Shiver in My Bones Just Thinking About the...

We'd made plans with friends and bought our tickets a few weeks back, so when it started pouring yesterday afternoon there was pretty much no way out. We finally trooped out around 8:30pm into the rain and joined other staunch ticket holders (I'm guessing no one was stupid enough to buy tickets that evening?) for the annual Summer Night at the Zoo. No, it wasn't as bad as all that. There was always shelter along the way in the form of the Elephant House or a stop with the lemurs. The penguins and sea lions were pretty much in their element, anyway, and the rhinos and bisons look like they hardly felt a thing. The polar bears and brown bears obviously knew better and went to the Hyatt already. I guess I felt badly for the animals having to pull a double shift as well as kiddies I saw trudging through the downpour. But as our friend Frank made clear, they're born here, they know a thing or two about the weather in Cologne. Hmm, bad weather as your birthright...I suppose it's like freezing your butt off each year trying to hustle Halloween candy in Chicago - you didn't let that get to you as a kid, right?

The Cologne Zoo is smaller than the Lincoln Park Zoo, but about on par with the one in St Paul, MN. Unlike these two, however, it's not free admission (score point for the US). Then again, donor rosters are discreetly displayed and buildings are still named for animals or locations, not rich people. Given we live only steps away, earlier this year I bought a membership and envisioned hours, hours of fun for Felix to bond with the okapis or baboons. Our 4 visits so far since May have resulted in 100% success rate to induce sleep within the first half hour. The utter boredom a 9 month old can express is as dry as day-old zwieback...On this night Felix was snug under his rain cover and set a new PR of 13:34.

In addition to the animals there were lots of musical acts and entertainment scattered throughout the zoo and the botanical gardens. The place was festively lit, the local tv station crews were on hand, but the people who operated the tiki cocktail bar, the paella station, the bratwurst grills and the beer stands probably didn't see much business on this night. The pretzels we bought were wet and gluey. Still, the addictive powers of German Schlagermusik and oldies rock renditions pushed our buttons to sing along and dance a few steps, and set our mood to enjoy other frolics along the way....