So we took my stepmother to the zoo for her birthday this past weekend. The last time she did this was when she was eight. Without saying anything that would get me killed messily, she's now older than that. However, she had just as much fun this time.

The Calgary Zoo is awesome. We got a private tour of the new Africa exhibit, which consists of two large buildings: one for the Savannah and one for the Rainforest (or the TransAlta Rainforest as it's now known).

What they're trying to do is show an 'integrated ecosystem' which essentially means that you have all the animals hanging out in the same general environment, divided only by natural-looking barricades. So in the savannah area, there's a pool for hippos adjoining a warthog pen, which adjoins a large grassy area for giraffes / zebras / wildebeests. It's all predator-free, of course, given that little ten-year-old-Timmy doesn't need to see a lion chomping on a gazelle.

There's no animals in it yet (it opens in January) but you can tell it's going to be crazy cool. Everyone should go.