BLOGZIL!

I had some extra photos that seemed good enough to post, so here a bunch of them together. Two themes can be discerned. The first is the zoo. I went to the zoo a couple weeks ago, in the hopes of seeing the flamingo. I had gone to the zoo once before and seen the animals, but none impressed me like the flamingo, and I wanted to see it again and take a picture. Have you ever seen a live flamingo? I hadn't. We're all familiar with the lawn ornaments, but they just don't prepare you. Imagine a six-foot-tall stick, eight inches wide and the color of fine-spun cotton candy. It's baby-breath pink and otherworldly. And it walks around and does things. While I watched it, the elegant flamingo walked straight into the large sign with information on its gestation and natural range. I guess it was having trouble with its range.

And maybe that was the problem. See, when I went back there were men cleaning the enclosure. Turns out: flamingo died! No one could tell me how. So no flamingo pictures. But I tell you, if you ever get the chance, see yourself a flamingo.

Other dead animals included the giraffe. They seem to be having some troubles at the Salvador zoo. They're also understaffed. While there I watched three surly college students climb, unmolested by staff, into the enclosure of the hippos, an animal I was taught was actually the most dangerous in the world. This didn't seem to burden them as they marched right up and started sticking their hands in its mouth. I was chomping my own fingers, ready to see geysers of blood at any moment, but nothing happened.

The other major group is more pictures of people with those damn face cards. For some reason I continue to think they are really, really funny.