Antwerp Zoo & Shopping

Our second installment of "Wild about Wednesday" was another big hit!  Again we some how managed to get some sunshine and nice weather...which just makes everything so much better! And we had a lovely time with friends exploring the Antwerp zoo and shopping off the sales racks (Belgium law allows stores to only have "sales" in January and July...so of course we had to take advantage).

Autumn and I hopped on the train bright and early to make the trek to Antwerp to meet our friends for a fun day at the zoo!!  We actually arrived at the train station a little early and since there is a train from Brussels to Antwerp leaving about every 20 minutes or so we were able to catch an earlier train...too bad we didn't realize it was the SLOW train to Antwerp...our 50 minute ride just turned in to an hour and a half and we actually arrived AFTER the train we originally planned to catch...ha...so much for my planning.  But we made it and found our friends and had a great morning wandering around checking out all the animals.

 Ooh-Ooh-Aah-Aah

Love her expression here...she looks like she swallowed a bug :o)

Where did the giraffe's go? 

I couldn't believe how packed the zoo was...especially at 22 euros a pop!!  I am definitely spoiled by the awesome FREE zoo we have back home.  After we had seen just about everything, we stopped for a quick picnic lunch and then our friends were headed home for naps.  Autumn and I were planning to make a day out of it though...she's always been great at napping on the go (sometimes too great and she naps in her stroller when I want her to wait and sleep in her bed...ha!) so we'd planned to spend the afternoon shopping.  Before nap time though we had to get in one more treat...a ride on the cars!  The was a small carnival just outside the zoo with the cars Autumn loves so much!  She chose this fun pink rig...

After a few hours of retail therapy we were back on the train and headed home.  This time I made sure we caught the fast train and made it back to Brussels in around 45 minutes!  We had some in-train entertainment too with two cute little French speaking girls sitting across the aisle from us.  By the end of the trip they were sitting with us, drawing pictures for Autumn, and giving us the traditional "cheek kisses" goodbye.  It was so cute...even if we couldn't understand each other.

I'd say summer is definitely starting to perk up...today we had our first music class (this time at the English music school called Ding Dong), tomorrow we're off to Prague, and for our next Wednesday adventure we're headed to the coast for a sand sculpture exhibit!