Three Fairylands

When Anti, Mannu and I were little, every Sunday morning we would curl up on the living room sofa-bed and watch cartoons. The last show in the children`s program was always The San Diego Zoo and I remember how impressed I was by the work of the staff and the wide open fields all the beautiful animals seemed to have. Last week one of my dreams came true and we spent a day at the San Diego Zoo. It turned out to be just as nice as I remembered from the TV show although much smaller and darker. I guess one of the perks of being little is that everything else seems so big and light. The weather in San Diego was so hot that most of the inhabitants chose to quietly hang out in the shade or take a nap, and Clerg and I got ourselves major sunburns (well, I got a major one) but we spent a lovely day in a Sunday morning of mine from twenty five years ago. 

From San Diego we drove to Anaheim, Los Angeles. The roads were a nightmare but our goal another dream come true. The happiest place on Earth is Disneyland, and it was! If you let yourself be the child you once were and do not mock on the all-American keep-smiling, the work put into the precise processes of this old amusement park makes it so much more than just an entertainment. The make-up of the hot-dog aunties is flawless, the attractions work like a clockwork and it is all awfully cute. We spent there the whole morning, and after a couple of hours of an afternoon nap, went back to witness the cartoon parade and the mother of all fireworks. 

The last of the three fairylands was not so plastic any more but it was just as colorful. The Yosemite National Park in California is surrounded by vast cherry, apple, avocado, strawberry and garlic fields and its massive rock walls protect pinewoods and green waters, full of magic. It felt good to be back in the nature after Hollywood`s busy traffic. We looped around Yosemite`s valley trails for hours and hung out at a little, almost private pond with a couple of ducks and deers. It smelled like the Engadine and Nõmme altogether.