Christmas at the Zoo

Contemplating Art & Animal life on the brink of a new year.

This Christmas, I visited two of Aalborg’s hallmark sights and symbols: “Kunsten”, the city’s famous museum of modern art, and also, finally, Aalborg Zoo: both of which, as luck has it, are located quite close to my humble abode.

I do oftentimes miss the countryside, but certain aspects of city living, like a vast and never-ending array of cultural offerings, almost, makes up for it. Here, a few photos from the current exhibitions at Kunsten:

On Christmas day, during a light drizzle, I dropped by the Zoo to see many an, originally wild, animal.

Some larger creatures relaxedly moved about in their cages outside, but most were, sensibly, snoozing indoors. A zoo is a strange artificial scenario, though… I do wonder what they all made of us: the gawking ones on the other side of the fence or glass…

A huge amount of people, mostly families with kids, had found their way to the Zoo.

+ 2 Polar Bears. “Look, it’s twerking!” a boy exclaimed (it was scratching its backside against a rock… :D).

What impressed and enchanted me the most were these gentle giants: the Giraffes. So cute and sooo tall!

A pink Flamingo gazed longingly out at the rain and (a bit sideways) at me. Overall, not many animals were seen outside in the wet weather. Antelopes, ostriches, zebras and the like were only present through pictures on information boards: not in the flesh (though, I’ve, weeks later, noticed a group of ponies :))

Lastly, I stopped by the Zoo shop and picked out a few souvenirs, like this little notebook for fresh ideas.

After publishing my third novel, I’ve felt somewhat creatively empty but do have hopes that a spark of inspiration will ignite in me in the year ahead. It usually does. As of now, no new writing is in the works, but I very well may take up singing, again. Personally, I’m hoping for an artistically and otherwise fulfilling 2025.

Recent worldly occurrences are both worrying and wearying. At this point, I almost feel too tired to pour more of my focus, attention and remains of precious life force energy into panicking endlessly about crazy, cruel dictators or immature egomaniac leaders who displays very little, if any, self-awareness or accountability but conveniently project their own shadiness and bad traits out on everybody else. As I see it, Trump, must’ve, sadly, been elected by very unaware people.

On the brink of a fresh new year, I wish for all of us inhabiting this polarized and imbalanced world: instead of blindly or habitually stumbling backwards into a darker past, to finally make a big leap forward into a lighter, more kind and harmonious future.

I still have faith in the Human Heart and a dogged trust in the greatness of our collective spirit: I sincerely hope that 2025 will show a breakthrough of clarity and compassion, eventually leading to lasting peace.