London Zoo

Hello everyone!

So I got up at 6.15am to watch my pies play Essendon. Watched the first quarter, slept for the second quarter and half time and then watched the whole second half. I could just tell we were going to lose by not much. That free kick against Reid at the end was a complete joke and cost us the game though. Ah well. Give Essendon one - was good to see their players smiling after what has been another nightmare year for them. And a good way to farewell Fletch. I mean.....I organised it for Father's Day. Happy Father's Day dad ;)

I left Jamie's this morning, stopped by my flat and then caught the train to Camden Town. From here I walked the 15 minutes to London Zoo and met Rob (who I caught up with in Cardiff, my friend from home) and his friend Sharna. 

The three of us had a really great day at the zoo! The sun shone for the majority of the day and we ended up spending about 4.5 hours there. In January 2011 mum and I had intended to go, but by the time we got there it was too late in the day and we had missed out. 

We spent the day walking around amongst the various enclosures. Our first stop was the vultures. Apparently it's international vulture day today, and this is because in the last 20 years, 99.9% of the vultures in the world have been wiped out due to drugs in the systems of animal carcasses they eat that kills them. This has meant that rats and other animals vultures eat have grown in numbers, and rabies is becoming much more prevalent in countries like India. 

We saw the Penguins, which were the Humboldt breed I saw in the wild in the Ballestas Islands in Peru. And we wandered around seeing everything from Tigers to spiders and from giraffes to anteaters. We saw the Australian section, pretty poor to be honest! Two kangaroos and two emus, and a handful of wallabies. They looked cold!!! We kept yelling out "G'DAY MATE!" Hahaha. 

The spider exhibition was creepy and we found out in Bengal spiders are thrown as confetti, and in Egypt they're placed in the bed of newly weds for good luck. WHAT?!? Please don't do that if I get married one day, ok everyone??? We also learned a lovely fact that apparently you're never more than 10m away from a rat in London....oh wonderful!

My favourite area we went to was the reptile house. Why, you ask? Well for any 'Harry Potter' fans like myself, you'll remember that in the first book (and subsequently the first movie) Harry is taken to London Zoo with the Dursley family for Dudley's birthday. They go to the reptile house and Dudley starts banging on the glass yelling "MOVE!", and after he walks off this is when Harry discovers he can speak parcel tongue (he can talk to snakes). He has a conversation with a Burmese Python until Dudley starts yelling and screaming, telling his parents Vernon and Petunia Dursley what Harry is doing. Because Harry doesn't yet know he's a wizard and isn't in control of his magical powers, without meaning to he places Dudley in the snake enclosure and sets the Python free, which turns to Harry and hisses "thanksssssssss!" before slithering out of its enclosure. And you guessed it - this scene was filmed in the reptile house at London Zoo!! I sure am racking up the HP film locations! Just you wait until my birthday at Warner Brothers studios!!!!

The main thing we all commented on about the zoo was how many open or walk through enclosures there were where animals could just run free. Spiders, monkeys, lemurs and heaps more!!!

Afterwards we walked back to Camden via sunny Regent's Park and Rob shouted me a delicious roti chicken masala wrap because I had no cash on me. I owe him once I'm back! It was amazing. 

Then I walked the 40 minutes along Regent's Canal to Angel and went grocery shopping. Stupid me always forgets that supermarkets here close at 5pm for so,e weird reason on Sundays. I arrived at 4.52pm and raced through the supermarket, somehow managing to grab everything I needed except two things and finish in time (proud mum?!). I was going to get the bus home but as I had just missed one City Mapper told me it would take just as long as walking, so I ended up walking and carting my four grocery bags along Regent's Canal to my flat. Mum and dad - I walked past the restaurant we ate at on the canal!

Now I'm just getting things done and Jamie is coming over soon. We are going to finish 'The Castle'. He's been really great the last few days. I felt a bit far away from home this weekend due to it being Father's Day and I'm starting to get stressed about applying for jobs at home for next year, and he has been really supportive spending time with me and taking my mind off it with boot camp, the BBQ, shopping etc. I'm so appreciative!

Hopefully tomorrow I get some supply work, but my friends who are supply teachers didn't get anything last week as it was the first week of term. It's ok though, I have work locked in next week so worst cast I spend this week getting my resume etc up to scratch and applying for jobs at home and maybe ticking off some more touristy things. See how we go, I've done all I can!

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox