First expeditions and adventures

My early adolescent years were wild and I wasn’t afraid of anything (except water of course, you know how dangerous that stuff is for us evolved penguins). I spent a lot of my time in the Swiss Alps, you can imagine what an achievement that was with my short legs. Without the frequent rest in my Papi’s pocket I admit it would have been impossible to climb all these mountains. He also protected me from these monster beasts that they try to keep away from the villages with fences, they make them wear big noisy bells so children can run away when they are attacking. And they try to drop this gloopy stuff on you, I had a lot of nightmares.

Being a VIP in Switzerland I had the honour of a short flight in Bertrand Piccard’s Breitling Orbiter. In 5 minutes I couldn’t match his first successful balloon circumnavigation of the world but I was the first penguin ever to master such complex machinery. And I didn’t break it.

Lots of people wanted their picture taken with me. Here is one of two strange guys who normally like to scare kids, don’t worry I felt totally safe, often it’s not the big ugly freaks but the tiny cute fellas who can be really dangerous, so watch out for Pingu!

Another test of my courage was to step into the mouth of a Megalodon. This one was dead and dry, but I’ve seen enough films where things suddenly get scary. Maybe he wouldn’t have liked me between his megateeth, this one was over 17 metres and I pity my Antarctic ancestors who had to get wet and maybe meet this guy.

We also made a trip to Mami’s home island called England, where they have never heard of Pingu before. We searched the shores for penguins but found something much better: houses with up to 10 taps where beer is flowing out. In Switzerland they just have water on taps, this was cool! However, this sort of beer didn’t have any effect on my weather capabilities, they have some mean rain gods over there.

And then we had a huge party at home. My parents got married to legalise my status. I already had diplomatic rights due to being a Maharaja and god, but this meant that I wouldn’t end up like many divorce kids, spending one week here and there (if you know my Papi’s cooking you know what I mean), now we were a real family! And the smells alone were worth it.