It was all going smashingly, until...

Annika fell face-down in a pile of goat caca.

But let's back up a few paces. Yesterday was another beautiful day here in Stuttgart, and feeling brave, I packed another picnic lunch, fired up Dora (how I adore Dora), and we headed for Wilhelma Zoo.

We arrived without a problem. Stuttgart seems quite easy navigate, even without Dora, not that I'd want to try it without her. It just seems like I keep visiting the same areas, or at least everything is starting to look a little more familiar. I love when that happens--when I suddenly start feeling like a new duty station is home. I realize that I'm starting to get the hang of things.

We parked, bought my ticket without incident. I swear I practice what to say in German in my head, over and over while waiting in line, then get up there and stutter something half-German and half-English. I'm just so terribly nervous about butchering the language! I wish that I had a little more confidence in my language skills. This is why I love going anywhere on the town with either of my friends Jen. They both speak German with amazing fluency, so I let them do all the talking and translating. At least German is easier than Japanese!

It was gorgeous at the zoo. The tulips are out and the zoo has great swathes of them planted in a rainbow of colors. I don't think I'll make it to the Netherlands this spring, but this was close enough. Of course, Annika went right up and beheaded one of the tulips...she's so vehement. We went through the butterfly house and the aquarium and had our lunch on a bench outside right in front of the monkey exhibit. The monkeys were probably watching Josiah and Annika and thinking "What a show!"

Actually, they did really well up until the third hour, when we headed up the hill to the African and farm animal exhibits. We admired the tigers, the leopards and the elephants, then headed over to see the goats, sheep, horses, pigs and cows. The zoo has a great little area that kids can go into to pet random sheep and goats. When the goats and sheep get exhausted by all the love, they simply slip back through a little hole in the fence and into their private pasture. Well, no sooner than we got into the petting area, then Annika shot through the little hole and ran out into the pasture. I had to scale the fence and run after her, which was so un-amusing to me, though all the German folks standing around were getting a good laugh out of it. And she managed to add injury to insult by wading right into a pile of goat pellets and picking up a nice, big handful...

Oh, so that's what the goat caca is all about, you say, but no. It gets worse. We moved to a different petting pen, this one also full of goats and sheep and also kids and lambs. The babies were so adorable, I can't even describe. I think there's a picture. I just wanted to take one of the little lambs and stuff him under the stroller and bring him home. Awwww. It could sleep with me and I would name it Herbert and I could take it for walks.

Anyway, we get in there and I'm keeping a pretty close eye on Annika, but all of a sudden I look over and Josiah's trying to pull one of the nursing kids off it's mother's teat. Because he wants to pet that particular kid. I pull him off the kid and start explaining to him that the baby is having his lunch and to leave him alone (or I am going to administer a spanking in public) when I hear Annika start bawling at the top of her lungs, panic pitch, and look over to see a German woman helping a goat-caca-covered Annika to her feet. She had fallen headlong into goat caca. And probably some sheep dip, too. She had poo on her face, her jeans, her coat, her shoes.

As you can imagine, that concluded our trip to the zoo, because of course, I left the change of clothes in the car...

I guess I'm still learning.