Meetups and Exploring the ZOO!

So I'm not sure if any of you have heard of meetup.com. NO. It's not the dating website (although I think from time to time that it sounds like it). It is a friends-meet-and-enjoy-the-event site!

Meetup.com is a website and app that basically allows one person to invite people that are interested in going to an event so that he/she doesn't have to go by themselves and can enjoy other people's company. For instance, if say I wanted to go to the Buffalo Zoo -- all I would have to do is post an event (Going to the Buffalo Zoo for the day) and other people that are also interested in going to the Buffalo Zoo for that day and time can join me. It's a really cool website/app that gets people to know other people and have fun at various events in and around the city as well as in other places. Most larger cities have meetups, although there are some smaller towns here and there that may have a few groups in the area.

Anyways, the reason that I brought it up is that I've been going to several different Meetup events around Buffalo and have met cool people, but also have done cool things. One day, I volunteered with a group of people to set up food donation boxes that would be handed out to families that needed it at a local food bank. We ended up packing 225 boxes that were about 35 lbs each -- making it a total of 7,875 lbs of food packed by our group! Another time I played volleyball with a bunch of people at an indoor court. I've also gone to a lot of meet and greets -- where I meet people involved with a specific group and just talk to them. It's been really great.

I also went to the Buffalo Zoo at the end of February. The Zoo in Buffalo is I believe the third oldest zoo in the country, and is actually a lot nicer than some people in Buffalo said it was. There are a wide variety of creatures (not as much as the Detroit Zoo however) and they just opened the Arctic Exhibit a few months ago which has one polar bear cub currently housing it. The other polar bear cub was one that a friend of mine had taken care of at the Alaska Zoo before it was actually brought to Buffalo. I believe that cub was moved to a different zoo (no idea why though). So that was exciting seeing all the different animals.