It’s not that I’m slacking off.  Since a week ago I’ve logged in 6 different cities and taken a thousand photos. But it takes time to download and select the pics, upload them to my server, and then start blogging.  This sleeping business is also really eating up my free time. Not that I’m complaining. Just want to let you know why the dates on some of my blog entries may not synch up with today’s date yet and especially to reassure my family that I’ve not fallen off the grid. 

 

Anyway, in today’s entry I’m taking especially my younger readers to the zoo in Antwerp (tomorrow’s entry will be for the more adult readers). I think there are a few birds at this zoo indigenous to Belgium but most of the animals you see here can be found at your local zoo. 

The first thing that greets me when I enter the zoo gate is a flamboyance of flamingos…

The caption at their cage says La vie en rose and I can’t think of a more fitting phrase in any other language than French to describe this very moment.  Sometimes the fun of studying foreign languages is not in the convenience of communication but the eureka moment of conveying a sentiment in a way that only a certain language can. I’ll give you another example later.

So I can’t remember what this next animal is called but let’s just say these next two are same-same but different:

 

I have a weakness for birds:

 

And is this totally grossing you out, too? Yes, that’s a small chicken in the owl’s mouth:

 

Here, kitty kitty:

 

I’m as enthralled by these big cats as the rest of the crowd gathering around the cage, but it just feels wrong to have them confined like this. They pace back and forth in their small space…  

 

I feel their restlessness and want to set them free, but like while I’m not anywhere near their reach. When I snap this expression on the face of their buddy chimp in another part of the zoo, I think his sigh sums it up for all the zoo animals…

 

…with the exception of this sea otter that’s the poster child for the Stockholm Syndrome:

 

If he’s not the perfectly well-adjusted captor…

 

…then it might be these guys:

 

Does anyone know where I can get this job:

 

I have a weakness for birds and a serious soft spot for penguins. Look at these two in a penguin time-out:

 

So here is my second example. In Vietnamese we have a word called đểu (if you look it up, the word is translated as vulgar or ill-bred but it’s not really how it’s used), and if you saw these penguins waddling around you’d know what I mean. Can’t think of an adjective in the English language that would come closer to describing these little guys.

Anyway, you didn’t think I could just open today’s entry with a teaser photo of my purse and not give you more fashion evidence, did you? Check out this video because I’ve always preached that purses, no matter how expensive, are meant to be used and enjoyed (but babied)–not just worshipped from a display case. 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK2X4BdasGU

 

Hence, wherever I go, my purses get to enjoy the same trip: