Our Visit to Europa Park 2013

As part of our Summer vacation 2013 the family and I visited Europa Park in July. We've been to Europa Park several times but it had been a few years now and with the girls being older (especially taller) they're now able to do more of the rides than the last time that we went.

Since the last time we were at Europa Park, we'd seen that park had a new restaurant called the "FoodLoop" and we were excited about checking it out.  In the resturaunt there a few tables centered around different platforms where food and drinks are brought to your table in special containers over a mini roller coaster. You use a touchscreen to order your meals and your food and drinks are sent from the kitchen over the mini roller coaster to the platform where your table is. I can't guarante it but I can imagine that some kids who might need to be "encouraged" to eat their meals will be entertained by the food delivery and therefore more like to eat what is ordered. I can also imagine that the whole order and delivery process encourages people to order more food and drink.  

Because Anna likes roller coasters, she went with me through the park, while Sarah and Christine did the tamer rides. Anna and I started off with the Blue Fire. The Blue Fire is a looping coaster with passengers going through 4 different inversions. It only reaches 124 ft (38 meters) with top speed of 62 mph (100 km/h), but the looping is what makes it exciting (Wikipedia).  Anna had a good start and we were off. There is something special about wooden roller coasters, sure they don't tend to go as high or fast as many of the steel ones, but they're a lot of fun and some coster enthusiasts swear by them. Next up was the Woodan, a wooden coaster that reaches a height of 131 ft (40 meters) with a top speed of 62.1 mph (99.9 km/h) and a G-force of 3.5 (Wikipedia).While the Siver Star might not lead any coaster catagories any longer the first hill reaches heights of 239 ft (73 meters) with a drop of 219 ft (67 meters) at speeds up to 78.9 mph (127 km/h) and gravitational forces of 4g, so it is a pretty exciting ride and Annd didn't see the slightest bit scared! It is nice that someone else in the family likes to ride the roller coasters besides myself, so that I don't have to ride them alone.

It was a very hot day when we went, so we all tried a few water rides.  The thing about water rides is that most of the time you don't sit in the right seat, either you want to get really wet and most of the water misses you or you don't really want to get wet and the water is attracked to you like a magnet.  Christine decided to stand outside of one of the water rides, thinking that she might get wet.  She got a little wet when the first water ride went by and decided to stay for the next one, well she got absolutely soaked, so the trick seems to be that you find a splashy area around the water rides if you really want to get soaked.



We always have fun at Europa Park and we really enjoyed our visit this year.  I can imagine that we'll try to plan a trip there next year.  Since Europa Park gets decorated for Halloween and Christimas, we could even plan a trip to catch either of these.

Photo credit. The Silver Star picture is courtesy of Wikipedia.  The other pictures we took at the park.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day 2009

In honor of Saint Patrick's Day 2009 I thought that I'd post some pictures from our trip to Ireland (from a few years back). We were in Ireland in March 2006 and in Dublin for the St. Patrick's Parade. Ireland was beautiful and very green but it was very cold and we didn't see a whole lot of sun during our visit. All in all we spent a week there and did a lot of sight seeing. We rented a nice cottage in the Killarney area



A real Irish bar!





Some people enjoying the big parade (boy was it cold that day!)

We made the long drive to Dublin for the St. Patrick's Day parade. Ireland has a lot of beautiful scenery but there roads aren't that great (at least the ones that we were on) and it doesn't seem as thought there are a whole lot of highways that you can take that allow you to drive any great distance quickly. We didn't factor in enough travel time, so we didn't really have enough time to find a good place to watch the parade and moved around trying to find a good place to watch the parade (we had to consider that we needed a place where two small kids could watch as well). We eventually gave up and looked around the city in search of a place to have lunch. We ended up eating at a Johnny Rockets, it had been a while since I had a decent burger, so I enjoyed it.




A real Irish cemetery

There was an Abbey and old cemetery nearby. The cemetery was very interesting, complete with sayings on the tombstones that the Irish are world renown for. The sunset over the lake by the cemetery was breathtaking.


The sun going down over a lake by an Irish cemetery



The Cliffs of Mohr

The Cliffs of Mohr are amazing and pictures can't do it justice. With a strong wind blowing off the ocean, it was very cold, chilling to the bone in fact.


The Cliffs of Mohr


A castle at the Cliffs of Mohr


We had a great trip to Ireland and hope that we can go back again sometime in the future. You can see more pictures from our trip to Ireland taken in March 2006 @Flickr. Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Copenhagen and Malmo

Copenhagen

In June I was on a business trip to Copenhagen. I took some pictures of Malmo, Sweden and Copenhagen while I was there. I finally got around to putting them into a photo album @flickr.


Statues in Malmo City, Sweden

Since all the hotels in Copenhagen were booked my first night, I booked a hotel in Malmo City, Sweden. My flight was delayed so I arrived late at night. I took a train to Malmo City, but since it was so dark outside I didn't really get to see a whole lot. I had a nice view of Malmo City from my hotel (I've included some of the pictures that I took from the hotel in the Flickr set). The second picture posted here is of some statues that I saw on my way to the train station. but many of them didn't turn out osed My first night there I stayed in Malmo City, Sweden. The train trip back to Copenhagen included some amazing views of the sea. There is an incredible bridge connecting Malmo, Sweden with Copenhagen. The Øresund Fixed
Link was quite a construction project as it connects Sweden and Denmark, spanning an awful lot of water and it goes through Pepparholmen and artificial island via a tunnel. Since its opening in 2007, approximately 18 million vehicles and over 44 million people have crossed the bridge.



The sun reflecting on the harbor in Copenhagen

My second night I got a chance to see some of Copenhagen. Walking around the harbor I was very impressed. Of course there were some of the nautical sights that you'd expect to see, but in addition there was a vibrant and active city centre. In the very first picture posted above you can see some of the varying color of the city. Imagine that you're looking at the bridge in the harbor area facing the sun streaming down, on your right is a series of cafes and restaurants. The last picture is a status of Hans Christian Andersen, famous author and one of Denmark's most famous people, may of his stories are translated into English and available here. Standing at the statue you can see the Tivolli Gardens, a fairy tale amusement part. I really enjoyed my brief sight-seeing in both cities and would love to see both cities during longer visits in the future.



Hans Christian Andersen



Tivoli Center

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Our Trip to Europa Park

The family along with Ruth and Diana near the entrance of Europa Park

Last Monday the family went to Europa park along with our former neighbors Ruth and Diana and family that we have been friends with through the girls' kindergarten. The girls were both pretty excited. After all the stuff that we have had to do related to our shed, this was a nice vacation for the family.


Because Anna was taller than last year, she was able to do more rides and Sarah was also able to do more rides. Anna became very excited about riding roller coasters and wanted to ride them all, fortunately, age and height restrictions are in place and she didn't get to do the real dangerous ones. And I didn't ride my first roller coast until I was 10!


Because of the three girls and all the grown ups, there were some arguments about who would ride with who, but it worked out pretty well. Of course the girls were talking about going with the same group of people again. We decided that one day is not enough and will probably try to do some sort of two-day pass next time. After almost every ride the girls would say that they wanted to ride whatever again. I kept saying that they wouldn't be able to ride everything that they wanted to if the did everything that they rode twice or more. Last year, Christine and the girls saw a couple of shows, this time we only managed to catch the end of a parrot show (which was entertaining).

In the England area of the park there were a couple of new rides. One was made to look like one of those double-decker buses that was kind of like a mini ferris wheel. There was another ride where you were in a replica London taxi and were spun around in circles. The girls also got a kick out of driving the cars on the track that was set up.

Europa Park part 2

Here are some more pictures from Europa park. Anna was really excited about going to the park and for days she kept asking how much longer till we go to the park. Sarah had a hard time saying the name and often referred to the park as "Opa Park". Anna really enjoyed most of the rides and often said "noch mal" (one more time) when she got off one. On the day that we were at the park Sarah was just a hair under one meter tall. This meant that sometimes she got to do the rides that required her to be a meter while at other times she didn't. I rode the Siverstar, my first real roller coaster in more than a decade! We all had a good time and of course the girls are ready to go back...

Darryl

Europa Park

Visit to Europa Park part 1

On June 11th we went to Europa Park. The park is located in Rust, Germany, not to far from Freiburgh. We've taken the girls to a few smaller kiddie parks before, but this was their first visit to a real amusement park, and my first visit to a real amusement park in Europe. The first picture is of Christine and the girls near the front of the park, then the girls with the park masscot, Sarah wearing a Milka hat, and the last picture is of Anna and Christine at the end of a water ride. I"ll be posting more pictures from the park later. Bye for now.

Darryl

Here is a link to the park: Europa Park

Scotland part 1

Darryl was able to take a trip to Scotland with his dad and Aunt Betty at the end of April to the beginning of May. Here are some pictures taken at the only lake in Scotland. Every other "lake" in Scotland is actually a Loch, which were formed from glaciers years ago.

Paris part 1

Darryl was able to take a bus trip with his dad and Aunt Betty to Paris in April. Visiting Paris has long been a dream of Darryl's. Here are some pictures by the Louvre. While our visit to the Louvre was short, we did get to see two if it's more famous works, the Mona Lisa, and The Venus de Milo. The link that I've provided has a short history of the world's most famous musem in additon to a floor plan and further informaton on the exhibits. I'll be posting more from our trip later....

Darryl

Ireland 2006 Part 4

Here are some more pictures taken at Muckross Abbey. Here you can see the remains of the abbey and the cemetary that remains. The third picture is of a tombstone that we saw there.



















The saying goes

"Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not here. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle Autumn rain.
When you wake up in the morning hush,

I am the swift uplifing rush of quiet birds in
circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at mz grave and cry;
I am not here. I did not die."

The last picture is of Anna at a near-by waterfall. More to come...

Darryl

Ireland 2006 Part 3

Here are some pictures taken at Muckross Abbey. This was very close to the house that we rented. The castle was on a lake and there was an old abbey as well. I'll post those pictures later. More to come...

Darryl

Ireland 2006 Part 2

Here are some more pictures from our 2006 trip to Ireland. The first picture is of Christine, Claudia, and the girls. The second is of Claudia and the girls at the airport waiting for our plane to Kerry. Today is Claudia's birthday... Happy Birthday Claudia!!! The third picture is of Tante Marion and Anna. The forth picture is of the girls in outfits that we bought for them at Tesco. We loved Tesco, there was a nice one close to where we were staying that was open 24 hours a day and we were even there twice on one Sunday. While it isn't a great big American supermarket, it sure was nice and it offered a lot of things that we can't get where we live. More pictures coming soon...

Darryl