A Day at the Munich Zoo

Thursday after we dropped Cindy off at work I took the kids to the Munich Zoo. From Freising to south Munich the drive was an experience. I take back my earlier post about driving in Munich, what happens on the Autobahn does not happen on the side streets of central Munich. When the traffic gets heavy you still have the lane jumpers and others that will do whatever possible to gain a few extra feet. Our route took us almost directly through the center of central Munich with six story apartment complexes lined up one after the other with both sides of the street also lines with parked cars. It was a chore just to avoid side swiping the non-moving vehicles much less the big trucks and other cars in motion. It was cool to see the oldest part of the city and the ornate buildings with such history. I admit I have not taken the time to understand the history or significance of the city yet so I am not even sure what all we might have seen. I figure we will be here for two years so I am pacing myself.......

The zoo experience was the best ever. It was very busy as most of Europe is on holiday during August. Parking was abundant and only cost 3.50 euro. It was validated by a machine and automated so it was easy. I did ask an attendant to confirm when I needed to pay just to make sure. My attitude for the day was to let the kids be the guide and do what they wanted to do. It was refreshing to not stay on an agenda and rush them through to beat traffic or the heat. We had great weather as it was in the 70's and mostly cloudy. We entered through the Flamingo entrance which was right next to the very extensive displays of primates. The kids spent a lot of time in this area.


This baboon (?? I think) actually jumped at Katherine as she was next to the glass, she ran for the hills and David laughed.

These little guys were very fun. The kids sat in front of the display for several minutes and watched the very active group.


I did not get a very good pic here. This leopard spotted one of the many dogs outside of his cage and was stalking it. This zoo allows people to bring their pets. All were on leashes and well behaved, but the predator animals seemed to want to eat them.

I think we must have hit the zoo on a good day because almost every exhibit the animal was very close to us. They do a great job with the exhibits to make sure it is a good experience. This was one seal exhibit and they had another where multiple seals were swimming around and sun bathing.

Katherine was excited about the polar bears. She was doing "Facetime"with her friend Lizzie this evening and talked about the polar bear and how there was no snow anywhere around it. The stupid bear turned it's head right as I took the pic.

This picture does not tell the story. The wood maze is the "ladder" to the top of a very large very fast slide. Davis is in the blue shirt near the top. This zoo had three different large playgrounds that the kids spent a lot of time at. This was part of the largest playground. David made the observation that playgrounds are better in Germany because the stuff is more dangerous......and therefore more fun. This was crazy high for the lack of American over the top safety restrictions. We had a talk about the litigious nature of today's America and why companies have to make things so safe. He had fun and did not get hurt thankfully.

Katherine on the other hand came to me crying at least two times. She has a major bruise on her chin from the first small playground where she banged it on a solid wood post while pretending to be a monkey. She bounced back and played hard all day.

The kids went across this large suspension bridge several times. Later I noticed a small boy stripped down to his underwear was wading in this water. Several kids during the day would just strip down and get into water or mud.

The kid in the teal shorts pushing this swing was from Houston. He said his family was visiting and considering moving to Spain or somewhere in Europe. His sister was there too, both kids were very impressive with their manners and how well they spoke. They sat there and pushed this wing for several kids for a looooong time. David was talking his ear off about mine craft.



Another display where the animal was right there. This Rhino entered his pool as we walked up and was stirring up the bottom. I could reach out and touch his back.

This was the third playground. David loved this.....what do you call those things? Katherine did fall out of it once and came crying with a skinned knee. That was a very nice restaurant behind here, although we only got water and Pepsi.

This was a cool swing. David said the gravitational forces kept you in the swing easily. I was pushing him and he got really high. Katherine tried it out and liked it too. We met a girl David's age at this swing visiting from the east coast of the USA.

This was a small black bear. Again, as we walked up he came right over and stood in the water to cool off and get a drink.

Next to us in the picture was a small display of Meerkats. The kids both said those were their favorites because "they were soooo cute".

This Isar River ran through the park. It is a fast moving river that the zoo used well in many of their displays.

This was a day I will remember spending with the kids. We stayed until after 4PM until we needed to make the drive back to pick up mommy. Traffic was crazy again but it did ot spoil the day. With the weather, the animals cooperating, and the fact that I only spent about $30 euro for the whole day you can't beat it. Just sorry that my sugar momma had to work while we played.