To the Zoo!!

 Another day in Switzerland, another day of wandering and much fun of getting ourselves lost in the cities. Today we were going to go to see a cheese and choloclate factory usuing intructions that my sister had written down after a couple hours of research on the computer the night before along with transport information for the next three trips we planned to take. We had woken up early in hope to catch a 7:20 bus to the train staion in Stans to get an early start before the three hour train ride ahead. Since it was a Saturday, everone was sleeping in and one of the family members, a cousin who'd spent the night after a movie marathon, was sleeping on the couch. Now, the kitchen doesnt have any way of being enclosed to block out sound and the couch was literally outside the kitchen doorway. This made every single sound we made while eating cornflakes for breakfast, seem like we were dropping an atomic bomb. We were trying so desperatly not to wake anyone up and were relieved that we didn`t.

Though, as we made it outside to the bus stop, Alej realized that she didn`t have the instructions with her and so I ended up being sent all the way back into the apartment of our host family and try not to wake everyone else up. Again. I never found the intructions for the factory trip so I just grabbed the zoo and falls trip travel information as a just-in-case.

We ended up deciding to head to the zoo in Zürich and took a train (A TRAIN! WE GET TO RIDE TRAINS!!!!!) from Stans to Luzern so we could then grab a train to Zürich and make are merry way to the zoo. We never actually got lost, after all, we found the bus that would take us to the bus that would lead us the a tram that takes you straight to the zoo. Problem was, we went the wrong way. Right bus, wrong direction. We managed to figure that out, though and got off before we got to the end of the line and switched to the same bus (that was going in the direction we needed) and at the same time, found a doves nest. So it wasn`t all too bad.

So we got to the zoo, managed to get our hands on some tickets and made our merry way in. I-I cannot even begin to describe what we saw. There was so much! There were the animals, of course, but there was more! I don`t know about you, but all the zoo`s I have been to are more for adults than kids. Sure us kids enjoy seeing all the animals butwe also hate waiting as our parents read through EVERY SINGLE WORD on the board that describes the animal, it`s condition, where it`s from, a child only has so much patience. But Zürich Zoo was a dream. We were never bored. There were the coolest playgrounds that America could never even imagine building. You got a close hand experiance with the animals and still learned everything you`d ever want to know! They even managed, it still baffles me how, to build a rainforest indoors. Of course the building was HUGE but my eyeballs were rolling! Birds and monkeys swung overhead as you wandered below! Jesse even made a Capuchin friend when we passed through the primate section. The little guy ran up to place his hands on the glass in front of her as she came to observe him. She fell in love, naturally.
Me? I didn`t make a friend but I documented the whole trip by camera. I`m sorry that I can`t post any of them, I`d have to download everything onto this computer and I`m not sure how kindly the host family would take to that. ;)

We made it back safe an`sound after the whole thing ended. I only wish that my little brother was here with us when we went, the trip would have lasted longer then. Mathew I miss you!!!

Till Next and with love for those back home (and those we are closer to),
Alex and Jesse