LEGOLAND Deutschland

On Saturday, Greg and I went with some friends of ours and their three children to Legoland. Our original plan for this weekend was to go hiking in the Black Forest to enjoy the peak time for viewing the leaves. Unfortunately, the weather called for heavy rain in the Black Forest area all weekend, so we scrapped that plan and decided last minute to go to Legoland. The USO here sells discounted tickets, so both of us got into the park for about the price of one ticket to Six Flags.

It still rained for most of the day, but the rain was usually just a light drizzle. We don't get many heavy thunderstorms in Germany.

The park itself was a bit different than American amusement parks. In America, amusement park rides seem to typically be geared towards older children and teenagers with tons of roller coasters and thrill rides. Legoland, and apparently many of the other amusement parks in Germany, cater more to families with young children. The rides were mostly some variation of a car going around a set track. There were three roller coasters that were all very small and child-friendly. Ironically, safety features in America aren't so present in Germany. Some friends explained to us that at other parks, the rides were often not manned and designed for a parent to simply put their child in the ride, hit a button, and take off. Legoland rides were manned by employees, but some of them were as simple as an individual just waving you to jump off the platform into the moving vehicle. It was much different than all of the safety features we were use to in America.

At one point, Greg was on the most "thrilling" roller coaster with his friend, his friend's daughter, and a friend of the daughter (confusing enough?) when his friend's daughter began slipping out of the seat of the coaster from beneath the bar. When Greg reached around the back of his seat to attempt to help grab her, he hit his hand against a nearby tree. Her dad ultimately held her in the seat until the ride ended and everyone was safe, but very shaken. On a more positive note, the picture taken from the roller coaster camera was probably one of the most hilarious pictures imaginable. Since everyone made it out alive and our friend's daughter was only slightly traumatized, they bought the picture in the form of a magnet for their refrigerator.

I don't really like rides, so I mostly stuck to the kiddie stuff. Greg and I wrote a little car around a Lego safari complete with animals built entirely out of Legos.

It was pretty impressive how everywhere in the park, all of the decorations were made of Legos.

There was also a pretty huge area called Lego City that was nothing but sculptures and replica towns made out of Legos. They had everything from scenes out of the Star Wars movies to a full model airport, multiple castles, a stadium complete with lights and sound and multiple European cities. Greg was really excited about Star Wars, but I really liked the replica cities. I have hundreds of pictures and Blogger takes about 5 minutes to upload just one, so my Facebook album is the best way to see all of the Lego town goodness.

All of the seats were filled with little Lego people wearing their team's  colors.

The drive there and back was three hours, so it made for a pretty long day. We didn't get back home until almost midnight. On Sunday, we both woke up feeling like we had been binge drinking all day. I'm sad to say that I'm not quite 24 and I'm already too old to stay out past midnight.

Next weekend, we're hoping it will be nice enough to go hiking, although I'm guessing most of the trees will have lost their leaves by then. Also, we just started planning our first out-of-country/overnight trip to Switzerland to go snowboarding over Thanksgiving weekend. Greg's three-week long class he was supposed to attend last month was postponed, so he will most likely be leaving again soon. As sad as I am to see him go, I'm going to enjoy some solo travel while he's gone. I'm tired of hanging out around our house all the time.