Baltimore Zoo

November is possibly not the best time of year to be visiting a zoo, but the Baltimore Zoo was quite entertaining nonetheless. Our first port of call was the Otter, who put on quite a show - leaping in and out of the pool and pausing at appropriate moments to strike a pose suitable for photographing. There weren't many turtles to be seen in the 'Maryland Grassland' area but the petting zoo brought back some childhood memories and there were quite a large collection of African animals, including a slightly wheezing, but still vociferous, lion and a leopard cruelly placed where he could see gazelles every day but not get anywhere near them.

We located a nearby mall to grab some lunch and there were some tense (for us) moments as it became apparent we were the only white people in the building, as we started ordering our food we were quickly categorized into the 'damn tourists' category and people stopped giving us funny looks. The food was once again both cheap and plentiful, a very satisfying feature of american eateries.

In the evening we went to an ice hockey game, the Tampa Bay Lightning visiting the Washington Capitals, tickets being a bargain $5 each. Our seats were very high up but the whole upper deck was canted at a vertigo inducing angle which made you feel like you were almost directly above the rink. The game itself was quite strange, the home team got ahead early but then hardly got a shot in for the next two periods. Tampa Bay eventually turned their dominance into goals and forced the game into overtime and then into a penalty shootout which they duly won. What interested me was the contrast between the 'outside' entertainment at the ice hockey compared to the football. Although there was stuff going on at the football, nobody much seemed very interested and, apart from the odd cheerleader and the marching band at half time, the only thing that appeared on the pitch was the two teams and the stadium was full. The ice hockey was less than half full but there seemed to be something going on at every break in play - prize draws, organ playing, videos on the big screen and even some fairly blatant 'throw lots of free stuff at the crowd' type things. Between the periods we were treated to an absolutely hilarious 'junior' game (two teams of seven year olds following a puck around the rink - it was a lot funnier than it sounds...) and an "It's a Knockout" style race in suitably funny costumes, this with adults though. In all it seems the NHL feel they have to work a lot harder for their fans than the NFL.