2 Germany – A day at the park which is a lot cooler than it sounds at first

The second day consisted of a lot of walking. But I don’t want to sound like an unfit, out of shape, complainer so that’s all I will say of that.

I woke up early, around 6am, and lay in bed for an hour until I was convinced I couldn’t fall back asleep. Then I played my DS for another half an hour until I heard someone downstairs. Glad that I had someone to harass with my inane natterings, I went downstairs to find Thebes reading a book. We ate bananas for breakfast.

Dietmar woke up and served us breakfast and coffee. Soon, the whole household was awake and we were off on another trip of adventure: the supermarket.

Walks with the children are usually slowed because they have to explore every little ramp, flower, field and slope they can find. Keren also has to take pictures and she found this cute little statue that she needed to have the children pose by.

We made stops at the butcher, the baker but had no need for candles. We bought a dampfnudeln (a bun of sorts with a salty bottom) which was very good. We also got some sausages. This was not at the same store but I listed the stores so you, the dear reader, should be able to figure out what relates to what.

We came home to drop of the groceries and then we were off on our adventure! We had two destinations, getting a Donor for lunch and then the park. We made our way to the streetcar which took us to downtown Manheim.

We checked out the old water tower and walked around the square. We learned a few new phrases “betreten und baden verboten” and Kein Trinkwasser”. We learned this, of course, after we broke them. Ekko and Zoe were just walking around this fountain which, for some reason, was not being walked around by anyone else. I think it had something to do with those signs put up that we couldn’t read. (that first phrase means that it is forbidden to enter and bathe and the second phrase says no drinking).

We went to a small restaurant called “Istanbul” and I had a Donor and fries with coffee. So did the rest of us, and it was quite good. Very large too, I was full for the rest of the day. They had a Starbucks there too, so I got myself one of those fancy drinks with many names and it cost me about 6 Euros. That’s a complete Vietnamese meal right there. However, I was on vacation and it’s Keren’s money.

Next up was the park. Parks have a lot of trees and flowers in it, so we went there to watch the children play in the playground. We were there for quite some time as the children learned to walk down the monkey rings. I would call them monkey bars, but they weren’t bars, they were rings and Ekko and Zoe could do them quite well. Better than the german kids. Hah!

I even have video which I may post here but I have to format it first.

Then we went to the paid section of the park. Since parks aren’t high on my priority list for visitations, I don’t know what it was called, don’t know how much it cost and I wasn’t too sure why were going but I was only here as a parental unit, and not a very useful one at that, so I tagged along.

I searched for the bathroom, because I really had to go, and was once again confronted with a dreaded map. I couldn’t find an obvious symbol for “You are here” so I had to stare at it for five minutes to figure out how to get to the bathroom. Soon, however, I realized that it was right behind me and with great abandon (although not too much abandon, I wasn’t at the bathroom yet) I ran to the “WC”. As I stood there doing my business, my mind raced with thoughts that maybe things were done differently in germany and I was relieving myself at a place I shouldn’t. But there was no one in the “WC” so any errors I made on my part was done in private.

Next up were butterflies. We went to this exhibition hall that had a lot of animals, like birds, snakes, reptiles, bugs, mongoose, fish, and butterflies. We passed many play parks on the way and it was quite a walk, made slower because the children needed to stop and do their imaginings as they do.

The animals were all well and good. They did as animals do, they pooed as animals pooed. Each had that slow, vacant look as encaged animals are wont to express. I don’t have many pictures of animals, so here is a picture of my girls with flowers in their hair. They were made by Thebes.

Despite my moanings of the play parks, they are absolutely cool. Much better than anything I found in North America. First off, they have chairs. And not just any chairs. They were these metal lounge chairs that leaned back for you to lie in! How cool is that? I could ‘watch’ the kids all day if I had one of those! I almost fell asleep, if the park itself wasn’t so awesome.

But the best was the zipline. Words can’t describe. So I’ll post a video.