The Zoo!

Today's Highlight: Marauding monkeys and Swimming seals (Sea lions, really)
We went to the Artis Zoo today! It was fantastic, seeing all the animals, but also a little depressing. The Zebras had the most space of all the animals, but the huge lions had no space at all! There were vultures and a whole slew of other characters from the Jungle Book and the Lion King (including Bagira the Black Panther, Mufasa the Lion, Whoopie Goldberg the Hyena and Timon the Meerkat!) There weren't any Pumbas though. I think the saddest was the polar bear... because it was 25 degrees today, and the poor guy looked so hot and he was all alone. I know they Polar bears are solitary animals, but this guy was on display, and he just looked miserable and mangy. I took a whole card full of photos, of most of the animals we saw. I didn't get any of the Beaverrat though, sorry, because they were the weirdest of the almost normal animals. They looked JUST like beavers, except that they had tails just like rats. They were very cute though, and there were a bunch of babies. Spring is the perfect time to visit the Zoo, because all the new babies are just being born. There was a giraffe that was only a week old, and baby gorillas, chimps, regular old monkeys, and a baby elephant.
The older elephants were dancing... It seemed a little weird, but Zanna said that most elephants in captivity do it. I guess it's from boredom.
The Zoo, even though it was a little depressing, was an afternoon well spent. As a result I'm about ready to turn in, so I'm going to wrap this up.
We have finally decided on when and where we are going We are going to go visit the Dutch Relatives until the 4 of June, then to Munster until the 10. We are coming back to Amsterdam for 2 days before we leave, and staying with Alex and Laura (many thanks to them!) We really wanted to come back to our starting point before we left. I think it's important to say a real good bye.
Anyway, the rest of the day. After the Zoo we went to an art show at a friend of Bertie's. I had been telling Bert that I wanted to see a house boat, and it just so happened that her friend who was hosting the art show lived on one. The boat was beautiful, but I still don;t understand hwo hoses like that wouldn't have mold problems. Maybe they do and i just haven't heard anything about it. The man showing paintings was the son in law of them woman who owned the house boat. He does a lot of beautiful landscape shots, mostly of Amsterdam. I think they suited that walls of the boat very well.
Adrian and I spent about 10 min sitting in a chair in the corner, trying to feel the movement on the boat. The canals are fairly still, so we couldn't feel anything unless as big boat went by and disturbed the calm.
I was really glad to get to look at a houseboat up close and personal.
After a delish dinner that we threw together we went to Alex and Laura's, had a few drinks, looked at photos from Uganda and just had a generally wonderful time. We just got home and Adrian is already snoring away on the bed.
Love to all
Emma and Adrian