instead they were to be found in an indoor enclosure despite the sparkling clear pool in their outdoor enclosure looking quite inviting. I went in the hot and humid pachyderm room and pushed my way through school children to get up to the hippos—two of them—who were down on a lower level which was being filled with water. From the hay remnants around them, I couldn’t tell if they had already been fed. It was 10:45 or so at this point (the zoo opened at 10am) so I was worried that I had missed feeding time.

So, as kids and teachers came and went (and as the screams of “ewwww! It SMELLS!” subsided) I took pictures of the two hippos but was anxious for them to start moving around. Luckily, eventually, they did. One hippo was lying down and it got up and started trying to drink the water that was pouring in while the other turned around and looked at me. The whole enclosure had this trippy blue light filtering in through the skylights which were making all of the pictures bluish. Tré Picasso.

Then, to my delight, both hippos turned around and looked at me. I gestured for them to open their mouths and one of them did (that’s my girl!) and I snapped away while the custodian just looked at me laughing. He came up a few times to look over the edge and see what the hippos were doing (and how they were responding to me) and just laughed.

There was a guy who was in the room (which had other animals the further you walked down) who was showing the school children the animals. Finally, when no groups were taking his attention, I walked over and asked him what the hippos names were. He didn’t know, but said that there was someone else I could ask. Just then the hippos started to move more and a keeper appeared through a doorway behind the hippo enclosure.

She came out and put some lettuce and such things on a small gated area that the hippos had to walk up some steps to get to. (It was their entrance to and from the indoor pool). Once she finished, she left through the doorway again, despite my “M’am! M’am!” trying to get her attention. The gate between the enclosure and the pool opened and the hippos rushed into it. The gate then shut again which prevented the hippos from going back into the pool. The hippos began devouring their food (which looked more like just treats to get them out of the pool) while the water pressure into the pool increased and started to fill it up faster.

I snapped away at the two hippos for a while and was delighted to find them looking at me and opening their mouths on my cue. I then saw the woman reappear again and went over to ask her. She seemed to be avoiding me as she moved away from me (again, despite my “hello”) but finally I got in her way.

“Um, what are the names of the hippos?”

“Unna and Cindy” she said shortly.

“Well, what’s the difference between them?”

“Nothing. They are the same,” she replied.

“Okkk, are there ANY differences?” I probed.

“Well, Unna has two white spots between her eyes. That’s it.” she replied as she quickly walked off, leaving me unable to ask any more questions.

So I went back to the hippos and sure enough, Unna had two white spots between her eyes. Thank goodness—I don’t know what I would have done. Find another rude keeper?

So I filled up my memory card with pics of the two hippos (250+ pictures) and as my battery began to run out, I said goodbye to the pair and went outside to take pictures of their outdoor enclosure and of zoo signs, stopping at the shop on the way out.

I asked the two ticket taking girls about how I could get back into the city.

“Well, what part of the city are you going to?” one asked me.

“uhhh, I don’t know. The main part?” I replied, making an apologetic “I-don’t-live-here” look.

“Well, shoot,” she says as she surveyed me up and down. She starts going off on where I could go—taking bus number such and such here, then transfer there, or take bus number yadda-yadda and then transfer here.

I told her to tell me whatever was easiest.

She nodded and told me, “Ok, walk under the bridge and take the #15 to Broad street. Buy a transfer on the bus and that will get you on the subway at Broad street. You can take the subway in to City Hall.”

I thanked them and headed under the bridge where I found the bus stop and a nice girl who told me how much the bus cost.

“It’ll be $2.60 for the ride and a transfer.”

Two-SIXTY? Geesh!

So the bus finally came and I got on. It was so packed and I had no idea where I was supposed to get off. Luckily the girl whom I asked before was keeping an eye on me and after about twenty minutes she told me that the next stop was mine. She got off too and showed me where the subway was. Then a nice guy—a skater type who was munching on a hot dog—showed me which train to catch into the city.

I stepped out of Philadelphia’s City Hall station feeling grateful for the kindness of strangers. I spent the afternoon walking around the city, making my way back to my hotel on 4th and Chestnut. Passing the liberty bell and all of the historical landmarks, I promised myself that I would be a tourist tomorrow. After catching a movie near my hotel (another guilty pleasure of being back in the USA—I saw a film in Spanish though which is kind of ironic!) and had dinner at the Sassafras Café down the road. Tomorrow its another day in Philly and then I head to Pittsburgh on Thursday.

Hippo Porcelain

2004-11-16T15:35:00.000-08:00

Here are several pictures of the hippos along with the pieces of the Fauna Danica Hippo Service that have already been completed! Enjoy!

2004-11-16T15:03:00.001-08:00

Photo--Susie (Adelaide Zoo)

2004-11-16T15:03:00.000-08:00

Photo--Susie on Porcelain

2004-11-16T15:01:00.001-08:00

Photo--Taipei Hippos (Taipei Zoo)

2004-11-16T15:01:00.000-08:00

Photo--Taipei Hippos on Porcelain

2004-11-16T15:00:00.000-08:00

Photo--Jiro (Tokyo Zoo)

2004-11-16T14:58:00.000-08:00

Photo--Jiro on Porcelain

2004-11-16T14:52:00.000-08:00

Photo--Carlita and Orejitas (Guatemala Zoo)

2004-11-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

Photo--Carlita and Orejitas on Porcelain

Barcelona, Spain—Madrid, Spain—Miami, Florida—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—Day 289

2004-11-15T18:02:00.000-08:00

After almost twenty four hours of traveling—taxis to planes, to more planes to taxis—I made it to Philadelphia. For the most part, my time spent traveling across the two continents was pleasant. I had a nice flight from Barcelona to Madrid (albeit a little too early in the morning for my liking) and then fly from Madrid to Miami.

I had quite the ordeal going through customs in Madrid—not when I checked my bags in Barcelona, but boarding the flight to Madrid. I arrived to the airport and had a few hours to kill before the flight to Miami would leave. So I wandered around the airport (my third time this year!) and attempted to go into the Iberian Airlines frequent traveler club, only to be refused. The woman told me, “sorry, we don’t accept gold members, only platinum.” Its funny because after all of this traveling (and after all of the frequent flier miles I’ve accumulated) its become sort of my secret goal (one I only think about when I occasionally check my airline points online) is to become a platinum member. After these flights today I just over 1,000 miles short of making it.

Feeling rejected (but determined to come back someday and use the lounge—I’ll show them!) I killed my time reading magazines before my flight began to board. This is when I was pulled aside and made to wait for quite some time until I was thoroughly interrogated as to where I was going and where I came from.

People that work at airlines don’t like those passengers who live in one place but fly from another. The girl asked me, “so, where do you live?” I said “Arizona” So she says, “where did you fly to Europe from” and I said “Toledo, Ohio.” While this was true, she didn’t appreciate it and got more suspicious. Luckily I had my rail pass with me (after she asked me how I traveled all around Europe) so I was able to show her proof of my adventures (I didn’t mention the hippos…I don’t think that would have helped me in this case).

Satisfied, she sent me on my way to the plane and ten hours, two movies, five failed attempts to use my laptop on the plane and two meals later, I was in Miami where I would remain for the next 5 hours until my flight to Philadelphia. The guy sitting next to me and I had quite the time trying to get my laptop adapter to work. He was really nice and offered for me to use his (“if it breaks, it’s the company’s problem not mine!”) but we found that even using his mine wasn’t working. It’s a mystery really why it didn’t work—something that I will leave up to my computer savvy brother to explain to me later.

First thing I did upon my arrival in Miami (after getting lost on my way to the correct terminal after customs—the customs guy was really nice—he told me after looking at my customs form, “I don’t even want to KNOW where you’ve been!” which was like the best thing he could have possibly said) was finding a calling card to call my family and loved ones abroad. This turned into a two hour fiasco of broken pay phones and money-stealing calling cards. However, when things finally worked I was able to let everyone know that I had made it safely back to the States.

I then found my gate (at first I was so early to the airport that I didn’t even have a gate!) and plugged in my laptop to charge the battery (which had since died on the flight from Madrid). I then boarded my late night flight to Philly (late night for me—it was like 2 a.m. Spain time!) and I faded in and out of consciousness the whole flight back only woken up with the girls around me passed Doritos and Oreos back and forth. Since I was on the isle, and they were all sitting around me, I often had to wake up to pass their goodies to and fro. They did offer me some but the idea of Doritos wasn’t sounding too good just then.

I landed in Philadelphia and got a thirty dollar cab right to my hotel. Thirty dollars! I thought he would ask for my arm AND my leg as a tip!

Welcome to the United States…

Barcelona, Spain—Day 288

2004-11-14T06:27:00.000-08:00

I woke up early this morning and headed to the hippos. This meant walking a few blocks from my hotel to the closest metro station. Since it was Sunday morning, the metro was running slow so I had to wait six full minutes before a metro car pulled up to whisk me away to the zoo.

I made it though and bought my ticket and it appeared that I was one of the first people at the zoo. The Barcelona Zoo is famous for having the world’s only known albino gorilla, “Copito de Nieve” (which means “Snowflake” in English and “Floquet de Neu” in Catalan). I was excited to see him and the hippos.

First things first: I went and found the hippos.

There were two hippos in a small enclosure just as you walked up to the Pachyderm exhibit, which was a circular enclosure that you walked around and were able to see the elephants, rhinoceroses and hippos on your trip around. The two hippos were basking in the sun—one hippo out of the water and comically perched on the edge of the pool, the other in the water. Unfortunately the sun was just so that there was this huge shadow being cast on the hippo out of the water, making it difficult to photograph.

I took a few photos before finding the other hippos, located on the upper portion of the walkway. There were two hippos in there as well—seemingly a mother and a bigger baby—and they were sleeping next to each other in the water. I couldn’t tell which pair of hippos had the best (or rather worse) living arrangements.

So I took a few pictures of them too and went back to the first set of hippos. After quite some time, probably an hour or so, I decided to find a keeper to help me. Just as I thought this and turned to look for someone, I saw a man walking towards the hippos. I casually went over by the meerkats (the entrance to the keeper area) but just missed him and felt silly for some reason to call after him. So, like a groupie who wants an autograph, I waited while I watched the meerkats watch me. Finally a different keeper came out so I asked him what the hippos names were. HE told me that he didn’t know and that he worked with the lions. I couldn’t understand if he was telling me whether or not the person that worked with the hippos was actually working today (he was telling me something of the sort) but just smiled and nodded along.

Thankfully he went inside to find someone who could help me. Or at least he disappeared and came back with another keeper who seemed to work with the hippos. He told me their names—Rita, Gorda, Komtu and uh, uh, uh, forgot the last one. HE couldn’t tell me who was who, just that Gorda and Rita were the mothers.

Great.

But again, luck was on my side. He went off on his bike and magically returned with another keeper who knew just what was up. Turned out that Gorda (the mother) and Komtu (the baby) were in the first enclosure (with Komtu being the one out of the water) and Rita (the mother) and MARIA (the baby) were in the second enclosure.

Thank you.

So then it was their turn to ask questions about WHY I wanted to know. I tried my best to explain and they just laughed and shook their heads at me before waving goodbye and heading back to their jobs.

I stayed with Gorda and Komtu for quite some time and luckily the keeper went in and made all sorts of rustling noises from behind the enclosure which got the hippos excited and moving about. Click click click.

The keeper came out with a hose and started spraying the hippos. Click click click.

Then the keeper went and got some hay and set it out for the hippos who happily started munching away on it. Click click CLICK.

Once I was satisfied with my photos of Gorda and Komtu (after they had devoured the hay and Komtu had retreated back to the pool while Gorda sniffed around for more food—eventually settling herself down near the keeper’s entrance in hopes of more food) I went to check on Rita and Maria. Same old story—they hadn’t moved.

Took this time to go find Snowflake in the gorilla section. I found the gorillas, but no snowflake, only photos of him. Turned out that Snowflake died last year, so now, there is no Snowflake! I immediately felt bad for the zoo—obviously Snowflake was their pride and joy, what were they going to boast now?

I went back to Rita and Maria and found that they had moved. So I waited and waited and found the crowds for a good spot (who seem to gather the moment something good is JUST about to happen) and got some great photos of Maria moving all about and showing her big teeth (really they weren’t that big since she was small, but don’t tell her that). Anyways, I got my photos and decided to head out of the zoo.

The zoos’ loss for Snowflake was felt in the gift shop, which I visited on my way out. Hoards of postcards, stuffed animals, lunch boxes—you name it—filled the shelves all depicting Snowflake. I wonder if children would still buy this memorabilia even though they hadn’t even see the animal at the zoo today—if parents would buy it out of memory for the beloved Snowflake. It would certainly seem that the zoo would be anxious to sell off truckloads of Snowflake stuff before the memory fades.

I went back on the subway and took it to a sort of hip area of the city, La Ribera, where I visited the Picasso Museum and had some lunch. I then headed up to Las Ramblas where I walked around for a bit, bringing back memories of being here just a few weeks ago with Elizabeth on our weekend away, and feeling quite sad about the idea of having to leave. It was the weather that was dragging me back to my hotel rather than my urge to get some work done (getting the last of the European hippo cds done before boarding the plane in the morning) so I went back to the hotel and worked until the last hippo photo was burned onto a cd.

By this time it was past 9 o’clock. I was starving. I set out again on a search for a restaurant near my hotel but came up with the same place I ate at last night (too embarrassed to make a repeat performance) and a local small bar filled with smoke and old men (too wimpy to suck it up and watch sports with them). I finally settled (after about a half hours’ walk) on a different Asian place for dinner just for the sake of it. I was tired and had a lot on my mind considering my departure in the morning.

I went back to the hotel and packed my bags, set my wake up call (5am!) and booked my taxi.

Do I really have to go back?

Valencia, Spain—Barcelona, Spain—Day 287

2004-11-13T05:30:00.000-08:00

After having quite some difficulty getting myself to bed last night (in my stupor I knocked over a glass which shattered all over the floor which I recognized to be a bad thing and proceeded to put my boots on and stomp around the room instead of cleaning it up first), I woke up this morning bright and early, although I wasn’t feeling too bright myself.

Unable to go back to sleep, I cleaned up the reminder of last night’s broken glass and got ready to go back to the zoo. This time I caught the bus like I intended on doing yesterday and soon was at the entrance to the zoo. Luckily there was a new woman working at the desk of the entrance booth so I didn’t have to deal with the “weren’t you here yesterday” looks I am so used to getting.

Unfortunately Rigas and Ralf were not in the best performance mood this morning. In fact you could hardly see them and they barely got their noses out of the water. I waited for quite some time before deciding that I wasn’t going to get any new material this morning and that I needed to get to Barcelona.

So after going to the bookstore and buying a book on the history of the zoo (probably being the only person who has EVER bought the book by the looks on the girls face when I picked it out), I tried to find the bus back to the hotel. Yeah right! You would think that there would be a stop right across the street from the one that dropped me off, but no that would be too easy.

So despite the increasing heat of the day (which was a lovely day but my boots and jeans were too much) I trudged back to the hotel. I made it to the street that the hotel was on before finding the right bus stop and finally rode it back to the hotel, even if it was only one stop dammit.

I then called up Leyre and Jonathan who, in last nights fiascos, had offered to take me out to a late brunch. Surprisingly they were up and offered to pick me up at the zoo but then after I explained to them that I wasn’t at the zoo, we planned to meet again at the hotel.

Since I had already checked out, I waited in the lobby for them to arrive. This time they came in Leyre’s car (not a BMW but a nice Jetta) and greeted me with enthusiasm. We headed to a local old winery place which one never would have known about if you weren’t from Valencia and dined on tapas and an entire bottle of wine.

Wine for breakfast? In those memorable words of Jonathan, “Why not?”

So after drinking myself silly again (its seemed that a majority of my time in Valencia was spent feeling quite happily buzzed) Jonathan and Leyre drove me around Valencia so that I could see the beaches (I was impressed) and then finally dropped me off at the train station. I said goodbye to them and we agreed to meet up again the “next time I was in Valencia” so that they could show me the best paella restaurants. I can’t wait.

So I went inside and after waiting for a ridiculously long time I finally bought a reservation to Barcelona. My train didn’t leave for another hour so I passed the time making phone calls and becoming sober. Finally it was time for my train and I went through security and boarded, finding a nice old couple in my seats. So I chose the seat behind them and spent the entire ride trying to read (failing to do so), trying to watch the movie on the TVs (falling asleep RIGHT at the end—basically I have seen the entire movie and missed the crucial ending so I have no idea what happens) and trying to listen to music (this wasn’t hard—I didn’t fail at this).

I made it to Barcelona (yay!) and took a taxi to my hotel where I checked in and then went in search of dinner. Ending up at an Asian food place (my cravings for sushi outweigh my insistence for Spanish food) and collapsed back at the hotel. I have one day in Barcelona tomorrow then its off to the States. I don’t even want to think about it.

Valencia, Spain—Day 286

2004-11-12T21:20:00.000-08:00

After spending a few days off of the hippo course by backtracking to Portugal, I made my way to Valencia. This meant taking the night train from Lisbon to Madrid which all in all something I don’t mind at all. I actually like night trains because you can do so much traveling all while you are asleep. So the ten hour train ride passed quickly while I was only subconsciously aware of the rocking motion of the train. Every so often I would wake up feeling the train curve and bend along the tracks with that feeling of impending derailment. Fortunately I made it to Madrid with a restful nights sleep behind me and a new friend Leyre who I met in my cabin that I shared with three other women including her.

Leyre was from Valencia and had also been in Lisbon on business. We actually didn’t talk until we both got ready to get off of the train when she asked me where I was going. When I told her Valencia, she said that she was going there too and so I decided that it would be in my best interest to follow her through the train station to the next train.

This was a great thing because without Leyre’s help, I would have been totally lost. The Madrid train station (yes, the one that attacked in February) was very complex and we had to move from the international train station to the domestic one, almost like an airport. After getting our things through the international turn stalls and heading towards the domestic trains, we realized that we had just missed the next train to Valencia and would have to wait another hour and a half to catch the one after that.

So Leyre asked if I wanted to join her for a coffee—sure, why not? So we sat down and after I managed to spill HER orange juice all over HER croissant (she waved off my embarrassed apologies) we settled down and had a nice talk about life in Spain and the USA. Turns out that Leyre works for Wal-Mart—the ultimate American company. It was fascinating listening to her talk about it and their company policies—I would later find out that Wal-Mart executive employees cannot accept ANY free gifts at all—like if they are visiting a client that they might potentially going to buy from the Wal-Mart employee has to pay for the taxi and for their own meals, even when the clients are trying to impress them. They cannot even get frequent flier miles! Anyways, we had a good talk and Leyre invited me to go out with her and her friends tonight for dinner and a concert. She sympathized with my situation—being in a city all alone just for one night—and said that her friends wouldn’t mind me coming along.

Great! We exchanged numbers (ok, I gave her my hotel number) and made our way to the waiting area for the train where we soon boarded. I say “boarded” here because that is what it was really like since it was much more like an airport than a train station with heavy security.

Leyre had suggested that I get a reservation for the train which was a good move since the train was almost full and I wouldn’t have been guaranteed a seat if I hadn’t gotten a reservation. Since our seats weren’t next to each other, I spent the three hour train ride listening to music and trying to read while slightly paying attention to the Robert DeNiro movie on the TV screen above me. The train was very plush and comfy but it still felt like an eternity to get to Valencia.

We finally arrived and by 4 p.m. I had said goodbye to Leyre and gotten a taxi to the hotel where I checked in and set about getting to the zoo before it closed. According to the zoo’s website, it closed “at sunset” but I was skeptical of this since it is now winter and that didn’t mean that I had oodles of time to get to the zoo. So I inquired about getting a bus to the zoo but then while waiting for the bus I got impatient and hailed a taxi which dropped me off at the entrance to the park where the zoo was located.

Now I had heard several things about the Valencia zoo before I visited—actually I had heard just ONE thing several times. Leyre told me, the woman at the hotel told me, and the man in the park whom I stopped to ask for directions to the zoo.

“The Zoo?” he says, “Why do you want to go THERE? Its so small!! Don’t go there, go to the Aquarium instead.”

All three told me that I a) shouldn’t go to the zoo; b) the zoo was small; and c) I should go to the Aquarium.

Well, hippos do love water but I don’t think that I would find them at the aquarium. Leyre seemed surprised that there were even hippos AT the zoo since it was “so small.”

Well well, how small could this zoo be then?

I made it to the zoo, bought my ticket and discovered just what they meant.

Valencia Zoo is the world’s smallest zoo.

Ok, this might not be fact, BUT based on the animals that it had (lions, zebras, hippos, rhinoceros, gorillas, giraffes, its own aquarium…etc) it was SO SMALL. I walked right in and there were the hippos RIGHT there. I took note of the hippos (2 of them) and then went to see how small the zoo was. You could stand at one end of it and see the other end. It was tiny! Yet in such a small place there were all sorts of wild animals.

No good. I mean, I have seen a lot of zoos. A lot of them. And I still go back and forth on what I think about them—are they inherently good? Bad? Its like a daily debate that I go through every time I visit another zoo. Well, the Valencia zoo, while it makes attempts to be quaint and nice, is really a sad place.

So I started to take pictures of the hippos as they moved around in their tiny enclosure. There were two of them—one huge male (again easily defined by his dung spraying) and the smaller female who preferred to swim around in circles with a tree branch on her head (quite endearing really—I don’t think she realized how silly she looked) while the male showed me who was the shit.

Sorry, bad pun.

And sorry again for swearing.

Heehee.

Ok, anyways, the hippos were doing their thing while I took pictures—I even got the occasional “look at me I am going to get out of the water—oh wait never mind” tease that hippos like to play with me. The weather was getting increasingly worse as storm clouds gathered and rain began to sprinkle down. Since I was the only person in the zoo, I decided to make friends with the woman at the ticket counter and inquire about the hippos’ names. She didn’t know and wasn’t of much help. The keeper wasn’t around (I laughed since of course, THE keeper—there is probably only ONE!) and so I went to ask the girl in the gift shop who was closing up for the night.

She thought I was nuts but agreed to ask someone for me. Who else could there be? There was no one here!

She went to the ticket lady and said she was going to call someone to ask. So I waited while my two new acquaintances figured out the hippo’s names. Ralf (the massive male) and Rigas (the slightly smaller female). I thanked them and ignored their questioning looks and went back to the hippos where I took a few more pictures before deciding that I couldn’t stand in the rain any longer and would have to come back in the morning when the light was better.

So I left and ended up walking over to the cathedral of Valencia by a long, round about sort of way. The train was letting up so the walk wasn’t bad even though I didn’t have an umbrella. I didn’t really know where I was going but just sort of wandered. I figured it was too early for me to go back to the hotel to wait to meet up with Leyre (she was going to call me at 9pm) and I wanted to see downtown Valencia.

Valencia is a beautiful city—with a gorgeous cathedral that I poked around and nice small streets that can take you all around in circles if you want them to. I had a nice time walking around and trying to find a place to eat. I eventually settled on a semi-chain type of place and got a huge tuna sandwich, juice AND a big bowl of yogurt and fruit. The waiter taking my order joked, “are you sure you don’t want anything else?” which made me laugh.

I then headed back to the hotel after walking for quite a while through the Pl. Ayuntamiento and ending up at the train station (again) where I decided to just get a taxi back to the hotel. I then got ready to meet my new friend Leyre at the hotel. She called me at 9pm and we planned to meet at the hotel lobby at 9:30.

At 9:35pm I was standing outside the hotel (so that she didn’t have to get out of the car) and up pulled this BMW with Leyre and presumably her boyfriend in it. I smiled and got in and we zoomed off as I was introduced to Leyre’s boyfriend Jonathan. The stats on Jonathan: his mother is Scottish, Dad Spanish, so he was born in Scotland but few up in Spain. Basically he looks like this crazy Scottish guy (who you would instantly think didn’t speak a word of Spanish) who of course has this brilliant Spanish accent and fires back in the Valencian rendition of Spanish to anyone who will speak with him. My first impressions (and the ones I continue to hold) were who IS this guy?

To sum up the night, I had a blast. Who would have thought I would be partying in Valencia with these crazy people! They made me talk to their friend over Jonathan’s BMW speaker phone and I had a feeling that my night wasn’t going to be an early one. We first went back to Leyre’s apartment for a bit (and a beer) and then headed to meet up with the rest of their friends (who were strangely all men and just one other girl besides Leyre and me).

I could tell right away WHY there were just guys there—they were on the prowl. One in particular seemed set on winning over a lady that night which just so happened to be me since I was the only other lady. His efforts were brushed off as I reminded him that I had a boyfriend. The night was ridiculous and really fun though—we ended up dancing until the wee hours of the morning which was accomplished by having one too many gin and tonics, which, I might say, make my Spanish a force not to reckon with. Even the Spaniards were impressed.

Seville, Spain—Jerez de la Frontera, Spain—Malaga, Spain—Estepona, Spain—Seville, Spain--Day 280

2004-11-06T06:47:00.000-08:00

Today Pedro offered to drive me back to the Jerez zoo instead of me having to take the train. This didn’t sound like such a bad idea to me so we met up and headed off to Jerez early in the morning. Driving there proved to be much more efficient than taking the train and between the two of us trying to figure out where we were, we were able to follow the “zoologico” signs and make it to the zoo pretty quickly. I thought for sure we would end up driving around Jerez lost but luckily we had good fortune on our sides.

In fact, we figured that at the rate we were going we decided that we could also drive to the Malaga Zoo today (about 2 hours from Jerez) which would help me get two zoos done in one day. Although it was a stretch, it definitely seemed like a good idea to get the zoo done with Pedro around to help drive instead of me having to take the train.

So we parked in this dirt parking lot next to the zoo and headed in straight to the hippos who we found to be sleeping right in the most inconvenient spot for me to take pictures of them. Since you had to look down into their enclosure on to the hippos, you couldn’t see entirely straight down below you. If you sort of craned out your next you could somewhat see. Well the hippos had their heads RIGHT in that area where you couldn’t get decent photos of their heads. You got their bodies all right but their heads were just out of view. I strained and put my camera over the edge (with a slight feeling that I would drop it onto them!) and tried my best to get some decent shots of them.

So we started calling to them. Being Spanish hippos, we tried our best to sound as Spanish as we could to get them out of the corner.

It was no use—they seemed to be sleeping and there were no keepers in sight. We would have to wait a bit for the hippos to move and I kept my fingers crossed that they would.

Luckily we didn’t have to wait too long.

With a bit of heaving, they both got up and wandered over to their caged area that they were in the other day most likely in search of food bits left from their morning’s breakfast. I snapped away as the hippos moved around feeling both relieved that I was able to get the photos without having to seek out a keeper and happy that we didn’t have to wait that long for them to move.

The walked around their enclosure for a few minutes before settling back down in the corner again. Satisfied with my photos, Pedro and I headed out of the zoo with the Malaga zoo in sight.

After stopping for a coffee and ice cream (necessities really when you are hippo photographing) we set off towards Malaga, deciding to take the easiest most direct route there. With some confusion and roundabout navigation, we made it out of Jerez and on the highway towards Granada where we would head towards before taking a detour towards Malaga in a few hours.

How great it was to be driving! I told Pedro all about my adventures in France driving around and was so glad that he could drive and I could map read, and not me having to do both at once. Plus driving in the Spanish countryside was so beautiful and I was happy to be able to get a view of Spain that you cannot see while you are just sitting on the train.

We drove through the hills and passed stunning whitewashed villages on our way to Malaga. Malaga, according to my guidebook, is not only the birthplace of Picasso and the largest Andalucian city on the coast. The afternoon wore on and we kept driving and we seemed to be making great time. At the rate we were going, we were going to make it to Malaga around 4 p.m. This would hopefully give us an hour at the zoo there to get the hippo pictures. I was really hoping that our spontaneous plan to get both zoos done in one day would work.

We arrived into Malaga and of course had no idea where the zoo was. We drove around for a bit, hoping to find signs that we could follow. No luck. While Pedro went and asked for directions to the zoo I sat in the car trying to rack my brain to remember if the zoo was actually IN Malaga.

Pedro returned and smiled. “There is no zoo in Malaga.”

Oh man. I KNEW that the zoo was SOMEWHERE near Malaga, but ok, if it wasn’t IN Malaga, then where was it?

We parked the car and got out to find someone to help us. The parking man told us that there was a tourist information place nearby so we raced over there and asked them where the zoo was. They said that there was no zoo in Malaga (we already knew that!) and offered to us another city where there was a zoo nearby.

Pedro suggested that we just get in the car and drive to the zoo but I wasn’t so sure. We decided that it would be best to find an Internet café and check the online database (the one that my whole trip has been planned around) to see where the zoo was.

So after a bit of frantic walking we found the internet café and I googled the website and after a bit of searching found the zoo which was located in Estepona, Spain, about forty-five minutes away. We wrote down the address, went back to the information desk and they gave us a clear map of how to get to Estepona from Malaga.

We jumped back into the car (it was going on 4:15 now) and drove off in the direction of Marabella (a famous resort town) that is just before Estepona.

Oh man, I was certain that we were not going to make it. Considering I had no sure idea about when the zoo was going to close (now that it is winter some zoos even close at 4pm!) I was hoping that we wouldn’t be stranded in Estepona overnight.

We sped away and I checked and double-checked that we were going in the right direction. There were two freeways that we could have taken and I wasn’t even sure if we were going on the fastest one. Please be open zoo!!

We finally made it into Estepona and immediately saw signs for the zoo. We followed them up to the driveway leading into the zoo and as Pedro pulled the car into the parking lot I got ready to jump out.

It was 5 o’clock.

I rushed up to the ticket booth and asked for two tickets please. The woman smiled and told me that the zoo closes at 6 pm (YES!!!) but that you have to take special trams up to the top of the zoo and then walk back down, and that the trams stop running at 5pm (NO!!!)

Dang it! We had just missed the last tram for sure. The woman offered that we could go into the walking area of the zoo by the entrance where there weren’t all of the animals. So I asked her where the hippos were.

“Hippos? There aren’t any hippos.”

I looked at Pedro and just started laughing. What? No hippos?

She told me that they used to have hippos—2 years ago—but they have since been relocated. I asked where the hippos went and she was unable to tell me but suggested that we come back tomorrow when the zoo opened to see the other animals.

We thanked her and walked back to the car laughing.

After all that there were no hippos.

Seville, Spain—Jerez de la Frontera, Spain—Seville, Spain—Day 278

2004-11-04T06:46:00.000-08:00

Today I woke up early and got ready to go to the zoo in Jerez de la Frontera, which is an hour away from Seville via train. Waking up at the hostel early, I decided to skip the shower and head straight to the train station so that I could catch my nine o’clock train to Jerez. Since I had inquired yesterday at the Tourist Information center near the Cathedral as to how to get to the train station, I set out walking to the bus stop that I needed to catch the bus at. However, on my way there, I realized that at the rate I was going, I was going to miss my train. So I hopped in a taxi and we set off to the train station. It was lucky that I did this because fifteen minutes later I was at the train station and I had about five minutes to find my train and board before it left.

So I found my train and rode down the escalator to my platform (the escalator being one of those ones that are more like moving walkways but that are at inclines so that you can bring your luggage carts, strollers, wheelchairs, etc. down them. In front of me I had this woman who had her huge luggage on an equally huge luggage cart that was taking up the entire escalator. I couldn’t get passed her which was making me anxious about missing my train. That would be my luck—watching the train leave just as I am approaching it. She seemed in no hurry to get to the platform (her train was the one opposite mine that still had ten minutes before it left) and so I had to grin and bear it as we slooooowly made our way down. Unfortunately there weren’t steps that I could have raced down instead so I had to wait for her to get off before I could dash onto the train.

I did just this and the train doors closed just before I found a seat and sat down.

The train started off towards Jerez and I spent the hour on the train trying not to fall asleep. The past two nights at the hostel haven’t been the greatest in terms of sleep so I felt tired and my body cranky. So I tried to focus on my book to pass the time, which didn’t work. I eventually gave up trying to read, dozing on and off before we finally made it to Jerez.

I got off and went straight out of the train station, having no real idea how big Jerez was or how I would get to the zoo. I went straight to the taxi stand (I have learned my lesson about missing taxis—although I have to say that I am better off here since I can speak Spanish) and go the next taxi that pulled up to take me to the zoo.

My taxi driver was really nice—he was really interested in the fact that I was from the USA and wanted to know all about Miami, Florida. He seemed disappointed that I personally wasn’t from Miami—the “place that was always summer” he kept saying. “Is it true—is it ALWAYS summer there?” I tried to tell him about Arizona and the fact that its also always “summer” there (or at least hot) but he wasn’t as interested in Arizona despite my boasting about Arizona NOT having humidity.

We made it to the zoo and he dropped me off and I headed in. I bought my ticket but was unable to locate a map of the zoo so I just started to wander in the general direction of where I thought hippos might be. There were no signs for the hippos, only for elephants and giraffes and a few other animals. I followed the elephant signs keeping my fingers crossed that there would be the hippos near them.

I was the only person in the zoo besides a huge group of American school children. It was so bizarre—they were clearly NOT from Spain and running all around the zoo with their teachers on a field trip shouting to the animals and causing the general ruckus that school children do at zoos, but of course all in English. It was completely weird to be in a small zoo in a smallish city with this huge group of Americans around. I didn’t ask where they were from—or why on earth they were at the zoo—but did stop three mischievous looking, pre-pubescent 12 year olds and asked them where the hippos were. The boys were really happy to help me out and all of them gave me enthusiastic directions to the hippos.

“They’re over there!”

“By the llamas!”

“Up the steps!”

From their directions, I could figure out pretty much where the hippos were. The boys told me that the hippos were hard to see because “they were in a cage”. I thanked them and headed to the hippos to see just what this “cage” entailed.

The boys were right. They WERE in a cage. The hippo enclosure was set up so that you could look down onto the hippos below you. There was a caged area set up on the right side of the enclosure which shut the hippos off from their pool and the dirt area next to it. The hippos seemed to be finishing up their breakfast but it was hard to see them through the bars. One hippo finished and stood for a long time looking with that longing “let me out” stance (yes, I know it when I see it) while the other continued to munch on the remnants of what remained in the caged area. Finally the first hippo gave up and laid down on the floor while the other hippo finished up.

A few minutes later (ok, probably about 30 minutes later) the keeper finally showed up. I was anxious for the hippos to be let out and to get their names—and I am sure the hippos were as equally anxious to be let out into the open area. I got my camera ready and watched as the keeper entered the enclosure.

Only he didn’t let the hippos out. Instead he started to clean some hippo dung off of the walls of the enclosure. The hippos watched with great interest and moved around from one end of the caged area to the other as the keeper moved around the enclosure. I am sure the male hippo was thinking “Hey! That took a lot of effort on my part and now you are washing it OFF!?!”

So I watched this for a bit and watched the keeper get the hose and start filling up the enclosure with water, spraying both hippos a little as they opened their mouths to drink the water.

A woman and her child came up to the hippos as she shouted down to the keeper, asking him what time the hippos were going to be let out. He told her that they weren’t going to be let out until such and such a time. I had a hard time following their conversation, but I was able to get this much from it. Hmmm, maybe I should have asked in the first place!

So I walked down to the entrance of the keepers’ area and went to ask him myself about the hippos. Turned out that the hippos were not going to be let out at all today, let alone this afternoon, and that I would have to come back in the morning to see them. On top of that, the hippos didn’t have names! I asked him and he shook his head with a smile (probably thinking what the heck is this girl up to—she just watched me clean the hippo enclosure for 45 minutes and now she wants to know their names) and told me that the tiger had a name, but not the hippos…they’re just hippos!

I thanked him for his help and bid adieu to the no-named hippos. I headed out of the zoo and stopped at the gift shop on my way out where a man smoking a huge cigarette sold me a small zoo key chain and some postcards of the zoo. I then asked for directions on how to get back to the city center from the ticket man and was soon heading down the street, following his directions “to the big church, take a left and walk 10 minutes.”

I did just this and ended up in the city center—or at least what seemed to be the city center based on all of the shops and people around. I stopped for a tea at a café and decided what I should do with my day. I decided to walk around Jerez for a bit in search of historical things (apparently they are famous for their horses there). So I set off after getting a snack at another café and getting a banana at the supermarket. I walked around for a bit (having no map or guide with me to help me) and ended up spotting a church and deciding to walk towards it. I did this but found the big church to be closed. So I walked back to the center where I did a big of shopping before deciding to go back to Seville since I would be back in Jerez in the morning. I could figure out if there was anything interesting to do here and even go down to Cadiz if I decided. In the mean time, I could see some other things in Seville.

So I walked back to the train station (how I made it back there is somewhat of a miracle since I just kept trying to find a bus to take me back but then ended up at it all on my own) and got the next train back to Seville. An hour later I was back at Seville’s Santa Justa station. I decided to take a bus back into town but made the mistake of getting on the wrong bus. Ok, I did get on the right bus but just going in the wrong direction. So this mistake meant that I spent an hour on the bus (probably more) watching people getting on and off and getting sort of a nice little tour of Seville’s university area, which now I can say that I have seen!

I ended up not really knowing where the bus was or where I should really get off. Each stop I was like, ok, I SHOULD get off here, but then I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to end up back at the train station and finally decided to get off. My stop, amazingly, was close to the Praca de Espana. So I walked around there for a bit, avoiding Spanish teenagers who stopped me to ask me the time but then wanted to take pictures with me, and walked back to the main cathedral area where I then met up with Pedro (whom I met in Lagos) who just so happened to be in Seville for the next couple of days for dinner.

Seville, Spain--Day 277

2004-11-03T02:16:00.000-08:00

First of all, Happy Birthday Moriah Claire Weiss! Born 4 a.m. November 2, 2004.

I am in Seville, Spain where I arrived yesterday after taking the bus from Lagos. My bus left at 1:45 and did not arrive into Seville until 8pm (7pm Portugal time) and I immediately went to my hotel, dropped off my stuff, and went in search of food. I had dinner and wandered a bit until I ran into an Election Party going on at an Irish Pub. I thought it would be fun to go in, so I did. You had to pay 6 Euros to get in (your admission price plus two "free" drinks) and that entitled you to stand in a crowded bar with hoards of American exchange students all of which either had a big blue "K" on their hand or a big blue "B" depending on who they were supporting. The girl in front of me in the line to get in declined to have her hand marked saying, "I prefer not to advertise my beliefs" which could mean that she was either a Nadar voter (you could base this on her hemp bag and dreads) or was secretly a Bush-supporter in disguise.

The polls hadn´t even closed at this point and the idea of staying at a pseudo frat party wasn´t my idea of a fun time. Plus I was standing near a guy with a big "B" on his hand who was arguing with this poor little French girl all about how his beliefs in Iraq's newly formed government. It was too much.

I left, went back to my hotel just before 1 a.m. and fell asleep hoping to wake up this morning with a new President. I see, however, that that isn´t quite the case.

So today I spent the day in Seville today instead of heading straight to the zoo since I had no idea what the train times were to get me to Jerez or where the train station was exactly. So I spent the morning doing my research—figuring out where the train station was and how to get there on the bus and what time I needed to go—and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Seville. I visited the gorgeous cathedral—the third largest cathedral in the world, the largest Gothic building in the world and the tomb of Christopher Columbus—as well as the Alcázar, the 9th-century palace.

Lagos, Portugal—Seville, Spain—Days 273-276

2004-11-02T06:42:00.000-08:00

So what they say is true—you spend a few days in Lagos and really never want to leave again. Perhaps it is not just because of the beaches and the bars but the fabulous Portuguese hospitality that lures everyone and tries their best to convince them to stay.

On the way down from Lisbon, I made friends with the guy sitting next to me on the train who also just happened to be going to Lagos. His English was fantastic and we chatted all the way down to Lagos. By the time we arrived he had fully convinced me that it was a nice place to be on one’s birthday.

Pedro—my new friend—showed me back to the hostel where I was going to stay and if it weren’t for him helping me with my luggage and directions, I would probably be still looking for the hostel right now. The directions given to me to get from the train station to the hostel from the hostel employee were “go out of the train station, across the walkway and then to your left 500 meters.” I was assured that it was a “short and simple” walk.

Well, it took thirty minutes, several winding turns and a heck of a time getting my suitcases through the small cobblestone streets to get to the hostel. Pedro dropped me off and I was so thankful that I had met him to help me.

I dropped off my things at the hostel feeling silly about all of my luggage and all that I have accumulated. Clearly my new scarf, gloves and jacket that I desperately needed in Germany wasn’t going to be needed here in Portugal on the beach, but I have no choice but to carry everything with me from place to place—rain or shine.

So I found my room and had a nice talk with the girl who I was sharing with (Angela from Australia, spending 1 year traveling Europe) and then went out to the main center of the town where a medieval fair was taking place. It was quite something and there were stalls everywhere selling food, jewelry and medieval weapons (I kid you not) and just about everyone in the town seemed to be in costume. It was crazy—the entire weekend was this festival so every day they would stage a mock-historical event in the town. Like, for example, Lagos was the first place in Europe where the slave trade began. Yes, that is right. The slave trade. So what did they do? Hold a mock slave auction. I didn’t see it but I heard about it from Pedro and people at the hostel later on. Apparently it was quite something.

There were parades and music—all sorts of fun and festivities going on. The charming thing about it all was that people were taking it SO seriously and seemed really, truly into it.

I met up with Pedro and his friends for dinner which was so great. It was his other friend’s birthday (I didn’t realize this when I was invited) and so there were probably 12 or so other people there. I sat right across from the birthday boy (Joao—Pedro’s good friend) and couldn’t believe my luck. At midnight, when it officially became MY birthday, I almost had to pinch myself. There I was celebrating my 24th birthday at a birthday party with 12 Portuguese people!

They then took me out on the town which was quite fun until I got bitten by a dog which is something I don’t recommend experiencing yourself.

What happened was that we were walking from one bar to the next, which was literally just across the way from the first bar. It was raining so people were taking refuge under the awnings of each bar and restaurant. We dashed across the street and passed these two dogs who were standing in the pouring rain barking at the rain, as silly Portuguese dogs do I guess.

Well one decided that as the moment I was passing it to lunch out and attack me on my derriere. He jumped and took one huge bite at me as I sort of yelped and ran away. It all happened so fast and I rushed into the bar almost not believing that I had just been bitten by a dog.

My first thoughts included rabies and tetanus—good god, the ONE thing that I haven’t been vaccinated against was rabies. Thus, I was going to DIE in Portugal! But I have so many more hippos to see!

My fears subsided when I made my way into the woman’s bathroom in the bar to check the damage which turned out to be this massive, massive, MASSIVE black and purple bruise but with no signs of the skin breaking.

The rest of the weekend passed quickly from one beach and renaissance parade to the next. Pretty soon it was time for me to head to Seville where I would visit the Jerez Zoo in Jerez de la Frontera, which is an hour south of Seville. With Monday being a national holiday (and thus no bus service) I had to wait until Tuesday afternoon to get a bus to Seville since there are no direct train routes. If I took the train, I would have had to gone all the way to Madrid via Lisbon and then down to Seville but by bus it is just a five-hour or so drive.

So I checked out of my hostel and called a taxi to help me lug my stuff to the bus station (there was no way I could do it by myself on all of the cobblestone streets!) and boarded my bus to Seville. I was in Seville by 8pm and went straight to where I was staying, dropped off my things and headed out on the town to find something to eat. The great thing about Spain is that dinner doesn’t even start until almost 10pm so I didn’t have to worry about restaurants closing.

Evora, Portugal—Day 272

2004-10-29T01:52:00.000-07:00

Oh beautiful Portugal.

Today I headed to Evora, Portugal, which is two hours from Lisbon via bus or train. My attempt to take the train to Evora failed after I missed it by just 3 minutes. Since the next train wasn’t for a good 4 hours or so I decided to seek out a bus and so I went to the tourist office in the main square area to seek help. I was directed back to another metro/bus station and was told to get the 11:45am bus.

Having almost two hours to spare, I headed back to the gigantic mall to find a book to read after finishing my book last night over dinner. I went to the FNAC store and bought a new book to read (“The Corrections” by Jonathan Franzen if you are interested—Elizabeth’s suggestion!) and went back to the bus station.

It was 11am when I showed up which gave me plenty of time to buy my ticket and wait for my bus. It finally showed up and I was soon on my way to Evora and for the life of me couldn’t keep my eyes open. I kept falling asleep and then waking up thinking I had missed my stop. Luckily I hadn’t and the girl next to me told me when I did need to get off which was nice.

I got off and took a taxi to the middle of town since I didn’t have a map and had no idea where the center of town was. I was dropped off (it was so close that the meter charge didn’t even increase the whole time I was in the taxi!) and found the tourist office where I was outfitted with a map.

I spent the afternoon avoiding the on and off rain while visiting the beautiful 12th century cathedral and its cloisters, the ruins of the Templo Romano, the Igreja Real de Sao Francisco and the main Evora attraction, the Capela dos Ossos, otherwise known as the Chapel of Bones. Bones! As in HUMAN BONES. This chapel, believe it or not, was built using the bones of 5000 (FIVE THOUSAND) skeletons. AHHH! It was too horrifying to be true, but I witnessed it with my own eyes. The whole thing is made up of bones bones bones—skulls and all. There is even a full skeleton hanging from the wall as some sort of trophy (well, what it was once full since it is now like totally decayed). Some crazy Franciscan monks decided hey, this sounds like a good idea, let’s build a chapel from human bones! That’s just the thing this town needs. It was truly fascinating yet totally horrific at the same time.

I mean, what do you say when looking at it, “My, I just LOVE what they’ve done with those skulls!” or “How creative! Using femurs to build a wall—I should try that.”

Or not.

All these bones were too much for me and I needed a break from both the rain and from thinking about dead people. So I walked around and happened upon a coffee shop where I ordered a nice big piece of carrot and orange cake and a Café Latte which, unlike in Italy, is not just milk but coffee as well. Perhaps I should mention (and perhaps Elizabeth will only appreciate this) is that I haven’t really had caffeine this entire trip (give or take the occasional Coke) and drinking coffee for me is like too much caffeine at once now. Its pathetic and Elizabeth witnessed me in Spain after we ordered a spare cappuccino once which I felt obliged to drink. I was jittery all afternoon!
Anyways, I ordered a coffee, drank barely half of it, and now even as I am writing this (it is 11:30pm) I don’t feel the least bit tired.

Considering I am writing this you can bet that I made it back to Lisbon just fine. I walked down to the bus station again (now that I had my map I knew where it was!) and caught the last bus back to Lisbon. Two hours later I was back on the metro whizzing down to the main touristy area for dinner (my legs weren’t up for wandering to find something really good to eat tonight so I settled for just something I knew was there unfortunately—it still was a tasty meal though) and am now back at the hotel.

Tomorrow I am off to Lagos where I will spend the weekend and then will head to Seville, Spain for the last zoos in Spain. According to my guidebook, Lagos is “a black hole—come for two days and you’ll stay for two months.” Hmm. I’ll keep you updated on that.

On another note, this weekend is my birthday. Halloween in fact. I will be turning the ripe old age of 24 and will hopefully be celebrating in style although I have to say that I don’t have a costume (yet) and nothing will compare with last year’s adventures at First Ave. Most notably because there will be no butterfly man this year (ahem…) but more importantly because it will significantly lack the company of my truly amazing friends and family to which I have had the privilege of celebrating 23 wonderful birthdays and to whom not even the world could ever replace.

Happy Halloween.

Sintra, Portugal—Day 271

2004-10-28T01:51:00.000-07:00

Today I caught the train to Sintra, a beautiful small town (and Unesco World Heritage Site) just 45 minutes from Lisbon. I headed to the train station where the train was supposed to leave from and found it to be closed and, along with another older British couple, were redirected to a different train station to catch it from there which meant back tracking on the metro.

I made it to the station and hopped on the next train to Sintra, arriving just as the sun was coming out. After taking a slightly wrong detour from the train station, I made it to the main road and walked to the historical center where I came upon the most gorgeous sky combined with beautiful hillside historical homes on lush hillsides.

I walked along the main road and came upon the Palacio Nacional de Sintra which has two huge white conical kitchen chimneys which distinguishes the palace from any other building I have ever seen before. The palace itself was beautiful both on the outside and on the inside as I discovered by taking a tour of the rooms.

After visiting the Palace, I went out and, after running into the British couple again, sat down to wait out the torrential downpour that had begun. Clouds and fog poured in and my hopes of heading up to the castle ruins on top of the mountainside overlooking Sintra were, well, ruined for a bit since it was clear that I wouldn’t be able to see any views once I made it to the top. So I waited for a while for the rain to let up and finally decided to start walking once I put on my rain coat and set off with my umbrella. Luckily the bus pulled up right as I started walking so I hopped on, not really knowing where it went, and was pleased to find that it was taking me right up to the top of the mountain! The rain was letting up and the blue skies were coming in just as we made our way up the mountain (which was quite an adventure since the bus driver seemed to be going at a terrific speed for such a huge bus and such a small windy road—let’s just say my eyes were shut and my grip was tight on the seat) and I decided to get off at the Palacio Nacional da Pena which is just above the Castelo dos Mouros (the castle ruins) and then had to take a tram up to the Palace. The Pena National Palace is the craziest building—looks almost like something form a fairy tale slash Disney concoction but I found it fascinating. It was built in 1840 by a Prussian architect and is all sorts of amazing colors and has all sorts of crazy embellishments to it. The inside is just as neat, with the rooms remaining in their original state as to when royalty lived in them which is quite interesting.

After visiting the Palace, I walked back down through the Pena Park back down to the main road that the castle ruins were on. I had to take refuge at various points from the rain that had started up again but made it down modestly soaked. I then walked a little ways back up the hill to the Castel dos Mouros (the castle ruins) and walked around the grounds for a bit, clamoring up to the top to look out over Sintra down below.

I then walked all the way back down to the town center via a footpath at the base of the castle ruins and headed back to the train station after resting my feet for a bit. The train took me back to Lisbon (where I missed my stop but luckily it was the second to last stop so I just went to the last stop where the train turned around again and took me back) and made it back to my hotel. I dropped off my heavy backpack and set out in search of dinner, this time walking down to the main Rossio area instead of taking the subway. The downpour started again and so I rushed into a Brazilian restaurant (the kind where they have the meat all on display and you say—I’ll have a piece of salmon and they go whack off a chunk of salmon off of the fish for you right in front of you) and ate to my heart’s content before heading back to the hotel.

Lisbon, Portugal—Day 270

2004-10-27T01:50:00.000-07:00

I was up and at ‘em early this morning so that I could get to the zoo first thing. I got up and had breakfast in the hotel (the breakfast room is on the 10th floor which is in its “panoramic restaurant”—oooh) and for the first time found it convenient that my room is on the 9th floor.

I had breakfast (no sketchy eggs at this place!) and then got my things and headed out on the metro to the zoo. Ahh, thank goodness for the metro! There is a stop RIGHT at the zoo (in fact, called “Jardim Zoologico”) AND right near my hotel. They are even on the same line! Couldn’t be better.

So I took the subway to the zoo and got off at my stop and headed into the zoo. It was 10 o’clock on the dot—right when it opens. I found the entrance and bought my ticket and headed to the hippos.

I had heard from several people about the appalling condition that the Lisbon Zoo. I went in expecting the worse of the worse but found it to be somewhat ok—yes things were small and needed improvements, but it definitely wasn’t the worse that I have seen. However, I did only walk from the entrance to the hippos (via the monkeys) so I really don’t have much to judge.

Anyways, I found the hippos—six of them! And the TINIEST baby I have seen so far. SOOOO cute. I almost squealed with delight (really, I made that oohhahhheeee! Noise that can only be compared to a squeal) when I saw the baby who as SO cute. Did I mention that she was cute?

Anyways, to my relief, there were three hippos on one side and three hippos on the other, separated by a small divider. Plus there were two pygmy hippos to the left of the Nile hippos, which of course I didn’t photograph, but there were there too. Anyways, the separation made it easy for me to tell them apart since the tiny baby and her mother (the hippo with the big tooth sticking out) and the other hippo (the one without the tooth) were on one side and the bigger baby, its mother and clearly a huge male (again you can tell with the whole poop thing) were on the other.

To top it off, the tiny baby, mom and other hippo (sans tooth) were all out of the water when I showed up. I quickly threw down my bag, got out my camera, and snapped away as they came lumbering towards me, stopping of course before getting in the water (work it, work it!) and then gracefully settling down in the water (yes, I did say gracefully). It was perfect.

I started taking pictures of the other hippos when a keeper appeared and started feeding the monkeys who were just down from the hippos, closer to the pygmy hippos. I made my approach (getting out my “what are their names?” translation that the man at the hotel desk wrote out for me before I left the hotel this morning) and showed it to her. To my complete surprise so told me “Of course I can tell you” in PERFECT English. In fact, she even had a British accent when she spoke English.

I had hit the jackpot!

So she rallied off their names—Pele (the big male), Juliana (mother of the bigger baby), Peão (the bigger baby), Mada (mother of the tiny baby), Bocas (the other hippo—sans tooth) and the tiny baby (who is still unnamed but a female) and showed me who was who. She asked me why and I tried to explain to her about the porcelain, but she just smiled and said “cool” and then told me all about seeing the tiny baby hippo being born. She went off and told me that she would be around if I needed any more help.

So I spent a few more hours at the zoo taking pictures of the hippos, specifically Juliana and Peão who kept getting out of the water, walking around, looking over to the other side at the tiny baby, and then getting back in. Then Juliana would do a series of flips and rolls (no joke) which was just hilarious. I got some great flipped over and upside-down hippo pictures (her head four feet sticking wildly out of the water with her belly upright) and got some great pictures of all of them when the sun finally came out.

Between my photographing of the hippos however, I couldn’t but help notice the monkeys escaping from their enclosure (more like a cage really). No seriously, the baby monkeys could fit through the bars! They would sneak out and walk out onto the grass and collect leaves for the bigger monkeys (too fat to squeeze through the bars) and back out again. They would do this and play in the grass a bit chasing insects and even at one point going up to the pygmy hippos, putting their hands on the bars as if they were actually WATCHING them like me. I became more amused at them that I did at the hippos (which is a big thing to say really considering the cute baby hippo and all her glory) but I was just fascinated with these monkeys. They were totally misbehaving and the best part of it was was that they KNEW it. They would roll around on the grass and at any time they sensed a keeper coming they would scurry back into their enclosure. It was hilarious—I would look over and see these two monkeys just sitting in the road and whenever you could hear a keeper coming—wheeling a wheelbarrow past with hay or driving by in a cart or something—anything—they would dash back into their cage and pretend like they were there the whole time with innocent looks on their faces. They were definitely playing it cool—what, me? Escape? No, I would never, I have been swinging on this branch the entire time!

And what happened the minute the keeper was out of sight? You guessed it, dash right back out again.

What luck! I headed out of the zoo happy with everything. I spent the rest of the day exploring Lisbon some more—visiting the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian to have lunch (it’s a famous art museum but I decided to just have lunch there instead of visit it since the sun just came out as I was finished with lunch and figured that I should be outside while it wasn’t raining). walking up to the ruins of the 9th century Castelo de São Jorge which overlooks Lisbon and has amazing views. I then took a tram though the historical Alfama district which is a beautiful system of winding cobblestone roads and alleyways, visited the gorgeous Mosteiro de Sao Vicente de Fora (a 16th century monastery) and then walked back down to the waterfront through the streets of Alfama. I then walked to the main plaza, the Praca do Comercio, and went up the Elevador de Santa Justa (to get a another good view of the city). All in all I had a wonderful—if not another exhausting day. I made it back to my hotel in the evening and after much debate about what to do, I decided to head to the huge mall in Lisbon (also conveniently located on the metro!) to get my much needed suitcase instead of having to take time out of another day to do so. I made it to the mall (which is absolutely huge—it rivals MOA!) and found both dinner and a suitcase shop. I wheeled my glorious new suitcase back to my hotel and felt my shoulders already thanking me for saving them from future grief.