Love Goes: Serbia, sometimes you suprise me

We love living here. It's a great place, but it's not like home. Sometimes a post communist country just has a lot of ground to cover to catch up with the west. In the almost two years we have lived here we have seen lots of changes for the better. The public transportation stops now all have maps showing you where the vehicle is going and where it stops. A few weeks ago Jen and I saw a new tram rolling down the tracks (we tried to get a picture but much like sasquatch it disappeared behind the trees). Two recent examples of progress were a trip to the zoo and a trip to the water park.

First the zoo:
We visited the zoo early on and lets just say, it aint San Diego. This past week we made a second trip and were awed by the new exhibit - the Tiger Cage. The zoo has acquired two tigers, one white and one regular. They were in new modern enclosures, more habitat based then concrete. The great thing is they walked up to the fence and if you were completely crazy and not fond of your hands, you could pet them. Wilson was super intrigued. This was easily his favorite part of the zoo. Here are the pics to prove it:

that's the tiger right behind us

mom please let me pet the tiger

The water park:
We had heard the legend of an amazing water park a couple of hours south of Belgrade. After contacting friends and confirming the legends were true we decided we must see this ourselves. On monday morning we headed to Jagodina and the Akva (aqua) Park. Upon arrival, the legend was confirmed. This was one of the nicest water parks I had ever been to. They had an olympic pool, expansive shallow kids area, two large wading pools, and 7 large adult water slides. It was clean, the water was refreshing and the shade was plentiful. We met two other families there and the kids had a blast. One of the great things about Serbia is they have not figured out that when you have someone trapped in the park, zoo, fortress etc., you can charge 10 times as much for food. So for less then $20 we got admission and a great lunch as well as an afternoon snack. It was a great day and we will be making the drive back for more fun in the sun. Here are some pics: