Hanging with my Homies from Edmonton

It has been a while since I last saw anyone in person from Edmonton. But I have been counting down the days for Jenn, Brian and the kids to come visit since June as they were wanting to stop by on the way to their new home in St.Laurent de la Salanque, France.

The second day of their arrival, we had them over for dinner. I wanted to meet my awesome roommates and friends that I've been talking about. Because they were only here for about 4 days, I wanted to give them a bit of German experience by making spätzle with goulash and some schwartzwalder schinken. I knew the spätzle from scratch would be time consuming and hard as I was going to make it the traditional way with a cutting board and knife. And thanks to youtube for some techniques, it turned out pretty darn good. Sure, it took an hour and my arms were sore and I was sweating like there's no tomorrow with the combination of the hot weather and standing by a pot of boiling water, but it turned out and I was super happy. So super happy that there was no one at home to tell and I was just wanting to tell someone; hence gmail chat with Faye (who said awesome but what is it?) and a status post on FB. Ivana helped with the flavouring of the goulash (as it was missing something) and it turned out tasty as well. The kids kept wanting more! That was a good sign. We had a wonderful time chatting about our travels, our future travels, and getting to know the new and wonderful people they have just met - Ivana and Arabella and later on Ursel and Larry. After supper, we were planning day trips that we could take. It was amazing to see how this family unit functioned when it comes to decision making as a family. We were all admiring in awe. We had many possible day trips we could take and in the end, the final decisions were made as a family including the kids. They were kind to let me hang with them for the day trip and spend some quality time by staying with them. It was really nice as it felt like home being with these guys.

So the next day we headed for Ludwigsburg to check out not only the castle, but we were wanting to see the fairytale garden :) Funny thing is I think me and Jenn were the most excited on this one because there was a chance to dress up with 18th century clothes and the thought of it made us giggle like school girls. We can't help it, we are kids at heart :) Alas, when we got there, they said it was already full and we had to reserve in advance to do that part :( Boo! But we still went for the castle tour and the garden. The dumb thing is that you had to pay separately so about 6.50€ for an adult for the castle which you cannot go into unless via a tour. I understand as they kept a lot of the original furniture and such in tact. The garden was about 8.50€ for an adult. We were able to check out a bit of the garden before our tour at 1:30 pm and they gave us a stamp when we left so we can enter the garden again after the tour was over.

The tour for the Schloss Ludwignburg is highly recommended. People know that I am not usually into tours or museums and such and I found this one very interesting. I actually listened while taking pics - hmmm .... the tour guide was very informative and entertaining. He gave us little tidbits like how King Ludwig was about 8 feet tall, people in those days slept sitting up, the baroque castles were symmetrical, Rococo style came later which had a whimsical feel and play with the baroque style, the castle had visible and invisible servants, the visible servants area had no decoration, and our fav tidbit ... one of the dukes, Duke Carl Eugen, loved the ladies so much that those who wanted to be devoted to him would wear blue shoes. Now, that's what I call not wasting any time! My favourite part would have to be the theatre. It was amazing to sit on the benches just looking at the stage and imagine all the plays that would play there. At the end, our guide mentioned to us that we may be the lucky ones as the future tours would forbid people to take photos which is a shame as there are so many fabulous things in the castle. During the whole tour, the kids were asking questions and were given some privilages such as checking out the queen's chamber behind the ropes. They were so well behaved, many of the other tourists in our tour mentioned it to Jenn and Brian. By the way, the tour was about 1.5 hours long :)

And the garden, well it is a big garden. You really do need a map but you would have to pay 50 cents for one. Yes, it felt as though we were just being charged left, right and centre here. Anyways, there was much to see. It was neat to see all the old swings and even merry-go-round that children would play on. The garden is really beautiful and has so much flowers of all colours and shapes. There was one section dedicated to all the fairytales that we used to read and listen to as kids. You can stop at one like Little Red Riding Hood and there would be electronically driven puppets reenacting a scene while the german story plays on the stereo system. It was quite neat and you would have to walk about 100-200 m for another story. Mind you, it was uphill and by the end of it, it was very tiring. The last little bit we did was end up at this maze where the kids (and bigger kids) can step on blocks that actived different water spouts to get you wet. It was much needed as it was a very hot day.

After a long day of walking, we got some much needed rest for the big event the next day ... the anticipated Legoland!!! I never knew there was a legoland near Karlsruhe and I am glad that Brian's friend mentioned it to him so we all get to experience it without having to go to Denmark (yet). It was about a 2 hour drive from Karlsruhe to Günzburg but the drive went fast as we were busy talking away and the kids were busy playing with their DSs. We were unable to get family tickets online (a bit cheaper) as it was too late to order online. It is best to order about a week in advance I believe. It cost 37€ for an adult and that gets you admission and rides. There were a couple of rides that you had to pay for but most of the rides were free and the line up waiting time ranged from 10 minutes to 60 minutes depending on how many visitors happen to be there. We picked a busy day so there were a lot of visitors.

So where to begin ... well legoland is just plain AWESOME! Practically everything there is made out of legos. Because the rides shut down at 7 pm (1 hour before the whole thing closes), we decided to hit the rides first and leave the buying last. It was a good idea since there was such a line up for most rides. We began with the Harbour Cruise - go on boat ride. The funniest part was at the end when Jenn/Susan's boat and Peter's boat were stuck on the way back to the dock. There was no way to reverse. You can only gas and go forward on these boats and with their boats stuck, all the others became stuck behind them. Such troublemakers I tell ya! But Brian was the hero ... crazy ... and heroic. Too bad I didn't take a video but I'm sure some others in line did. I just watched Brian get out of his boat and hopped from one to another reaching Peter's boat to pull Jenn/Susan's boat back. Then hopped back to his own boat. I had to tell Edmund to stay because he was going to follow his dad. Hmmm... I think with all the excitement, I may have yelled haha.

After a quick eat, we took a stroll in the lego cities. These were just absolutely amazing! They were cities like Venice and Berlin that were entirely made out of legos and each had some moving parts. Venice had gondolas moving around the city. They even had music and dancers dancing in the square. Netherlands was also amazing with all the windmills. I know after seeing Berlin, we were all looking forward to checking it out one day. And if you really check the details, the people at lego have some hidden funny details like a man checking out the garbage can at one of the tram stops. The details in general were just crazy. They had details of people eating in a restaurant behind the windows. It wa so inspiring that I would love to have a room dedicated to legos and the pure awesomeness that it is including a lego mindstorm robot :) Hmm ... I wonder what happend to simplifying my life eh? I see I still love my toys! Some things just don't change mates. And the Star Wars area was equally amazing. The adults were like kids in a candy store ooooing and ahhhing.

The next stop was the Project X - Lego Test track which was pretty much the rollercoaster. I opted out here as I wasn't too confortable leaving my bag on the side with my camera and stuff in it. So I was hoping to get a pic of any of them coming down the big dip where I stood. I missed them at first and was able to take pics here and there with other areas of the track. I noticed Brian and Edmund were not in the first cart so I thought they would be in the next but they never showed. In the end, Edmund was not tall enough to go on the ride. At each ride, there is a height board where each height equals you cannot go on it, you can go on it with a parent or you can go on it alone. They enjoyed this rollercoaster better than the Fire Dragon one which was the last ride they went on. Yes, I opted out this one and went shopping at the Treasure Chamber with Edmund as he was unable to ride this one as well. But we had fun :)

I can go through all the rides but to cut to the chase, the best ride hands down was Captain Nick's Splash Battle. We never had so much fun waiting in line and being on the ride itself. This ride is very interactive. You don't need to be going on the ride to have fun as there are water guns stationed outside the ride for viewers to participate in. Let's put it this way, bring your swim suit! As you got closer to the beginning of the ride, you can get hit with water from the ships that people are riding on. We ducked and hid so many times, but we still got wet. And boy, we can't wait to get the people back. The boys had a plan. All they wanted was the right hand side when we got the boat because that side is where you can shoot the people lined up. It's pretty much a big water gun fight with you and the other boats and you and those shooting outside. Jenn was so ambitious to even take on 2 water guns. It was hard to keep winding the lever to shoot the water out of the guns - your arms just get very tired. But it was all adrenalin! It was so nice to get drenched as it was about 30C that day. We dried off pretty quick though.

Another highlight was the Lego Factory. It was really cool to see how the legos were made. It didn't show everything but still gave us a glimpse of it. And at the end of it, you got to make your own legos with separate parts. That is rare to be able to do that commercially. Unfortunately, they didn't have everything I would have liked, in particular, the Harry Potter stuff so I can make me a wizard :) But I did make me a ninja with a cross-bow (eh?!) I was also inspired to make lego versions of Ivana and Ursel as their souvenirs. Susan made one of herself and her mom. Mom was cool as she had a bone as a weapon (eh?!). The boys were able to get their lego dudes at the lego store (mini market) and were happy about that. We were pretty pooped from a day's fun and had no problems sleeping and taking the next day to relax. The family was also battling jetlag with all this driving as well. Thanks Brian for being such an awesome driver because there was an idiot on the autobahn that decided to stop and reverse because he missed his exit while a car was zooming past us on the other lane and a big arse truck behind. Sigh. It's not speeding in the autobahn that is the problem, just dumb drivers. Sorry ... ending this blog on such a sour note :P