The Kölner Zoo currently has three elephants that are less than two years old, and they are quite fun to watch, especially in the great elephant house that is such a nice facility for the animals. This elephant defied our understanding of physics by walking along the edge of the wall that contains the pool. Surely the architects of the pool would never have guessed this to be possible. Where he's pictured here, the wall is over 2 meters high. Falling would have been severely dangerous. Yet, right after this picture was taken he managed to gingerly turn himself around and walk back.

The mother giraffe wouldn't take her eyes off of my umbrella. It was a red umbrella and we couldn't figure out whether it was the shape or the color that was so interesting or disconcerting to her. She followed me wherever I moved, and only when I held the umbrella up to her to really inspect did she dismiss it and go about eating the trees that had been made available.