Sorry to be repetitive but today I also went to the zoo. The same zoo as Vanessa. I swear we didn’t plan this but it was a really cool zoo so I’m not surprised so many people went. Anyways I woke up to a knock at my door calling for breakfast at 7:30. I didn’t realize we were getting up early so I regretted staying up late the night before. I promptly went down for breakfast where we had toasted brioche, I put Nutella on mine. I then had time to get dressed and wash my face before heading off to the zoo with Astrid and her mom which was about one hour away. I spent a lot of the ride looking out at the scenery, the countryside is really beautiful especially earlier in the morning. We arrived at the zoo at 9:30 and started looking around. We first went to the tropical bird house which had a mixture of free-flying and caged birds. My favorite was this bird with absurdly large feet but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a good picture. We then looked at a variety of larger bird, mainly birds of prey like eagles and vultures. I made sure to do my salute to the bald eagle. A new surprise favorite bird was the Himalayan griffon vulture. We explored different sections of the zoo seeing big cats and apes which I thought was very cool. We then saw the pandas, and while I think they are overhyped, they were pretty cute and much more accessible than the ones in DC where you have to wait an hour to see them. We then took a gondola to the bird show which is where I have to disagree with Vanessa because it was absolutely amazing and the sea lion show did not hold a candle to it. I am biased because I really love birds but it was so cool having all these birds flying over you, some of them with massive 10ft wingspans. The ending really was the showstopper though, where they released seemingly all of the birds in the zoo to fly overhead. There had to be at least 200 birds all flocking and cawing and it literally felt like Jurassic park. The whole thing was outside though so I’m not sure how they didn’t just release at least a dozen exotic bird species into the wild there. They either must have a very good electric fence or very well programmed birds. We continued to see a lot of the zoo afterwards but the place was huge. We stayed there for 9 hours in total and there was still some stuff we didn’t see. I was really exhausted at the end and my feet hurt a bunch but I still had fun. Once we got home I packed a little and then we had croque-monsieur’s for dinner (very French). I then got ready for bed because we have an early start tomorrow. I’m so excited for Paris.
This was such a fun post to read! I love how you described everything—from the Nutella brioche to the bird show that sounded straight out of a movie. Your writing really made me smile. Can’t wait to hear what Paris is like!