The Hungarian Zoo

Today we went to the Zoo. I can't expect you to actually believe what I am about to tell you, but please know that I can't even begin to make this stuff up! All I can tell you is this trip to the Zoo was not at all what I expected and like no other. I thought we would enter the zoo and see your typical monkeys, snakes, alligators and elephants. I had no idea we would see cockroaches, horned toads, vultures and bats.....It was like no other Zoo I have seen. In our zoo must animals are behind a cage or a screen. Who would have known that you were walking in their cages! Maybe they should think abut having some explanations in other languages. For the Bat Cave and the Vulture Mountain alone, it was worth the trip. Every day here something happens that leaves me in utter amazement. Lets start with the Bat Cave. Stay with me here..... It is a sunny day and we are walking from exhibit to exhibit. Number one, I can't read Hungarian nor do I know what anyone around me is saying today or any day for the past 30 days......so you kinda just learn to trust your instincts. Today I walked blindly into a Bat Cave. Now you Bay folks are saying, that's nothing! I should not not have freaked out but I did for several reasons. I once stood in a make shift Bat Cave (the Bay Gym) while bats flew freely above but I have never been in a replica of a bat cave where they are flying right in front of you and it's dark. I could barely see when we walked in because my eyes had not yet adjusted from the sunshine outside.... We walked into the exhibit and right away something flew across the room and barely missed my head. I looked up to see at least 100 bats hanging from above me. I immediately freaked out. Can you imagine? The bats in our zoo are behind a glass wall. We don't get to walk among them. Omg what are they thinking? It reminded me of being allowed to climb into the church steeple and walk around in Czech..... No one here is ever worried about being sued. In my utter moment of freaking out all I could think of was where are the kids. Good God I needed a warning for this one. We were the only people in the cave thank God because I did what any American in this situation would have done - I screamed first, then yelled for the kids followed by "Pockets! Don't touch anything!! " I did not know the Hungarian word for rabies so I just yelled "veszélyes" which is dangerous. I looked down when my vision came and both kids had already made it to the bottom of this disgusting pit with fruit all over it to feed the bats. Z had her hand out within inches of a bat who was sleeping on a log. Both kids have a very nasty habit of having to touch EVERYTHING. Omg I thought I was going to die. I looked to see if someone was filming me for one of those Funny Videos or the foreign version of "You Got Punked" but I was alone. I yelled Z's name as loud as I could and yelled pockets. She knew what I meant and gave me that Crazy American lady look and said "mom" in a tone like why are you so panicked. Now I'm pretty sure that these bats were ok but there was not one worker in this cave to reassure me the kids would not be bitten and contract rabies. This journey has been way too long for rabies!! We are scheduled to have medicals for our Visas the day before we leave next week and we will not be delayed due to a possible case of rabies. We are coming home!! So I made a quick video because I knew Andy would not believe me (and one for the Bay folks) then I grabbed the kids and got out of there. I used 15 wet ones to bathe the kids while the rest of the Hungarians watched me in horror. MY kids will not be carrying bat germs. The zoo was so full of little surprises like the Bat Cave. Things that would never fly in America- far too many to write about but there IS one more I must share. Lol. The Vulture Mountain. Yes, I said Vulture. Now the vulture is not the animal that comes to mind when I think of zoo animals. In fact I don't think I have ever seen a vulture in a zoo. Maybe on the side of the road while on the Way to the zoo like when someone runs over an armadillo..... Each day when we walk to the park we pass the zoo. There is this giant rock mountain and I've been dying to know what's inside. Today I found the mountain. The kids are ten steps ahead of me as usual. As I begin running up the steps to catch them I start to smell something disgusting. They are still laughing and racing to the top all of us oblivious to what animal is inside. I take a step and freeze dead in my tracks. Now, I have already found myself in the bat cave so you know where my mind is going... There is this large slab of meat covered with flies. I look around and once again there are no other people. I said a slab of meat and just so you have a comparison it's not like a steak. It's like the carcass of a small dog. I am now in a full out sweat because we have not seen the lions or tigers yet and I am thinking we wandered into their cage somehow. I am yelling for the kids who came back to meet me and stood beside this carcass like it was no big deal. All of a sudden I hear this horrible screeching and look up. We are smack dab in the middle of heard of Vultures and they are darting down within 3 feet of us to get this meat. Omg people - this is the one. Nothing I tell you nothing will top this one. It was like being in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Our kids have no sense of danger. I took off running to the top in my flip flops yelling for them to follow. We all looked down and watched where we had been standing and blood flew from the slab of meat as the vultures picked it apart. Now I'm not sure how that made the Zoo list but it did and it was the most disgusting thing I have ever witnessed in my life. Hoping my kids don't need therapy after being a part if a live National Geographic scene. There must have been hundreds if them. Yuck. Later we found an awesome playground inside the zoo and the kids begged me to play for a while. The kids were having a blast playing. N was swinging in a tire swing with three other children while Z was climbing a whale statue and sliding down its back. N called me over to push them. As I was pushing, a child came up and began speaking Hungarian. I looked at N with the "help me" look and turned to the little boy and said -English. I might have been an Alien. N smiled as if to reassure me it was alright and said "Mom- stop." It was all I needed to figure out the little guy wanted on the swing. It was comforting to me to know that N knew how to communicate enough with me. I stopped and helped the little boy on the swing and N smiled. I could hear the other children questioning him as I pushed. I am pretty sure they were asking him who I was. I heard him say "mom." Then he quickly followed up with "Anya" which is Hungarian for mom. It made me smile to hear him tell them I was "English." I corrected him to say I am american and I speak English. He rolled his eyes and said, "Mom- Anglash...." That's how he says English. He had them all mesmerized as he told them how many more days before he was going to America. Soon after the inevitable happened. N had to go to the restroom. He ran to me with the potty dance and I knew I had less than 4 minutes. I explained to him that I need to find Z before we could leave. He began screaming her name so I knew it was bad. Remember I told you that our kids go to the bathroom on demand..... meaning they are not used to having to wait and they don't go when there is opportunity. They wait until the last minute because at any given moment they know they can drop their drawers. When I turned to motion to Z, N disappeared. I almost became frantic until I saw a flash of a white rear behind a bench where some ladies were sitting. Now, it was bad, but not that bad because there WAS a bush. Not a big bush- in fact not even large enough to hide him and it was right there ON the playground. I pretended that I did not see this bottom just in case it belonged to N. Sure enough, as I turned to look again he came out with a big sheep grin. The three ladies on the bench in front of him never skipped a beat.... He ran up to me and said "mom, it's ok." It was such a proud moment for him- what could I say. He handled his problem like a true Hungarian child would and for that I could not be upset. I will worry about it when we get him home. Who knows, the problem may fix itself. N, bless his heart, still hasn't grasped that I don't know Hungarian. He asks me questions and I have learned to shrug my shoulders to say I don't know rather than the old habit. I don't mean this in a racist way but sometimes back home when a person only speaks Spanish and you are telling them something, if they don't understand they smile, nod their head and say yes. I used to be so annoyed by this tactic. But guess what I caught myself doing folks? That's right, when the kids say something to me that I can't figure out, to save us all the frustration I started to nod my head and say yes. Lol. I quickly learned how dangerous that is with N because he would get excited, jump up and down and yell something along the lines of "yes, yes, yes." The consequence for this would be me buying something or going somewhere I had no intention of going. Lol. Funny how small moments in your life can change your whole perspective on things. I completely understand now why this choice was made. Yes, it was a great day in Budapest and a Zoo Adventure I won't soon forget. We can't wait to bring our kids home and today as we walked home and watched the airplane fly above, I started chanting "America, America," with the kids. This is what they do any time they see a plane. It melt my heart. Love these kids! Until tomorrow- Goodnight all!