One week later...

Sorry it took so long to get this up! One week ago, it was October 3, which is German Reunification Day. According to Inga, the wall came down on a different day altogether, but that happened to be the anniversary of Reichspogrommnacht (aka Kristallnacht, or night of broken glass), so the reunited Germans decided to celebrate it on a different day. The spirit is a lot like Labor Day, lots of grilling and picnicking and such, but of course, the weather was kind of bad.

I would have spent the day diligently trying to work on my grad school application (which I've been trying to work on all of break), but Inga invited me to come with her to an animal park outside the city where some colleagues of hers were having a barbecque.

This is Lutz, master of the grill and volunteer at the animal park. Apparently he's there to sell tickets, but I think he was a little preoccupied with the sausages.

The animal park was part petting zoo and part normal zoo - they had deer, sheep, goats, birds, and even squirrels caged for public viewing. Which wouldn't have been all that interesting, but they also had......baby warthogs! Yes, the legendary wild pigs of Europe, live and in the flesh. Not that impressive, since they look like normal baby pigs. But they grow up to be like Heinrich:

...who is the size of a Smart Car, and who would have big mean tusks if they hadn't been sawed off for the safety of the visitors, and who really is named Heinrich. Apparently Heinrich's cousins live wild near the Berlin airport, where they get into people's trash and attack small housepets. Makes you feel better about your racoon problem, huh?