Day 22 - Berlin Zoo

Today we got up early - we wanted to beat the queue for the zoo! It was absolutely freezing so we all put on hoodies and braved the cold.

To get to the zoo we had to take multiple trains and buses again! Surprisingly, everything went smoothly. We grabbed a quick pastry from a shop at the train station, and then walked to the zoo.

We were one of the first ones in, which was fantastic because it meant the zoo was nice and quiet!

We explored the zoo and saw many cool animals! The photo of Mila and Lana holding Giraffey-Waffey up in front of the giraffe is a photo that Ali re-created from her childhood! She has the exact same one when she was a kid.

We also bought tickets to the aquarium which is inside a separate part of the zoo. This aquarium was definitely the best one we had been to.

We all loved the jellyfish the best - they looked absolutely brilliant and you could watch them for hours. They actually look really elegant when they swim around. Apparently it’s very hard to keep jellyfish in an aquarium which is why most aquariums don’t have them. They need a special wave pool which mimicks the current of the ocean. As they were such a brilliant colour, we all had to take lots of photos with them!

The aquarium also had reptiles and amphibians to look at which were quite creepy. Don’t go to Brazil - they have the grossest creepy crawlers out of all the countries!

By the time we got out of the aquarium the zoo had filled up with a lot more people so we were glad to make the most of the quiet while we could. We stopped for a quick lunch at the zoo restaurant - they didn’t have many food options but the sausage was actually quite nice.

We went back out into the zoo and explored some more animals! Sadly they don’t have lions or tigers anymore! They did however have a new baby rhino just born which was so cute!

They also had a little petting zoo for kids which was mostly goats, with a couple sheep and donkeys. The kids loved petting them, and we got some food for them to feed them. Titus also loved the goats - a bit too much it turns out. At one stage he got so enthusiast he lunged for the goat and the goat stuck it’s horn into his head. Poor Titus was very upset. We are starting to think goats don’t like him because in his short life he’s had two goat attacks

We were nearly done at the zoo when the rain started pouring down. Thankfully we were near the gift shop entrance so we went there to take cover. We still had the pandas to see so we wanted to go back out. When there seemed to be a bit of a break in the rain we headed back out, only for it to start bucketing down again, so we gave up on seeing the pandas and decided to go home instead!

We caught all the trains and buses home again. We got home about 3.00pm, and the kids all had a bath while Ali and Auke packed for our early morning flight the next day.

Titus still has a goat horn mark on his head!