Day 7- The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

Today we decided to check out the animal-fill Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. Having both taken the Laurel School Passport trip to Tanzania in 2009, we both had a pretty good sense of what it is like to see wild and rare animals in their natural habitats, considering we spent three days of the trip on a African Safari. Neither of us had been to a zoo since before our trip to Tanzania, because we figured that nothing could compare to how we saw real animals all the way across the world. However, when we first stepped through the gate leading into the zoo this morning, many memories from our previous travels came into play. We first walked over to the elephants. There were about 6 elephants out to look at, and even a baby! We went through the Australian Adventure to see the kangaroos, then saw the koalas, the lions, giraffes & African Savanna, Monkey Island, rhinos, gorillas, then up to see the tigers, bears, and aquatics. The funny thing about going to see the aquatics area, (an inside building with fish, sharks, ect.), is that we found this experience to be much more educational, exciting, and entertaining than we found the Cleveland Aquarium to be. It also is a great place for other events, like on holidays such as halloween, or when the space is used for beneficial walks like The Suicide Prevention Walk.The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo has done an incredible job with their exhibits and attractions. The Zoo was clean, the food was good, the animals were entertaining, and the overall experience we had today with the animals was almost as realistic as we had remembered in Tanzania. We saw people of all ages there; from babies to children to parents to grandparents; showing that the Cleveland Zoo is a Cleveland attraction that helps make Cleveland as great a city as it is.