Monday, September 12, 2011

Europe 2002 Trip Reports Part 15 Legoland


This is the 15th of a series of posts recalling my trip to Europe, using e-mails sent at the time.  Unlike later trips, I didn’t e-mail people everyday.  Trip reports are largely as I wrote them at the time with two exceptions: 1. I was usually pretty rushed due to Internet fees in Europe, so I’ve cleaned up my e-mails to make them more coherent, which wasn’t a priority at the time.  Also, in some blog posts I’ll add additional thoughts with the hindsight of nine years later or to add further clarification.  I’ll use “NOW” in such cases.

This 15th report covered my excursion to Legoland from Munich/

Well, I added an extra day in Munich and went to Legoland, a twofold motivation: I want to see Munich on a nice day, so this buys me and extra day. 

Also, my Visa situation proved to be more complicated than expected: The switchover can take a week or two to occur.  Right now my chequing account will cover rent and phone bill but nothing else, and if push comes to shove I can transfer money from savings to chequing, but I’d rather not as there’s only $200 left in that.

All this wouldn’t be such an immediate problem if not for the fact that my next course takes me to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, which still use the Swiss Franc.  This means that while I still have a fair bit of cash on hand, it’s not too useful where I’m going.  So I’m buying time.

Now, Legoland:  overrated.  It’s smaller than most theme parks, and there’s no A-material ride in the bunch.  There is an impressive miniature Lego cities area which if it were possible to see separately at a reduced cost would be worth it.  But not Legoland as a whole, unless you’re a completist who absolutely must try everything Lego cranks out.
And avoid the car ride at all costs.  I kept crashing into walls and getting stuck, and banged my leg up pretty good.

[NOW: This was at the time the newest Legoland; in fact it opened after my trip had started.  It’s located in Günzburg. Definitely I unnerved people by limping out of the car after the ride described above.  The Lego cities really are beautiful, with not to scale replicas of actual cities, at least key areas in them.  Some moving parts. It was interesting seeing Lego Venice so soon after seeing the real Venice.]

On the way home a teenage girl pulled down a male friend’s pants on the train.  Perhaps some mysteries are best left unanswered. 

All the best.  I've been fighting depression for a while now so really looking forward to being home in two weeks.

[NOW: Obviously no longer depressed over a trip from that long ago.]

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