I awoke once the sun found her way into the penthouse loft. My head clearly didn’t share my great views on the Belgian beer, and I could hear my pulse in my temples. Thump-thump, thump-thump. I needed to shower to kill my headache, but I could not get the shower to reach a temperature below one thousand degrees. Our hosts must have thought that if the water didn’t burn off the top ten layers of your epidermis, it wasn’t truly clean. I am more of a smidge-above-lukewarm guy myself.
While Ash took her turn in the cauldron, I headed to grab some breakfast from the Albert Heijn grocery store. I was perusing the fruit aisle when a man who quite literally smelled like a Dumpster passed behind me. I have smelled plenty of foul people in my day but none as nicely dressed as this guy. He was wearing an expensive-looking three-piece suit, yet he smelled like a fridge of broccoli and fish after a two-week vacation. I figured it couldn’t have been him that produced this smell, but after four grocery-cart drive-bys and ten fewer nostril hairs, my suspicions were confirmed.
I returned to find Ash patiently waiting for breakfast on the roof, plates and cups set up. She was a sucker for picnics. We ate our breakfast and got some traveling logistics out of the way. BlaBlaCars and Airbnbs were certainly more luxurious and usually cheaper than hostels and trains, but booking them required constant communication with the drivers and hosts. When all the waffles were consumed and logistics sorted, it was time to indulge in one of our guilty pleasures, going to the zoo.
Our first stop in the Antwerp Zoo loop was the house of butterflies, though it felt more like a house of baking bread. We walked through a room with a temperature well over eighty-five degrees as butterflies of all breeds fluttered around us. The humming of colorful wings put me in a trance, and I felt like we were on an acid trip. The music was warmly tranquil, and I imagined this was a scene out of the world’s nicest island yoga retreats. Just then I thought: Maybe I should invent a yoga studio with butterflies floating around and call it Butterfly with Butterflies? When they land on you during a pose, you are a true yogi.
We then made our way to the ape section. Ape viewing, for us two, is where the guilt really sets in. They have a 1 percent difference in DNA from humans. One percent is the only difference between sitting on your couch, watching football on Sunday, and sitting in a jail cell for life without having committed a crime.
The elephants, on the other hand, were in rather spunky moods—throwing dirt around and playing with each other. My sister, Emily, is obsessed with elephants, so I naturally have an appreciation for them every time I see them. It also made it easy to buy her gifts when we were growing up: anything elephant-themed was a hit.
Next up: hippo feeding. As we watched the tank-like animal ravage food atop watery stones, I realized that after two years of visiting the Denver Zoo, I had never seen a hippo out of the water until now. Their legs are abnormally short. I still think I could outrun one charging me. The idea of hippos running fifty miles per hour or being the most dangerous animal in Africa was hard to imagine as I watched this short bowling ball graze on piles of fruit and greens.
The highlight of the Antwerp Zoo was the nocturnal animal building. It contained exhibits unlike any we had seen before. The entire building was pitch black. The featured exhibit this summer was rats. (Yes, rats.) The reason for this was their use in Africa to find land mines. It was awesome to watch the documentary on how these rats were conditioned to find explosives hidden in fields. New York City has an arsenal of rats that could really boost their current résumés of eating trash and living in sewers.
We continued our tour and came to the raccoon and skunk exhibit. The exhibit maps along the way had shown us where the animals normally lived. It was usually some remote area of Asia, Africa, or South America. The raccoons and skunks, however, had North America as the sole location of these “exotic” animals. I couldn’t believe those little garbage pests were being showcased at the Antwerp Zoo.
The last area of the small loop housed the reptiles. I spoke Parseltongue to the snakes, but none of them responded. They must have been sleeping. We came to the end of the zoo loop and started the long trek home.
Tonight we were calling it an early night. The zoo was a decent blow to our daily budget, and we couldn’t afford another night out in Antwerp, financially or physically. We had had one day of rowdiness and one day of relaxation. (That’s what R&R stands for, right?)