Thursday, June 08, 2017

Coldplay in Munich

Remember back in January when I said that Rob and I were going to go on more dates this year? Well, this past week was THE BIG ONE that I had planned for this year. Rob and I left the kids at home with a sitter and drove the 4 hours to Munich to see Coldplay at the Olympiastadion. (I bought Rob the tickets for Christmas last year.)

We arrived, checked into our hotel and headed out to look for some dinner near the stadium.  Right near the Stadium is BMW Welt.  We had never been there, and Rob really likes BMWs, so we strolled in to check it out. We had fun looking at the Beemers, Rolls Royces, and Minis.  Rob picked out this gun metal grey $80k model for his next car.  Ha!! 

Also, it was raining out and cooler than we had expected.  (It had been in the 90s just a few days earlier.) And we were under-dressed and had no umbrellas, jackets, or ponchos so we thought we might find some in the gift shop. Well, they had umbrellas, but the cheapest one was 46 Euros!  Rob was considering buying one, and I was like NO, it's just rain, we won't die.  We did enjoy some light dinner at the food counter at BMW Welt though- salads and sandwiches and then decided to head over to the stadium, because surely someone there would be selling cheap ponchos, right?

Yeah, no.  There were no umbrellas or ponchos for sale anywhere.  So we got wet, and I was kinda wishing we'd bought that BMW umbrella. Now, we haven't been to a concert this huge ever before and there were a lot of things we didn't know. Like, our tickets said 6 pm, did that mean be there at 6 or concert starts at 6 or what?  We showed up at 5:30 and the gates opened at 6, but there were food vendors around so we snacked and watched people and tried to stay out of the rain.

Also, in light of the current world situation, and recent terror attacks at concerts, security was HIGH.  There were police everywhere, and a mandatory bag check, pat downs, etc. I had my purse, which isn't overly large, and wasn't planning to check it.  The line was sooooo long, and I could only imagine how long it would be to claim bags after the concert.  So what to do?  We threw my purse away.  I took out my wallet and phone and the few other things I couldn't easily replace, and we tossed it.  

When we went through the gate to enter the venue, we saw other women abandoning their purses rather than get out of line and go wait for bag check.  Also, umbrellas.  They didn't allow umbrellas into the venue so people were just dropping them before the pat down.  Rob was REALLY glad I talked him out of that 46 Euro umbrella then.

Our tickets were the cheapest I could get- standing room on the floor of the stadium.  We went down to check it out right away... even though Coldplay wouldn't end up taking the stage until 8 pm.  Everyone got a wristband with little led lights in it that would light up later during the concert. When we got down to the floor, this guy told us to get in a line for wristbands, and we were like, "we've got wristbands."  But he said we wanted other wristbands so we got in the line to see what was up.There we received these plastic wristbands and we still didn't really know what they were for. Then we went up to the top of the stadium to get out of the rain and dry out a bit until closer to 8 pm.

We came back down to the floor just before 8 pm.  And we were glad we had those wristbands!!  The floor had been divided into sections and our wristbands got us back into the closer section that we had been to at 6 pm. We were already getting tired and cold and we weren't sure all of the drama was going to be worth it. Thankfully it did stop raining right around 8 pm.

Then Coldplay took the stage and they were AWESOME! It was so fun to be down on the floor with the confetti, fireworks, and crowds dancing.  And yes, Coldplay was fantastic.  They played every song that we'd hoped to hear.  I took some photos and video clips, but there are way better ones out there on youtube, so here a re a few clips from the concert.

 
Adventure of a Lifetime- these huge balloons were a lot of fun.


 
Chris Martin had a fan come up to play Everglow with him.

 
 
And here is Something Just Like This.  
This video was taken from the back of the stadium, but you can see how the led bracelets worked really well. They were also filming during this song for a music video that he said would be out in a few weeks. 

After the concert we headed toward the metro, but it was PACKED.  Our back-up plan was to hail a cab, but yeah, there were a ton of people waiting to do that too.  In the end we decided to just walk the 2 miles back to our hotel using Rob's phone gps to get us there.  It was a LONG night!  But we had a great time spending time together.  And the date of the concert was actually the 12th anniversary of our first date. I don't know that we'll be going to another huge concert anytime soon.... but who knows?  Maybe we will. 


Monday, June 05, 2017

Legoland 2017

Over Memorial Day weekend, we spent two fun days at Legoland.

Day one started with some Star Wars fun.

The kids love checking out all of the items in Miniland.

Our kids met several important heights this time around... Amelie was just over 100 cm (41 in.), which meant she could go on all but the big roller coasters with an adult, Jake was just over 120 cm (48 in.), so he could go on nearly every ride, and Charlotte and Toby are both over 140 cm (57 in. and 56 in.), so they could go on every ride in the park- without an adult.

We rode nearly every ride (we skipped one that we didn't like when we were here two years ago)- some 3 times over the course of 2 days. Jakey drove me around the pond in this boat. (He was really driving it, they only go slowly, but are not on a track or anything.)

While Amelie and Rob drove this one as a team.

Ninjago-land was new this year and had a couple of fun things.  Here Rob and Amelie are testing their Ninja reflexes by hitting the lights when they light up.

We liked this dragon outside the Ninjago 4D ride. The ride itself was interesting.  You had to move your hands over a sensor to fight the bad guys, and we didn't do so great at that.  The second day I rode it with the big kids again though and Jake KILLED all of us, scoring 145,500 points!!  For comparison, I scored 80,000 points, and only after realizing he was doing so great and copying his technique.

It was a hot, HOT day in Germany- over 90 degrees.  We stopped for a late lunch at the pizza place after playing in Duploland, which has a splashpark.  Amelie came very close to falling asleep while waiting for her pizza and fruit, but her stubborn desire to not miss anything won out.

Sometimes I forget how little my kids still are, because they are physically so big.

Amelie wanted to meet Kai, but she didn't want him to touch her.

When it was time for the park to close (it closes early- rides shut down at 6 pm, and the gates close at 7 pm) we drove over to the Legoland resort.  We ate dinner at the buffet and settled in to our castle themed cabin for the night.  The kids love that there is a bin of Legos to play with in the room, but we were all sad that there was no air conditioning. We left the windows open and it did cool down eventually, but nobody slept very well.

We got up early the next morning though, enjoyed breakfast, checked out, and were waiting at the gate when the park opened at 10 am.

We walked directly to one of our favorite rides- the Flying Ninjago ride, and Rob, Charlotte, Toby, and I rode it a few times before there was a line to wait in.

Amelie and Jake both said their favorite ride was the small dragon roller coaster, so next we rode that a few times.  This silly catapult photo op is right next to that.

The log flume probably had the longest lines both days we were there, because it was so hot out.  We did ride it a couple of times though- Jake and Amelie really did great for a 5 year old and a 3 year old!  I know I wouldn't have ridden some of these rides as a kid, but they wanted to go on every ride they could.  

Day two we ended up leaving the park a bit earlier because we were soooo tired, and hot, and had really done the whole park.  So we headed on the 2.5 hour drive home and stopped at McDonald's for dinner. I have to say, it wasn't the grown-ups favorite weekend ever, but the kids LOVED it.  Maybe we'll go back one more time before we move.  Maybe.