The Talking City

Hi there! You told me you wanted a tour of St. Louis?

    Okay good. Let’s start at the zoo.

    Before we get started, Hi! I’m Danny

    Let’s start at the St. Louis Zoo

    So this is the St. Louis Zoo. From the giant concrete zoo sign at the entrance to the roaring tunnel of penguins, this is one of the things that makes St. Louis my little slice of heaven. So let me tell you about the zoo. So this zoo actually got #1 free zoo in the US at one point. I have been coming here for as long as I can remember. One of the places I want to start is the Children’s Zoo.

    Sadly, they are taking down the Children’s Zoo and I think that they are replacing it with a dinosaur exhibit but I still have the memories that I can share with you. So one of my favorite memories from the children’s zoo is teasing my mom about the naked mole rats because she thinks that they look gross. I actually like them. Ummmmm what else. Hmmmmmm. Oh! The fennec foxes! Do you know what they are?

    Well, they are these little tan-ish foxes with huge ears. If you get a chance to see them in person or even just Google them later, you will want to have one as a pet guaranteed or your money back (not actually though since you’re not paying me anything). There were also these big concrete (or metal I don’t know) poison-dart frogs that little kids could climb on at the entrance of the Children’s Zoo that me and my sister always enjoyed climbing on. 

Alright then, TO THE PENGUINS!

    Now this tunnel is really loud so watch out. It is kind of cold because there are penguins (and also puffins) here. And since I have glasses, whenever I leave the tunnel, they always fog up and I always have to clean them again so I can see. Another one of my favorite places here are the reptile, primate, and bird houses.

    These houses are home to either reptiles, birds, and primates like I said. My favorite is probably the bird house because of all of the colorful birds. That is one of the only things in the zoo that I can stop and look around at because with all of the colors of the birds! It is pretty much impossible to not stop and look at them. Next stop is the Science Center!

    So this is the Science Center. Our first stop is the OmniMax theater.

    This, in my opinion, is the most unique movie theater in the US. You sit in a velvet-colored foam seat and it is just like a big dome room that you look at. Also, the way they play it, they make it feel like you are experiencing it head-on. Kind of like virtual reality. Every once in a while they have a different “topic”. A while ago they had one on Mt Vesuvius and Pompeii, one year they had one on dinosaurs, and one year they even had one on penguins and climate change I think.

    Our next stop is the agricultural part.

    So the agricultural part might sound kind of boring but I, personally, love it. Inside right here they have a diagram on what kind of energy there is and where it is used. If you go out here, they have a giant combine harvester and sometimes they have someone that tells you what farmers do and how they do it.

    Alright next is one of my favorite things in St Louis. The Botanical Gardens!

    So these Botanical Gardens have a giant greenhouse full of desert and tropical plants like cacti and orchids. But once you go farther into the park, they start to get more nature-y. Before we leave to go to Grant’s farm I want to try to show you my favorite spot in the entire Botanical Garden if I can find it.

    Alright this isn’t it but this hedge maze is definitely on my top 5 of favorites in the gardens. Now I know you might not find this as amazing (no pun intended) as I do but every time me and my family come here, we HAVE to go to this maze and run around. Do you want to go in the hedge maze and try and race to find the way out? Okay aaaaand, GO!

    *2 minutes later*

I WIN! Nice…job…though. Sorry I’m…all out of…breath. Alright. Let me…catch my breath…and we can…go to…that place…that I…was talking about.

    Alright here it is. We’re here at the Japanese garden. Do you see that little wooden gazebo right there? That is where I like to just sit and sometimes even meditate. Alright let’s go to Grant’s farm.

    Oh I almost forgot. This house right here is Henry Shaw’s house. Do you know who that is? He was the one who founded the Botanical Gardens. Alright NOW we are going to Grant’s Farm.

    Alright we’re here. Grant’s Farm. This park was actually dedicated to Ulysses S. Grant, one of our presidents. My favorite part when I was younger was this carousel. I’d always chooooose… THAT horse and me and my sister (and sometimes my brother) would just go around and we would love it. They’d also sometimes have shows with animals like macaws, rats, and even bald eagles. Alright now let’s go to Forest Park.

    Forest park is huge and it includes the zoo, botanical gardens, and I think the science center but I want to talk about the actual PARK part of it. So this, I think, is the best park in the US. Like it’s not so nature-y that it feels like a jungle but it’s just the right amount of nature-y that it is out and away from the city. Sometimes I just like to come here with my family and just walk (I’m actually surprised I haven’t stopped and napped here before). Alright the last stop is my house.

    Alright, before we get to my house I want to show you this park. It isn’t the biggest but this little blue park right here is one of the building blocks of my childhood. To this day I still walk by here and just sit down and remember the memories. I still remember one time when I was younger, me and my sister were playing on this and she didn’t jump hard enough and she broke her knee.

    Alright so if you go down this street right here you will come up on my house riiiiiiiight there. It might not be the biggest but it has the best hugs from any house ever. Whenever I come home from a long day at school it would see me and realize that I had had a rough day and it would give me the biggest and best hug you could ever imagine. I have actually never moved in my life and even when I get a house of my own I am going to stay in St. Louis. It is (like I said before) my little slice of heaven.

Now these are my neighbors, Nate Jack and Alex. We are best friends. All five of us (me, my brother and them). We have had conflicts, sure, but we are all still friends to the end.

Ok so there is an apartment complex just up the street over there. Just come by anytime if you want to ask me something. I know you will love the talking city. St. Louis, Missouri.

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