Mish-Mash of Fun: German City Parks, The Trodelmarkt, and Adventure #5: Bobbolinos!

Despite all of the crazy rain (and flooding in some areas of Western Europe) SUMMER is finally deciding to show it's face...on some days. BUT, warm weather means that the parks around here are ever-more enticing, and when the clouds clear, we head outside. 

Germany loves it's kids, and it's good to them. With that in mind, Dusseldorf is filled with big, cool parks all over the place.  There are two norms that I've noticed in German parks:

1. Sand.
Lots and lots of sand. Everywhere.
I was super annoyed at first (sand isn't my favorite, unless I am at a legit beach) but I've now realized that it's actually pretty genius. Think about it - if your kid is too tired, or too little to play on the playground equipment, what do they do? They dig in the sand. All you need is a shovel and a bucket and BOOM. Hours of entertainment. And even better? There's often some kind of water feature, and we all know that water + sand + sand toys and buckets leads to extreme creativity. We could literally stay at the park allllll day.

Bridger is silhouetted at the top of
this giant tower

2. Dangerously fantastic playground equipment.  Germans are way more laid back with their "safety standards" of playground suitable equipment than the US, which means they're all the more thrilling. LONG, steep metal sides, 40 yard-long zip lines, super-huge climbing walls, and more. There are also some other things that are just genius, like merry-go-rounds with built in brakes. So cool! 

Another reason to be grateful for the summer sunshine too, because all of a sudden we aren't the only ones there anymore AND I am happy to report that my German is now getting good enough that I can hold a small conversation, being myself, and have gotten the phone numbers of a few moms who live nearby (now I just have to get the courage to call them!). 

It really is a huge step forward for me, socially. I am not gonna lie - there have been some pretty lonely-Emily days, playing literally ALL alone with the kids at the park, or trying to talk with the one or two other parents nearby only to have them utter a few polite words and walk away or turn back to their friends. But I'm finding that communication makes all of the difference - not only in being ABLE to say what I want to say, but feeling confident in myself and how I approach. Happy, full sentences, instead of unsteady and unsure partial sentences, being able to laugh and be myself no matter what I am saying, instead of just worrying and wanting to hide. Just a couple of days ago I started chatting with a woman at the park, and I tried to tell her a story about something that happened last weekend, and judging by the look on her face, I don't think she got it at all, but I just laughed and continued on.  In the end, she totally gave me her mom-number. Woot!

Don't get me wrong though - these kinds of interactions are tough. Most of the time, the toughest part is leading up to it - mustering the courage, wanting to try, swallowing my pride in knowing that I am speaking in completely incomplete, grammatically flawed sentences. But you know what? Whatever. Bring it on. I need friends, and so do my kids, and the kind of friends that I want will be the type of people that look past that...hopefully ;) 

But yes - back to park...
One park we have nearby is this bad-boy: Freizeit Park. 

http://www.yelp.com/biz/freizeitpark-ulenbergstra%C3%9Fe-d%C3%BCsseldorf-2

The photo above is just the tiniest little part of this park. It's huge and it's only a 20 minute walk to it from our new apartment (score!). We go all of the time, and it has this massive, somewhat scary slide.

Freizeit Park also happens to be right across the street from a huge, and I mean HUGE "Trödelmarkt" on Saturday mornings. It literally translates to "Junk Market" - haha! 

http://www.yelp.com/biz/freizeitpark-ulenbergstra%C3%9Fe-d%C3%BCsseldorf-2

It's a cross between 100 yard sales, a farmers market, and a flea market, all in one. Booths (over a 100) are set up by almost every nationality imaginable, and the place is crawling with people. We've found everything from delicious food, cheap produce, a bike, random toys, and curious, talkative Russians there. In a city filled with people who've come from places where going to a large market for stuff was probably a cultural norm, I am not surprised it's so popular. It's a fun, cool, very crowded place. Our first visit there, from start to finish, was Adventure #6. But now we go almost every weekend that we're in town.

But yes. We are grateful, that almost anywhere we go in the city, if we are willing to walk in the right direction for about 15 minutes (or less) we'll find a cool park. 

Back in March, when it was cold and rainy, however, we had to get a little creative in how we would get our wiggles out during the day. After weeks of cold, cold rain, and with many of our official "family outings" having been centered around getting registered with the city, getting driver's licences, and doing other official business, we decided to hit up the fabled "Bobbolino's" indoor playground and see if it was up to all the hype we'd heard about. 

http://www.tevento.de/uploads/52dd902718249-560.jpg

Well, let me tell you. It was. 

You could tell the minute you walked in from the almost deafening screams of glee from the 2-16 year-olds. It was so loud we had to shout at each other, right next to each other to be heard. It was like a punk rock concert venue, but there were no bands, and no singing, no blaring speakers - only screaming children.

I'd mentally committed myself to being an over-sized-4-year-old for the day, since we'd tried to get together with other kids that week and almost everything had fallen through. Even though he didn't realize it, our social little man was feeling pretty socially deprived. So I promised myself I would do whatever he wanted, I would goof off, and try to make him laugh, and make his day as fun as possible. 
We made our way in, and as we looked around, we didn't even know where to start. There were trampolines, giant slides, jungle gyms, inflatable bouncing things, and more, all inside what was basically a giant warehouse. 

Poor Bridger was frozen, speechless. He didn't know where to go. I took his hand and we started running, to what, I am not sure, but I just remember yelling "Let's go! Run, run, run!" and before we knew it we were riding inflatable inner tubes down a giant carpet hill. 

It was fun. Between climbing through a jungle gym maze to get to the top of the tallest slide repeatedly and rescuing Bridger from over-zealous preteens in an inflatable jumping ball-thing, I'd say I did my job. And Berkley and I swapped, of course, since Juniper had other interests. 

We all enjoyed:
A giant volcano slide (climb up, slide down):
A field of trampolines
Cars to drive around or 1 Euro
The toddler area
Big inflatable indescribable monstrosity
A jungle-maze with everything in it you could imagine and two large slides at the top, one fast, one swirly. 

Bridger kept getting swallowed up in this giant inflatable thing that was also covered in crazy pre-teens. He liked it anyways

Auto!! 

This sums up his mental state
during most of the visit

I will say, however, that I could tell that there was some intense over-stimulus going on. Bridger lacked focus, and his eyes were just kind of flitting around. He was having fun, but it was like a crazy, unfocused fun. And he wasn't the only one. At one point I got pegged in the side of the head with a plastic ball from a ball bin when I was NO WHERE near the ball bin...
...but was it worth it? Absolutely. 

The transition to leave was a tough one, but we all survived, and plan to go back another day. Someday...when it's super cold and rainy again. 

A Letter to Thom Heward on Father's Day

Hey Dad! Happy Father's Day!

Dad, your mouth is almost always open in photos because you're
either laughing or saying something ridiculous. I love that about you.

I just wanted to let you know that I am thinking about you today, on this, the day that we honor and think about our fathers. Here's some things I'd like to thank you for:

Thank you for your laugh - I like your laugh. A lot. And you make sure that I get to hear it often. My favorite of your laughs is when you laugh so hard you wheeze silently, with little squeals of chuckle the end of each breath, only to gasp for more air and squeal again while slapping your knee. I've only ever seen you laugh that hard at Mike and Dave, and at movies with ridiculous slap-stick comedy (like the newest "Get Smart"), which makes me like that laugh even more. 

Thank you for your ingenuity. You can take anything and turn it into, well, anything. Like this picture of you pulling Bridger down the road on a snow shovel:

One of my favorite stories of you is how you managed to lift a giant tree that had fallen onto our house using nothing but Re Bar and an old car jack on metal casters. The house creaked a sigh of relief as you slowly jacked up the tree, and we breathed sighs of relief that no one died in the process. I remember that Berkley asked you to pray about whether or not that was a good idea before you went through with it because he thought "God will tell him that this is a terrible idea and that we are all going to die". But we all felt okay about it, and yes, in the end, it worked. 

Thanks for cheering.  For cheering me on at all of my sporting events over the years. For cheering at camps. For cheering when I graduated from high school and then college. Your voice had a unique way of making it through the din to my ears, and I was ever-encouraged, even if I acted like an embarrassed teenager. Maybe I heard you because you would sometimes cheer when no one else was cheering, and maybe it was because it was a voice I'd heard again and again over the years at campfires at Camp Grizzly, or across our field to tell me to get out of the creek, or that mom wanted me. But I always thought, "There's my dad".

You and I on the Salmon, 2008. There's
that open mouth again :)

Thank you for taking me to the mountains and the rivers when I was young. It was the very beginning of a long love-affair that I have with those places, and that I long for when I am away. Your excitement and joy still echoes in my bones when I think about you when I am there. Can we go back together, sometime soon?

Thanks for being a Boy Scout. You're one of the best I know. You're ever-trustworthy, loyal to the bone, helpful in every way, courteous, so, so kind, cheerful (everyone knows that), thrifty (sometimes to a fault, you penny-finding machine!), brave, clean in heart and mind, and reverent beyond my understanding.  You know a lot of campfire songs, some of the best, and because you taught them to your sons, they live on and on after every single campfire at Camp Grizzly, and "ever more shall be it so", even if the people singing it don't know it's origin. 

Thanks for being strong. Like, muscley-strong. It's genetic, I know, and it's something I've been proud of, being one of "those Hewards", since I can remember. I remember one time, on a very rare occasion, you were wearing shorts (*gasp!*), and so was I. We stood next to each other. I stood next to you and looked down at our legs. They looked almost identical, except for yours were a lot hairier. In response to what I saw, I said "Thanks for the man-legs, Dad."
You paused, then looked at me and said "Well...you'll never roll an ankle?!"

We laughed, but what you said was so, so true. There's been many times I was at the bottom of a pile of people on the Rugby pitch and I would think "Man, I'm sure glad I don't have bird-legs right now". So yes - thank you for being strong. 

You and Juniper, looking at toes

Thanks for loving my kids. They adore you. You're the best Grandpa anyone could ever, ever hope for. 

Thank you for your deep thinking. You, Dad, are a deep thinker. I know that there's some very complex, important knowledge deep down in that brain of yours. I think that deep thinkers like you sometimes have a hard time deciphering those deep, important thoughts into words that the rest of the world can understand, and I want you to know that that is okay. Sometimes there's a reason for that, and in the meantime, keep sharing when you feel it's right, and I'll keep listening. I love that. 

Thank you for your love. Your love of the Lord, your love of people, your love of hard work, your love of a nicely mowed lawn, your love of cats and dogs and chickens, and more. That's love that you've passed onto me. 

I could go on, but I think it suffices to say that I love you, Dad, and I am glad you were born today. Keep up that good work you're doing of being alive!

Your youngest daughter, Emily