We’re going to the (National) zoo, zoo, zoo

I woke up Sunday with the worst hangover headache, which persisted for most of the day. I managed to drink enough water to calm it down but I had a painful knot in my shoulder throughout the day and evening. Despite this, I managed to eat a full breakfast in the hotel restaurant and then set out to visit the Smithsonian National Zoo.

As it’s part of the Smithsonian network, the national zoo is free. There are no queues to get in, no turnstiles, you just walk in from the street. People go jogging through it, which isn’t a surprise as there’s some nice woodland surrounding it too.

I used to receive the zoo’s magazine at work and got the impression from it that National Zoo was incredible. Well-designed, well-maintained and well-presented. I should have realised though that being a government funded and free entry zoo that there can’t be that much money available. And being quite an old zoo, it suffers from the usual problem of having to work with old exhibits and old layouts, instead of with a green site.

While not all of it was of the visible standard that I was expecting (I was thinking of something like Singapore Zoo or maybe San Diego) and you could see a lot of back-of-house areas which didn’t do much for immersion, the zoo does have a lot of species, most of their interpretation is really well put together, and they do a lot for in-situ conservation.

The exhibits that didn’t look the best were mostly the outdoors ones, partly due to the lack of greenery what with it being winter. But their indoor exhibits are pretty well stocked and presented. The small mammal house has a tonne of species in it, including many that you just don’t see in Australia. Armadillo, for example.

The reptile house was impressive too, as was the Amazonia exhibition. This had an indoor forest with free-roaming animals and was connected to a frog research facility with a lot of species in it as well. They even had salamander and caecilian, which I’ve never seen before.

One of the annoying things I found though was the layout. The Asia trail is only sign-posted at one of its entrances and if you come from the “top” of the Zoo and walk downhill, when you enter the signed entrance you do a loop around and end up back at the start. It’d be much better if both entrances were signed as entrances to begin with.

There’s also the problem of having to choose between two paths and then doubling back around to see everything again. We still did see everything, particularly as our last stop were the American animals like wolves and beavers, but I can imagine if you come with small children it’d be a hassle, especially as the zoo is built on a hill.

Glen and I also brought our luggage with us. Luckily they were only small carry-on suitcases but in total it was about 20 kg worth of stuff to pull (no lockers available which was a shame). We got quite a few looks (well, Glen did as he ended up pulling both suitcases for some reason) walking through the zoo and they made dugga-dugga-dugga sounds all the time. Some of the animals definitely looked up at the noise.

All in all we were there for about three or four hours, which is a pretty good effort. It feels like a big zoo, there is plenty to see and we had a good time. By the end of it though, we were about ready to drop.

We caught a taxi to Manny’s because figuring out the public transport system was a bit much for us by that stage. We rocked up on his doorstep announced, which was a bit bad of us, but he didn’t appear to mind. We went over the road to the shops together then came back, had hot chocolate and chatted while he prepared food for his four guests.

They arrived about 4pm while Manny was upstairs getting ready. I opened the door and said, “I’m not Manny,” which they obviously realised and then quickly explained that I hadn’t broken in and was robbing the place. We had some food, forswore the alcohol, chatted about what we were all up to.

We bid farewell at about 5:15 and jumped in a taxi to the airport. We arrived at Dulles very early. Really we could have left Manny’s at six but not knowing traffic and distance and how long check-in was going to take, it was best to play it safe. Check-in hadn’t opened when we arrived so we wrote some last minute postcards and by the time we’d finished we got up and checked-in.

We went through security and then onto the train to our terminal and then went for dinner at a diner-type place. I had a chicken salad with way too much dressing and Glen had a monstrous thing with potato skins, nachos and chicken tenders. One meal could have done the two of us.

Our flight was delayed by about 45 minutes due to a late arrival. There were only about 20 people on our flight so we stretched out again. We had a very bumpy landing into Billy Bishop, so bad I thought I was going to throw up. But we made it safely. It was snowing when we landed and Toronto was covered in it. It’s so strange to see everything covered in white and grey snow.

We caught the shuttle then the subway home, walking along snow-covered streets and footpaths, trying not to slip. Definitely a different experience. Of course, due to the delays, we arrived home much later than expected (close to midnight) but for me at least it didn’t matter so much. Not sure how Glen’s survived being back at home, after what has been a pretty busy weekend.

So, in summary, really liked Washington DC and we definitely didn’t see nearly as much as I would have liked. Plenty more museums to see and it looks like the restaurant scene is pretty good too. I’d like to head back in the warmer weather, cherry blossom season might be worthwhile, and as it’s only an hour and a half flight from Toronto, it’s a pretty good destination to go.

It’s also quite cheap, which surprised me. Our hotel didn’t cost that much and food was very cheap, especially compared to Toronto. Factor in no entry fee for many museums and it’s quite a low budget holiday. The only thing that cost a lot for us was the taxis, however, there are ways of getting around that. Public transport does run to and from the airport and there are shuttle buses which are cheaper than taxis. If we just get a handle on that, it’s pretty good.