We were planning on doing the London Zoo on the last day of our trip, only if we had time. But while we were in Paris, I got an email making it possible for us to do something in London that I’d really wanted to do – but we had to change our plans. Anyway, I’m so glad we went to the zoo for two reasons. 1. As zoos go, it’s a really engaging and fascinating place, and we kept pondering things about it for days. 2. Nathaniel doesn’t necessarily love going to all the zoos I tend to plan our trips around visiting for my art, and this one made an impression on him! He was a fan. As a last note on the terribly inconvenient illness I had, this was definitely the day of the trip when I felt the most sick, and it was super distracting. The zoo is big. I think we saw most everything, but in an area with some of the most interesting animals and exhibits, I felt so sick that I had to stop to sit down every couple minutes. I was miserable. Like, there was a sloth so close to my face and I couldn’t even really enjoy it.
Things to note:
• I loved the penguin area so much. You could have left me there all day. Even if there weren’t any penguins around, honestly. I would love to be a penguin at the London Zoo.
• It was very neat to see the old penguin enclosure and read about it. You don’t often see zoo or museum history preserved in that way.
• There are lodges at this zoo where you can spend the night!
• We got to see where a Harry Potter scene was filmed. Of course, that was cool.
• I thought the night life area was great. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it at a zoo before.
• There really was a sloth, just, like, in a tree inside a building, outside of some enclosures (it’s kind of hard to tell in the photo – second from the bottom). There was a person associated with the zoo standing by it, but I just couldn’t believe it. Definitely never seen that before.