I apologize for my absence but there really haven’t been that many exciting things going on.
I said I didn’t think I’d make any proper friends before my birthday, and being a psychic, special snowflake, I was right.
I have met people I like, but no one who could be bothered going to the zoo with me.
So, being the brave little soldier that I am, I got up kinda early and traveled out into the big world on my own.
It was ok at first, I took the bus into town, where I had to hang around for an hour before getting on the bus to the zoo.
The zoo was very nice indeed. The whole place was (hopefully unintentionally) built like a giant maze, thus I am not sure how big it is compared to other zoo’s I’ve visited. But I do know they had animals I’ve never seen before in real life.
Some of them were cheetah and anteater.
They also had one of those underwater tunnels, except instead of fish and sharks there were sea lions. This little tunnel was probably my favorite part of the whole zoo. Watching sea lions swimming rather gracefully all around you was truly magical. Especially with the sun from the outside hitting the water.
I then hung out with the penguins.
(This is where the party’s at! Dress code: White tie and tails.)
You may think celebrating your birthday by visiting a zoo on your own is a bit sad, but it really wasn’t. In fact, these little guys in tux were a lot more interesting to be around than several human beings I’ve had the pleasure of hosting during my lifetime.
(Chilling by the pool with my crew.)
I also got to see wolves and lions and elephants and llamas and ostridge up close.
And I got to learn a lot of new things:
– I learnt that English zoo-goers aren’t any smarter than the Norwegian ones.
“Look at that beaver!” Said Norwegian lady and pointed at the otter.
“Look at that tiger!” Said English lady and pointed at the leopard.
– I learnt that anteaters are probably the weirdest creature to ever roam the earth.
– I learnt that children are LOUD. And when you feed them with ice cream and allow them to run freely they all turn into Dudley (from the Harry Potter books).
– I learnt to never again try and take the bus in England on a Sunday.
Seriously though. That last point is really important. And this is why.
After spending the rest of my day talking to a severely curious llama, who really wanted to eat my zoo-map, I fought my way through the gift shop and headed home. The only problem was…that there was no bus.
You see, in England, they don’t have a timetable for the Sunday buses. Well, they do actually, but they don’t go around putting it up where anyone can see it. They hide it away somewhere on the internet and never speak of it publicly. Which means I ended up hanging around some deserted bus stop on the wrong side of town with two asian people who barley spoke english.
I was actually planning on just sitting there until some bus arrived, but the asian people didn’t want to do that.
They wanted to walk.
And so we did.
Now, I am aware that I did not have to follow them, but they seemed really concerned about me and it was about to get dark and I didn’t actually feel like spending the rest of my birthday sitting by some road waiting for a bus that might not even show up. And so I ended up silently walking behind mr. and mrs. asian person I don’t know for about 20 minutes along a trafficked road that clearly wasn’t meant for pedestrians.
It was awesome.
When we finally arrived in town we discovered that the bus we needed where driving only 15 minutes behind us. Yay.
We got on and went to the city centre. Where I was supposed to change buses, but since I’m a useless piece of fabulous I managed to get off on the wrong stop. I then had to walk halfway around town to get back to a bus stop that I had passed with the bus I just got off.
I ended up walking alone, in the dark, in a town I don’t know, with a phone that was almost out of power.
When I finally found the right bus stop (after walking and walking and walking) the bus had just left and I had to wait another 30 minutes. And just when I was about to get on, guess who showed up!
My friends; Mr. and Mrs. Asian person I don’t know!
Turns out after they left me at the town centre bus stop, they went to a restaurant, ate dinner, and then walked through town to the same bus stop I was trying to find all along. They managed to do all this while I was fooling around in the dark imagining what people would write on my tombstone.
In the end it took me about three hours or so to get from the zoo and back to my flat.
Will I be going anywhere by bus on a Sunday anytime soon?
No.
No, I will not.
At least when I got home I hung out with family and friends at skype and everything was pretty much awesome.
Hopefully next time I go to the zoo I will have someone with me….and it will be a monday.
– L
Unicorn Circus 