Oh My God, Zoos.

So whenever its a sunny day in Belgium (which is rare, but it's been great lately) I like to run to the zoo at lunch.  It's a five mile roundtrip and a great way to break up the work day.   I was feeling pretty good on the way out, thinking about how I could probably become an awesome elite athelete pretty easily.  On the way back, not so good.  I was sore from crossfit the past few days, and I didn't eat a snack before I went.  I was cranky, miserable and pretty sure that I could never run so much as a half marathon ever again.  It's amazing how perspective can color things. 

The highlight of the trip was getting to pet a giraffe.  My zoo adventures so far include:

• Feeding an elephant some apples and petting his trunk.
• Having a bat fly into my hair and watching a ton of them during feeding time in the creepy old watchtower underground of the abbey ruins. 
• Having a lemur sit on my shoulder.

The Europeans are a much more interactive zoo kind of place.  The place is built on old abbey ruins and is rustic and beautiful.  I like being able to be somewhere so entirely different from work in the middle of the day.  I get to see tons of kiddos playing with baby goats and seeing these animals for the first time.  It's nice, it's zen.

B: mango, strawberry, dried apricots, walnuts, chia seeds
L: vegan chili, carrots & hummus, a piece of salmon jerky
Snack: Nutrigrain bar, because I accidentally ate some hand sanitizer and I had to get the taste out of my mouth.  True story.
D: apple, gouda, walnut & spinach salad with homemade dressing by Elisa.
multigrain garlic bread with mozzarella
veggie, mozzarella and baked egg stuffed red pepper with brown rice
watermelon for dessert
a couple glasses of wine

Oh and in the interest of full disclosure I drink a lot of coffee, probably somewhere along the lines of 32 oz/day.  I just drink it black, I'm on some Jamaica Blue Mountain that Paul & I brought back from Jamaica.  So tasty in the french press.