March of the Penguins
I love penguins. They always make me smile. By the way, March of the Penguins is a wonderful movie, and if you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it! Here in Basel we have our very own penguin march, and today I finally saw it! Every day at 11:00 at the Basel zoo, when it's cold enough (below 10 degrees celsius), the penguins go outside for a walk. I got to the zoo just after 10:00 this morning, which left me plenty of time to visit my favorite part of the Basel zoo, the Affenhaus (monkey house) before waiting for the penguins. As I've probably mentioned before, the Basel zoo is famous for having lots of babies, and today I was especially lucky to be able to see Chelewa, the 3 week old gorilla who was born on New Year's Eve. I couldn't get any good pictures (mama was quite protective of her), but here's what she looks like (thanks to the Basel zoo website). They're so humanlike... it's almost eerie.
So back to the penguins. After admiring the gorillas for a while, I headed over to the area outside the penguin house. Already at 10:45 lots of people (mainly lots of little kids with their parents and teachers) were lined up as if they were anticipating a 4th of July parade! Right on time at 11:00, just as you would predict in Switzerland, I watched a zoo worker with a bucket of fish walk into the penguin house. A few minutes later he returned outside with a group of proud penguins following him. Don't penguins always look proud? As soon as the group of penguins came into our view, you could hear everybody "ooh" and "aah" and all the little kids started cheering! I kept thinking that all the people surrounding them would spook the penguins, but they seemed quite comfortable walking through the crowds. At times one or two of them would even lay down for a bit in the sun. Throughout their 25 minute walk, the zoo man (who previously held the bucket of fish) guided the penguins and talked to the audience with a microphone. It was all in Swiss German so I have no idea what he said but it really didn't matter to me. All that mattered was that the experience of having a group of penguins walk right past me was absolutely amazing! I can't stop smiling when I think about it.
How can you not love these guys?
So back to the penguins. After admiring the gorillas for a while, I headed over to the area outside the penguin house. Already at 10:45 lots of people (mainly lots of little kids with their parents and teachers) were lined up as if they were anticipating a 4th of July parade! Right on time at 11:00, just as you would predict in Switzerland, I watched a zoo worker with a bucket of fish walk into the penguin house. A few minutes later he returned outside with a group of proud penguins following him. Don't penguins always look proud? As soon as the group of penguins came into our view, you could hear everybody "ooh" and "aah" and all the little kids started cheering! I kept thinking that all the people surrounding them would spook the penguins, but they seemed quite comfortable walking through the crowds. At times one or two of them would even lay down for a bit in the sun. Throughout their 25 minute walk, the zoo man (who previously held the bucket of fish) guided the penguins and talked to the audience with a microphone. It was all in Swiss German so I have no idea what he said but it really didn't matter to me. All that mattered was that the experience of having a group of penguins walk right past me was absolutely amazing! I can't stop smiling when I think about it.
How can you not love these guys?
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