Zoo Lates

Giraffe's and Lions and Penguins, oh my!
It's been a while since I've been to a zoo so when Chris told me about Zoo Lates I got really excited and we immediately went online to order our tickets in advance! Zoo Lates is an event that only happens during summer when the days are longer and the sun is out late and for anyone 18+ you can head to the zoo and walk around from 6-10 eating food of all kinds from the stands set up near the entrance and drinking a beer while looking at all of the adorable animals! It was Chris, Mel and I and we knew we wanted to try and see all of the animals before 9ish when most of them go to bed so we started at one end and we went as fast as we possibly could while still spending actual time with each animal.
Now the London Zoo is not quite like your average zoo. For starters it is much smaller than most but surprisingly large considering it is in the heart of London. However, when you walk through the entrance you immediately feel as though you are being transported into a different city. There is so much green and trees that reach up to the sky! I was truly shocked when halfway through I looked at Mel and Chris and said "you guys! We are in the middle of London watching penguins swim and monkeys swing from tree to tree!" I'm not sure why it felt so bizarre but it was so odd.
When it started raining a bit (as of course it inevitably would( we headed to the snake house where we were instantly drawn to the crowd surrounding the boa constrictor. I have never in my entire life in any other place or time or even movie seen a snake as wide and as long and as absolutely TERRIFYING as this one. I nearly screamed. As we craned our necks around the crowd we realized that everyone was staring at it because it had just been served dinner...a whole chicken. The snake was slowly coiling his body around the chicken's body until all you saw sticking out of the top was the poor chicken's legs. Then! THEN! Then....We saw him unhinging his jaw over and over to force the bird down his throat and you could literally see the chicken moving little by little down the snakes body. It was the most disgusting yet entrancing thing I've ever watched. I so badly wanted to avert my eyes and yet...I couldn't. For most of you that's probably more details than you needed as it is so I won't continue but we watched for a good 10 minutes before we forced ourselves to move on so we could fit in the rest of the animals!
Two of my all time favorite zoo animals are the monkeys and giraffes. I've always loved monkeys, probably because my parents always thought I was part monkey growing up, climbing trees and jumping around but giraffe's are just so beautiful too and I love them!!! So at the zoo I decided to buy myself a souvenir. A pet giraffe! Don't worry, he's a stuffed animal but he is quite large and a wonderful cuddle buddy! I saw him when we first walked into the gift shop before we began our tour of the zoo but I told myself not to get him (even though he was the LAST one of a special edition collection) and off we went to view the live animals. But at the end of our tour, as we were finishing up our ice creams, we went back into the gift shop and he was still there and I just knew I had to have him.
As the three of us were trying to come up with a name we decided it should be something that sounded African but none of us knew any African names. I thought he looked a little shy but you can't just call a giraffe shy! We started shouting out words that were made up but had us laughing so hard and Chris came up with Gadu. I told him he could have the middle name but I chose Geronimo for his middle name and his second middle name is Aibu which is swahili for shy!! So his full name comes out to Geronimo Gadu Aibu. I love him a lot and he has moved in quite nicely with the rest of my menagerie.



Love from London,
Kristin