Hello, Hola, Guten Tag, ROAR?

Last week, Heather and I took our kids to the zoo in Nurnberg. Eventually, we might figure out how best to purchase train tickets, but every time we travel (or buy tickets for someone else) by rail, we seem to buy the wrong tickets or forget to stamp them or something. So, the zoo visit ended up being a bit more expensive than it should have, due to our buying a more expensive ticket that wasn't good until 9 am, though we boarded the train at 7:45. Fortunately, we were given mercy and allowed to get off the train at the next stop, instead of paying the 40 euro per person fine.

After a slightly rough start, we did enjoy seeing the animals.

Christopher was just along for the ride. Ashlyn and John (Heather's 1-year old boy) seemed to most enjoy the petting zoo. We bought food this time. Ashlyn promptly dropped the entire box.
While Heather held Christopher, I followed John around the petting area. Ashlyn was on her own, though I believe Heather was watching her.

John acted like he wanted to pet the goats, but generally just walked close to them.

Ashlyn was a bit more confident in petting strange animals.
As we left, several just lined up by the fence, so Ashlyn was able to go down the line, petting.
At lunch, two moms and their children sat down at the table next to us. The two little girls recognized Ashlyn and said "Hi, Ashlyn!" Ashlyn just looked at them. I didn't know them, but I told Ashlyn to say "hi." They repeated their hello, and Ashlyn responded with a "ROAR!" Too shy to say "hello," but she is comfortable making animal noises? O.K. When I told Allen about this, he wanted to know if I had introduced myself to the other moms. I told him that I was kind of embarrassed that my kid was roaring at them. "Hi, I'm Angie, you know, the mother of the lion?" Of course, I guess they are already thinking of me as the mother of the weird roaring kid.

We were having a good time, so we decided to stay longer and skip our kids' naps. The trains were only every two hours. Shortly after the train left, we decided this was not a great plan, and had two hours to kill.

Ashlyn was fascinated with the seals. I'm not sure why, because they weren't doing much. She would not cooperate for a picture.

She also wouldn't cooperate while looking at the birds, either.
She was willing to sit for snacks on the train, though.It was a pretty fun day. Now that we think we have the train tickets figured out, we will try to do this again every couple of months.