"It's in the water, baby..." (Placebo - Post Blue)

Me, post Rotterdam Zoo, with my long desired highlight called the Aquarium...

I get so annoyingly enthusiastic around animals. They're cute and fascinating at the same time. Like those meerkats, who either stand almost too straight on two feet with their enquiring stares, sometimes producing similar to barking declarations for all the meerkats around to hear, or run around chaotically, convincing no one of the existence of a specific purpose at the end of their short journey. Not to mention otherwise intimidating tigers sleeping on their backs, claws up, looking like spoiled kitties. Or hypnotic butterflies chasing discretely perfumed, yet intensively coloured flowers. Or the grumpy polar bear, and the steps of penguins, they will always get to me after 'La Marche de L'Empereur'. And so on, before I get retrospectively annoying.

My views on zoos got a bit friendlier after listening to the audiobook of Yann Martel's 'Life Of Pi' (audiobooks are rare practice for me, partly explained by the currently settled distance from my father which made me miss his long time ago bedtime historical stories of medieval Romanian rulers). As a son of a zoo keeper, Pi learns that animals, due to their conservative and territorial nature, feel rather at home in the secure environment of the zoo (In an unrelated to this post story, Pi also embraces three different religions, quoting Gandhi's words 'All religions are true' to defend his choice. Beautiful book).

More than this, I have always had a even stronger fascination for large, dangerous, misterious, alive or extinct, animals. By this I mean Godzilla's relatives, Loch Ness Monster, Moby Dick, and Jaws. And last week, it happened. I saw one. A real shark. Actually, quite a few. They were taking their swimming seriously around the ceiling of the aquarium, smaller than I had hoped, more elegant in their movements than I had expected. Beautiful predators.

The Rotterdam zoo is a pleasant experience because it is well mantained, as well as varied, almost labyrinthical, and most of the time populated with esthetically amazing blond Dutch children (my biological clock is (sometimes) ticking). It's spectacular enough to give this Rotterdam temporary resident a sense of touristic travel. Some places here still have that effect: a neghbourhood type of bar by the canal in Delfshaven, or the arrays of tastefully decorated houses (they don't believe much in curtains here), bikes in front of course, on the little islands in Kop van Zuid. And I guess this kind of details are the ones which, in my imagination, created the anticipation of moving here, the different mindset with which I get to every destination.

More stories on the 'art of travel', as Allain de Botton entiled one of his books, sometime in May. I'll just put an underwater photo on this post and then, as De Maistre did, quoted by Botton, take some journeys around my bedroom.