Journal (16Jun11)

Well, I was supposed to be in DC this week for a conference but funding fell through less than 24 hours before it was to begin. Seriously, several folks had already gotten on the plane and ended up coming back. With Army spending locked under “continuing resolution” and funding cuts to be upwards of 20% these next few years, the Army powers that be (i.e. Assistant Secretary of the Army) is looking very closely at every little expenditure. Seems my conference was a victim of that, …or so it seemed.

On Sunday afternoon I got word that the conference was actually now-funded, and back on. Unfortunately, my flight from Germany had already come and gone, and my travel orders had been officially scrapped. So while I was hoping to be sitting across from you having a beer and sharing my amusing European anecdotes this week in person, I’m back behind a computer screen putting fingers to keyboard once again.

But, not one to let a good weekend pass by in Europe unplundered, Rachel and I quickly re-geared Sunday and made new plans …Legoland!

A group of Docs from the hospital had already made plans to head down there this weekend as a birthday party of sorts for one of the Optometrists, and Legoland was having a special event all week to unveil their new Lego Star Wars exhibits. So amusement park, road trip, quirky adventure, ….check, check and check. Sounds perfect for us. Plus, it would be a great chance to hang out with folks from work outside of the hospital.

Ya mixing work people as non-work people is typically a no-no. But, one thing you learn pretty fast when you’re new to a location, particularly in remote places, is that any ideas you have of separating your work life and personal life will soon evaporate. Rachel and I learned this pretty quickly when we were doing our year long World-tour. When you get dropped in a new place and know exactly nobody, the folks you’ll get to know fastest are those you work with. Sure it would be ideal to create a social circle of non-work colleagues, but its tough. Add in the fact that most folks off the Army base actually speak another Language and you can see how insolating it can become. Now if you have kids, or your spouse is plugged in somehow to a group outside of the hospital you will have more opportunities to make friends through those interactions, but that also takes time.

I do have to admit that my opinion on America’s China Towns and Little Italy’s in various metropolitans cities has changed since Rachel and I have moved here. It’s hard to break out, and being around that which is familiar is a very warm safety blanket when trying to simultaneously deal with so many other changes in your life (like being away from your family in a new country for one).

Should we be trying to learn the local language, and blend in as much as possible, of course. But picking up a phrase book and being able to understand and communicate in that language are two very different things. Its takes time, a lot of time. And we are trying, every day. However, when you are on an Army base and are surrounded by tens of thousands of Americans it can be almost harder to try and find some real German culture to interact with at all. Sure, China Town is one thing, but our population here in Ramstein is the size of Washington DC. It also doesn’t help that every German we’ve met speaks fluent English and quickly switches to English any time we try and communicate.

So we’ve, at least temporarily, resigned to making the best of our relationships inside hospital. But, I would like to point out, that the Optometrist who’s Lego-filled birthday we were heading out for does not actually count as a **work** friend, technically. I’ve actually known her, Melissa, for going on twenty years now.

So funny story about this Eye Doc… {insert flashback music hear}

We actually went to High School together in Virginia Beach. And now here we are in Ramstein, Germany at the same remote Army hospital. Of all of the Gin joints in all the towns, eh? But if you think of how many people you’ve known through your life, the odds of seeing them further down the line aren’t too remote. Now seeing them further down the line in a foreign country gets a little more remote, but not in the realm of impossibility. The bigger piece to this is how do you find out about these people. Well, this part of the mathematical equation has been made exponentially easer thanks to the Facebook phenomenon. You remember back in the day when saying Goodbye to someone actually meant something. Not so, anymore. Your own personal episode of “This is Your Life” is one mouse-click away through Facebook.

Same thing happened when Rachel and I were in Wiesbaden last December for a Christmas Market (i.e. drinking hot wine cider at an outdoor shopping “festival” in the center of town). I updated my Facebook status to say “At Xmas Market in Wiesbaden.” And no less than 10 minutes later I got a message back from an old Fraternity brother saying “So am I, lets meet up.” And sure enough, there he was. Three “glühwein” later and it was like no time had past, let alone 15 years.

So similar, story with Melissa, my High School friend. She saw on Facebook that I worked at Landstuhl hospital now, and when her own job landed her here she looked me up. Here we are in 1993 graduating High School together, she’s over my right shoulder, and here we are again this past weekend hanging out with, well, Jedi’s.

The world is getting smaller every day.

So this brings me to Legoland, which did not lose funding at the last minute (insert bitterness here), and was actually a ton of fun. Now of course you know I’m a kid a heart, so it wasn’t a stretch of the imagination that I’d enjoy it, but Rachel had a good time as well. Everyone asked us why we went if you don’t have kids, but truth was Legoland does a really good job of making sure there are things for everybody. They have full on rollercoasters (and no they aren’t made of Legos), shows, exhibits and since it‘s Europe after all, …beer. Yep, Lego-beer. I got a funny photo of my going for a beer with 2 outstretch U shaped Lego-hands. Fun stuff.

And considering it was Lego-“Land” there were a surprising amazing amount of water rides (and water-based attractions) as well. There were even water attractions right in the middle of the sidewalks. My favorite water ride was a pirate ship course where you, and several dozen other folks, floated around a course in these these pirate ships equipped with water cannons. What a blast, literally, having water wars with ships as the floated by. The coolest part was that these water cannons could actually reach out beyond the course and you easily douse some passersby who wondered too close. In the States this probably would have resulted Ina few fisticuffs, but here everyone laughed it off (thanks I’m sure to all the Logo-beer).

In a stroke of brilliance, though, the park offered full-sized human driers, which were hilarious to watch.

Now the heart and sole of any Legoland are the huge city-block sized dioramas. Just unbelievable. And the cool part is that these dioramas are specific to the region they are in. You go to Legolands in the States and you’ll get 10 feet tall Statues of Liberties or the Las Vegas Skyline. Here you get Venice, Paris and even a replica Frankfurt Airport. Each one more amazing than the last.

Check out our picture gallery to see the full picture set, and you can see for yourself how cool some of these large Lego structures actually were.

And, this week they opened their special Star Wars exhibits which features scenes from all 6 movies and the Clone Wars cartoons. They also added in sound effects and soundtracks from the various movies to play with each exhibit, so it was just like the movie. The overall effect was …just wow.

To commemorate the weekend, they had characters in full Star Wars regalia walk around the park, and even had a parade with a few guest-star appearances from some of the actors in the films (Young Bobafet and a guest Rebel Pilot or two). I must admit though I though it was a bit odd to be in the middle of Germany and have Storm Troopers marching down the middle of the street. But, apparently I was the only one who saw the WWII parallels, so all was good.

Now, no trip to a Lego park would be complete without a tour of a factory to see how Legos were actually made. It was impressive to see a vat of 10,000+ Lego parts go rolling by. As a souvenir, each park guest was able to take home a dated Lego that they actually watch get molded, pressed, and colored through the machines. Kinda cool.

There were several interesting non-rollercoaster thrill rides too, which were very creative. My favorite, the Bionicle, was very simple in its premise, but deviously exciting. Basically, you and one other person sat on these adjoining seats and got strapped in. The pair of seats were tied to a giant mechanical arm which then began to flip, spin, whirl, and, in general, disorient you at high velocity for about 45 seconds. It ..was …crazy.

There were seven of these arms around the ride area, serving 14 bewildered and giddy park guest a minute, basically the same amount as a roller coaster. And, since, each pair of folks were basically on their own ride you could actually *choose* how aggressive the ride was. A park guy came around to each Bionicle Arm and you told him how crazy you wanted the ride. Options were eerily similar to a blender: From ‘Mix’ to full on ‘Purée.’

So much fun. The funniest part was the live action miniature of the ride out front featuring Lego men. Great idea, at least we knew exactly what we were getting into.

Overall, the park was great. It wasn’t very crowded, it was fairly cheap, decent food (who doesn’t love a Schnitzel Depot) and there was easily a day’s worth of rides and attractions to keep us entertained. I would definitely recommend you check out Legoland in the states if you find yourself near one, which I believe is currently San Diego, but one opens up in Florida on October 15th. Check out this article about the Legoland in California, and you’ll see videos of many of the same exhibits we saw here. Plus videos about people who built Lego cars, Lego art and a full sized Lego house!

Legos literally defined what plug & play fun was for entire generations, and they seemed to have done the same with these Parks. Very centric on families with younger kids, but still plenty of fun for teenagers, and young-hearted adults.

Well that’s all for this week folks. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to not play with the 500 piece Star Wars Lego set that I may or may not have purchased while in Legoland…

~Ron