July 17- Anna’s Birthday at Heide Park

Many of the cheap gasthauses we’ve stayed at have had an out-of-date sort of feel to them. This one does too, but in a weird sort of way. In addition to the 1950s colors, there’s a large pheasant like bird in the hall way that the taxidermist has mounted like a crowing rooster. There’s a creepy mannequin at the entryway, standing next to the bar. And among the real deer heads on the wall is a pair of fake one- a Mr. and a Mrs., because the doe is wearing an orange wig between her antlers. (Are does even supposed to have antlers?)

Scott was so exhausted that he layed down almost immediately on the extra bed in the room (since the three girls usually take the large one, if you can call it one. It’s almost always made up of two twins pushed together, and since they are always wooden boxes for their frames, there is always a gap down the middle of it). The maid had to ask him to move so she could make it up. The blog from yesterday is one of the few times we’ve had to go back and do the actual writing on the following day. Usually Scott’s been very good about finishing the draft before bed and the girls listen to him read it like a bedtime story.

The ever shrinking bathroom has magically disappeared altogether. You’d think that a singularity would be a great place to dispose of bodily waste, since everything would just disappear down the black hole forever, but that’s not what happens. Instead, it becomes a public bathroom that the whole floor shares out in the hallway. We knew to expect these in Europe, but this occasion marks the first time we’ve experienced it. At least the bathroom itself is large enough to do things in.

We let the girls wake up on their own today, at least as much as that is possible in a hotel room. For the first time on this trip, we didn’t have to pry them out of bed and face Emma’s morning grumpies. We all needed the rest.

Since today is Anna’s 9th birthday (and also because we’ve spent a lot of time in the car over the last few days), we gave her the choice between an amusement park or an animal park. She chose the amusement park when she found out for sure that there were roller coasters. Because of that, we chose this hotel, which is near Heide Park (pronounced- Hi-dah, not Hi-dee). We can tell from the multi-park passes that they sell that the park is owned by the same company that owns Gardaland (which we passed several times when we were staying in Garda, Italy) and several of the Legolands that we’ve seen advertised. As we were looking over the place, Julie thought that it was a lot like Hershey Park. Scott was reminded of King’s Dominion or Bush Gardens in Virginia. In other words it’s a pretty nice park and has nearly all of the standard things that you’d expect at parks of those sizes.

Epcot and Busch Gardens both show their theme-park versions of Germany. If you’ve ever wondered what Germans would make of America in one of their theme-parks, Heide Park offers an answer. In the middle of a lake stands a rather large replica of the Statue of Liberty. Nearby, is the Capitol Restaurant which has an intentional resemblance to the U.S. Capitol building. (The Senate wing is the restrooms.) Around the lake paddles a Mississippi River steamboat (though much smaller than the ones at Disney World). Nearby, is the wild west themed area called “Lucky Land” which is supposed to resemble a desert mining town. There is a large area in the rear of the park called Mayatal (“Valley of the Mayas”) where all of the atmosphere is supposed to resemble Precolumbian Mesoamerican Indian cultures. There’s an Bavarian Alpine area, a half-timbered town trying to mimic the real ones that we’ve seen recently, and some smaller themes specific to some of the rides.

We started out on the rides near the front of the park. After getting pictures with some of the costumed characters, the girls rode on a two story merry-go-round, choosing to ride on the upper deck, of course. Anna and Emma each drove an old-fashioned “car” with Dad and Mom riding in the back, respectively. A slow moving raft took the four of us around a large tranquil pond, where we saw families of ducks with babies. “The Bounty,” a large swinging pirate ship, became the first repeat ride as Anna first rode with Mom and Emma, and then with Dad. The girls then got to drive “race cars” around a track, similar to how they had with the antique cars. Julie warned Scott that a “water ride” was coming up, so he sat out what ended up being a very peaceful cruise through the simulated and idealized canals of Amsterdam. We then rode sort of a mini-monorail that gave us our first real overview of this half of the park. Because of its elevated track, we were able to see both where we had been and where we were going. The Panorama Tower is a ride in a revolving elevator (similar to that in Hershey and other parks) which gave us an even higher view of the rest of the park. Emma rode a cart drawn by a large monkey on a ride that only she was small enough for. The monkey took her past several characters that are from this area of northern Germany, including the Pied Piper, Baron von Münchhausen, and the four Bremen Town Musicians, but the thing that Emma wanted to make sure we all saw as she left the ride was the monkey’s butt. We rode a very fast spinning type ride around Wumbo, the park’s mascot bear. Then Anna and Emma got a kick out of the log flume ride with Mom, as Dad took videos. So far the crowds had been very thin and there was no real line for anything.

From there, we entered the park’s desert mining town area, “Lucky Land,” and rode a small ferris wheel where the buckets were made to look like mining buckets. We sat down for lunch at the “Apache Pub” hoping to maybe get the hamburgers that we didn’t have yesterday. They were serving very German sausages instead, but we enjoyed them under the roof of dining area. The sky had been overcast for the morning, which made the temperature comfortable, especially after yesterday’s hot sun. However, things changed about that time. A heavy downpour began quite suddenly and caused everyone to go running for shelter, including Anna and Emma who had finished eating and were playing on a playground nearby. We laughed at the image of this simulated desert town being drenched with rain. The downpour left almost as quickly as it began, but the sprinkle continued on and off for a little while. We’ve learned not to let the weather get us down, because it changes so quickly. So many of the last few days have started with a little rain somewhere and became sunny by the end of the day. This one did too.

We finished up in the mining town area by riding a small roller coaster that had an Indian chief’s head on the lead car. Anna and Emma each flew in a little bi-plane, similar to those at Fantasy Island. Dad and Anna rode another spinning ride, and Emma and Anna together paddled a little canoe around a track. Anna was just a little bit too tall for the canoe ride, but the attendant let her go with her sister. These canoes had to really be paddled, but the track was narrow enough to guide them the right way. Anna, Emma and Mom rode a large tube through water rapids, while Dad took video and tried to stay dry, though the returning drizzling rain made that difficult at best for the moment. A larger, open monorail gave us a view of the remaining half of the park. A gentle boat ride, similar to the one that took them through “Amsterdam” before took the four of us past fairy tale scenes. The girls were excited to see several that they knew from our recent readings of Grimm, like the frog prince with the girl’s golden ball, but there were several that we haven’t done yet, like Snow White and Rose Red. It was harder to determine the theme of the neighboring boatride, but it took us past a unicorn, trolls, cavemen, and a mammoth. There were two very large playgrounds that featured enormous slides and lots of nets, ladders and stairs to climb. They reminded Scott of the way Children’s Village used to be at Ontario Place. The four of us rode a roller coaster shaped like a train that is very much like Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney. It’s a short track but they send you around twice to make up for it. Anna rode again with Dad so Mom could get video this time, but she wasn’t able too.

The Mayan Valley was mostly made up of thrill rides that Emma was too small for. The park seems to have both a height and an age restriction on its rides, and enforces them both. Emma’s age was questioned a number of times earlier in the day because she is so petite. (She was the second smallest in her kindergarten class.) There was the large swing ride that the three girls could ride. Anna went on it once before we saw that Emma could go on this one too. The girls got icey drinks that turned their tongues blue. Anna went on a big spinning ride with Dad and then on another one with Mom. While they rode, Emma had the whole family laughing by her funky dance to the South American drums. Mom got a little dizzy from her ride, but pulled it together to take Anna on the Huracan, one of the big spinning wheels that is her favorite. Dad then took Anna on a ride that was similar to the one that he and Julie rode on their first date to Darien Lake.

Emma didn’t want to see the “pirate show” so we skipped that and went to the Mississippi River boat together. The family then split up so that Anna could ride her much-anticipated roller coasters. While she wasn’t tall enough to go on the largest ones, she was able to go on several. The first was called, “Big Loop”, and it went through several loops and inversions that she loved. The second was the Swiss Bobbahn, which offered some steep drops. While Mom and Anna rode those, Emma explored one of the big Children’s Village-type playgrounds, and then rode the showed Dad the Amsterdam ride that he had missed before. When the family regrouped, we rode the small train to the front to front of the park, where we all rode a tea-cup ride together.

One of the last things that we saw was the “elektronishes Vogeltheater,” (the Electronic Bird Theater). When one enters the theater, it is obvious that the show copied the layout and theme of the Tiki Birds at Disney parks. The seats in the darkened theater surround a central fountain and the “performers” are hanging, asleep, around the ceiling or behind doors. Once the show starts, it seems to owe as much to Chuck E. Cheese, because the host of the show is a (poor) audio-animatronic version of Herr Wumbo, the big fat bear mascot whose images and statues are all over the park. When he talks, the rest of the characters are introduced. They are birds, mainly, but there are talking trees in the walls and frogs that rise out of the fountain. The entire show is in German, obviously, but the sappy songs aren’t hard to follow.

We left the park at about 5:30, and it was closing at 6:00, so we did just about as much as we could in the day. Anna was sad to go and was making plans for how she was going to buy the three-day pass when she comes back here when she grew up. It was nice to hear that she enjoyed it so. Emma kept going all day long, but was asleep as soon as we hit the car. She slept through Burger King, and she’ll probably be out through the rest of the night (at least, we hope so). Though we drove through Munster looking unsuccessfully for a laundromat and internet café, we still arrived back at the hotel room for one of the earliest evenings this trip. (Julie has been watching the other people staying here that she suspects raise German shepherds. They have two specially made trailers out back. Julie saw a couple of dogs, including a puppy.)