I made it out of the flat today! Seriously...that's a big achievement.

In an admission that is sure to shock and horrify my mother, I here declare that as of last night, I had not left my flat for approximately forty hours. Look, I know. It's not okay. But...you know how it goes...you wake up late, start reading back issues of GQ over breakfast, fiddle around a bit with paper citation methods, make some lunch, take a shower or three and watch The Flying Scotsman back to back with Anna Nicole: the Opera and suddenly the day has flown by and you are still in the pajamas you put back on after your last shower because apparently, actually, you never had any intention of going out in public in the first place.

Also, you read that right--Anna Nicole Smith has joined Violetta and Mimi in the opera pantheon of tragic dead women:

 I don't think I want to go into it right now.

Anyway, in a change of pace and clothing that is sure to please my mom, I went OUTSIDE today. Not just outside, but to that most wild of places, that mysterious and odoriferous mecca of vestigial homo habilus urges. I'm talking the ZOO, people!

The Edinburgh Zoo is quite nice...good selection of zoo heavies lions, tigers and penguins (penguins are the new bears). The biggest drawback is that it seems to have been cut, Incan-civilizationlike, out of the very hillside, meaning that by the time you make it to the lions at the very top of the zoo, your vision is blacking out from exertion and oxygen deprivation (chances that the Edinburgh Zoo is secretly a very well camouflaged weight-loss regimen: 50-50). Still, all in all a very nice way to spend the afternoon. Pictures below...as today seemed to be the unofficial "hang out right next to the fence" day, I got some pretty good ones.

I don't know what this is. I'm going to go with emu.

EGG!

This pool smelled to high heaven of the fish-shits.

Cocky bird.

EGG!

BABY WALLABY!--On a related note, can you imagine the pictures I would have gotten about, oh, a month ago? Well, STOP IMAGINING. I am trying to keep this thing classy. Geez.

Sun bear

Some kind of parrot. Look, what do you want from me? I can barely get shoes on these days, let alone remember my avian subspecies. Christ.

Tiger...napping.

These monkeys have the same response to rain as me...go hide under a rock. The little one is outside because the others wouldn't let him in. It gets better, little monkey! Unless you freeze to death.

Lions...grooming.

But as much fun as it was to see all the different animals/readapt to natural light, the best part of the day came (as per usual) in the cafeteria. CHECK THIS SHIT OUT:

LOLZ. We maaaaaaay have made spectacles of ourselves. Seriously, I NEED this chair. And thus ends (see what I did there?) my day at the zoo.