Flusspferden

This Saturday we went to the zoo. I love the zoo, but I have to say I do feel kinda like a creep going there without children. The place is swarming with children and exhausted adults, whereas Ryan and I just go to enjoy the animals. Or rather I go to enjoy the animals and Ryan goes to laugh at my hippo giddiness.

I do really like hippos, and the Berlin zoo lets you watch their feeding. I'd never watched a hippo feeding and assumed that this would involve a trainer hauling some hay or vegetables into their enclosure. But no! Instead they spray a hose at them, and when they get bored they fire bread at them. I swear they had some kind of bread cannon, but Ryan thinks someone was just throwing it from above. But they got good distance, and have you ever tried to throw a loaf of German bread? Its about the weight and consistency of a small bundle of bricks. Clearly, some sort of bread projectile system was in use. And when the loaves hit the water they made a huge bang, and I jumped and Ryan laughed at me more.

The German words for hippo are "Flusspferden" and "Nilpferden." (River horse and Nile horse.) That's just how German works.

I've come to realize that I no longer remember how to spell hippopotamus. I just spell checked that 3 times. I used to be a good speller until I learned another language. Apparently you don't so much become bilingual as advance in one language whilst simultaneously declining in another. Plus Ryan and I mostly speak "Denglish" to each other now, sticking to one or the other takes some concentrating.

In other news I'm getting more used to Ulrike's brusqueness, Ryan is back from France, and we're planning a trip to Frankfurt this weekend for apartment hunting! So I've been pretty busy and thus remiss in my blogging. Hopefully I'll have more interesting stuff to report in the next couple days. Bis später, I mean until then...