Now this isn't strictly relevant to the Fulbright, or to Hungary in the 21st century, or to my future plans or anything like that, but I think, as this is my blog, I am entitled to barrage you with any e-junk I feel like hurling into the internet, and so I want to take then minutes to tell you about...

... My visit to the zoo!

Saturday was starting in a disappointment-induced haze, when I realized the "pancake" recipe I was using was NOT for delicious American breakfast pancakes, and the quality of everything in my kitchen is too low to support the cooking of the thinner, European variety. Combined with what could only be fatigue and PMS, things were looking pretty grim. I was going to force Baldur to go with me to Ikea, in order to buy a proper crepe pan but also just to get out of the house, when we hit on going to the zoo instead.

It was great! The weather was perfect, the zoo is walking distance from my house, and there was a student discount, but the best part was all the baby animals! I should have thought about this, going to a zoo in April, but I guess I've been a student for so long I've forgotten about the Circle of Life and the True Meaning of Spring.

It would be really hard to choose a favorite. We saw a mother duck with twelve baby ducklings -- the nest was unwisely chosen insofar as it was on the brink of a small wall. One of the babies actually fell off while we watched, although he seemed okay, and someone's dad stepped in to pick him up and put him back with his siblings. There was also a family of wild dogs (well, Dholes, really); the pups were probably the most energetic animals I have seen in any zoo, ever. There were lambs so young they still had yucky bits of dried umbilical cord attached to their stomachs; two baby camels whose humps hadn't filled out yet; and a baby rhino that, while a year or two old, was still only the size of a small pony.

Maybe my favorite, though, were the goats the size of house cats in the children's petting zoo. Much nicer than their pushy parents, who were butting each other left and right to get at a few pellets of zoo chow, the baby goats were hopping on and off benches and, like rabbits, leaping up and spazzing out mid-air just because. I managed to feed one guy so tiny he could barely get a pellet in his mouth. Awwww!

All baby animals aside, the zoo was hardly as grubby as I expected it to be. And, just in case you forget you're in Hungary when you go, the obligatory omnipresent food stands served palacsinta, langos and beer. Finally, for my inner (but not-so-hidden) history geek: I had to do a double-take by the sign for the brown bears. The map showing the bears' habitat in Central Eastern Europe looked funny, and then I realized that it still had Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.