Thursday, May 1, 2008

Happy May Day + Zoo Trip

*I befriended a pelican at the zoo*

Today is May Day (May 1st), which is celebrated in Bavaria with may poles, traditional dress and dancing. In Berlin, there are lots of demonstrations and drunk people, especially since May 1st is also man's day here. Groups of men drink together all over the city (meaning in the streets, on the trains, everywhere since it's legal to drink anywhere here), so I'm staying in tonight.

As a side note, there are a lot of strikes going on now. The last couple of weeks the postal service had been striking, yesterday the bus/tram strike began, and most surprisingly the police are also striking. I was told that it's very uncommon for organizations to strike here in Germany, but I suppose once one group strikes everyone wants to.

To celebrate May Day, I went to the East Zoo of Berlin with my friends Elif, Basak and Freddy. It rained a bit in the morning, but by the afternoon the weather was gorgeous! We saw a lot of exotic animals at the zoo, and it was especially nice since it's spring and nearly every animal had a baby version.

*me and freddy, elif's conversation partner who showed us around the zoo*

*elephant!*

*and a baby elephant, so cute!*

*baby giraffe, mama giraffe*

*zebra*


*video of panther babies playing*

*tiger*

*baby cheetah*

*proud lion*

*peacock*
*monkey*

*croc*

*elif and me in the tropical house*


After the zoo, I went off on my own to explore Alexanderplatz. They were having a Finnish festival there, and were selling Finnish goods in small booths. There were a lot of people out and about today, since it's a holiday and most people don't have to work.

*Red City Hall, Alexanderplatz*

*Marienkirche, Alexanderplatz*

*Neptune Fountain, Alexanderplatz*

1 comment:

Caroljean said...

nice zoo pics... i liked the video!
how come we didn't go to the Neptune fountain???