Madrid Zoo & Aquarium

The first Saturday in April—April 6^th—we went to the Madrid Zoo & Aquarium.  We met up with one of Paul’s co-workers and his family, Sergie, Bea and their son Lluis.  It was a pretty nice day and we were happy to be outside on such a day. 

Our first stop right inside were to see the flamingos.  They were kind of hard to miss—they were right there.  We were only separated from them by a small little curb—meaning they could roam and explore around if they wanted to.  It was so cool to see them up close.  We could’ve fed them if we had food—we did see others doing that. How cool!

We walked along from exhibit to exhibit, seeing all kinds of animals.  

We were making our way to the dolphin show.  That was pretty fascinating!  It was kind of like a SeaWorld show right there at the zoo.  We enjoyed watching them do their tricks. 

Then right after that we walked just a little ways over to where they were having a bird show.  They first brought out the exotic birds—birds like parakeets, macaws and other colorful jungle birds.   It was kind of hard to take pictures of the birds because they were so close to us and fly flew so fast.  

Then they brought out the big birds and we got to watch them fly around.  They were impressive! 

We took pictures of them though when they were just sitting there waiting for the show to start. 

We next visited the aquarium.  This was Lluis’ favorite part.  He really likes sharks!  They had a really big one in there and it was fun to watch him swim around. 

So a lot of the birds that were here were free to roam around.  One time when we were walking, a peacock came right close to us.  Later we found others in their exhibit, with their wings spread out.  That was cool to see.

Other animals we saw.

And the last thing we did was feed the goats.  We were allowed to go in among them to feed them.  Paul bought a little bowl of food and in we went.  We gave the camera to Bea and she took pictures of us with the goats.  They were hungry little fellas!  They kept climbing up on Paul—it was funny!  Glenn was a bit nervous around them if he was on the ground with them, so I held him most of the time.  I was kind of nervous of him being down with them too.  Sometimes they would head butt each other when they wanted the food and I was afraid Glenn might get knocked over.  But we had fun with those crazy goats!

We had fun looking at the animals, touching them and talking about them.  We also enjoyed being with Sergie, Bea and Lluis.  I was fortunate that Bea knows English pretty well—Sergie knows it very well—so most of the time they spoke in English.  We were happy to get to know them and to spend time with them.  We had a great time at the zoo with our new friends. 

 As we were leaving, Glenn asked if they wanted to come to our house.  They said sure—so they came over.  There wasn’t enough room in their car to take us, so we took the metro home and they drove over.  We then talked and played some more at our hotel.  We taught them how to play Pandemic, and the boys played.  Even though they couldn’t speak the same language, they eventually got along so well.  They made up their own little games and didn’t have to communicate other than with laughter and with screams of delight.  It was a great day!

(I did take some videos but due to the slow internet here, I will have to post them another time.)