On Saturday, Katie and I took our beginning orchestra and band kids to Europa Park as an end-of-the-year celebration of all the work they have put in to learning a new instrument. Europa Park is a theme park, similar to Six Flags parks in the US.
Europa Park Entrance. No worries, the overcast skies cleared up!
We split up into groupings based on what rides people wanted to go on. I chaperoned the group of 7 “adventurous” boys. Since there were only 7 boys on the trip, none of them wanted to be labeled a “chicken” and go in the less adventurous groups, so they all ended up with me.
The Boys.
The first ride we went to was the Silver Star, the tallest coaster in the park.
My violist J.P. was starting to get nervous!
One of the boys chose to take a picture of us instead of riding. It was a rather intimidating ride, I must admit.
It reminded me of the Raging Bull at Great America. Back in Chicago, Six Flags Great America was divided into regions of American themes: Southwest, Orleans Place, County Fair, Yukon Territory, and Yankee Harbor. Similarly, Europa Park is divided into countries. “Ok guys, we’re walking to Switzerland now!”
An Alpen village in the Swiss section
We went bobsledding in Switzerland.
Entrance to the bobsled
The "bobsled" trains
excited after conquering the bobsled!
There was some highly over-priced Milka merchandise in the Swiss gift shop. Purple cow, anyone?
There are even Milka skis!
My favorite roller coaster was in Iceland: the Blue Fire. It had several fun corkscrews, but the most interesting thing was watching my heart rate on the screen! Just before we blasted off, I think it went up from 88 to 104.
Blue Fire!
We went on a few “kiddy” rides whenever we walked by something that looked interesting.
A pole-board. Not really a ride, but the guys had fun on it.
Airplanes: Some of the boys really liked this ride; others thought it was stupid.
Pirate ship: This turned out to be a fun ride! The ships went up and down around in a circle on fake waves; once in a while they turned around backwards!
All in all, it turned out to be a great day! Nobody got lost, sick, injured, kidnapped, or anything bad!
Here's the whole group: 13 kids and 2 teachers, + 1 Middle School RA (she's the one taking the picture)
