Day 9 - Sep 9, 2009 Last updated: 10/11/09 1:00pm PT
Day neun, Europa Park and travel to Basel, Switzerland.
Europa Park is a theme park with each section of the park representing a different European country. It’s probably good for kids, but if you are looking for thrilling coasters, it is pretty lame. I was under the impression they had 9 roller coasters. They might have that many, but they were pretty small. We like the big extreme coasters. I want to be turned upside down and almost pass out from too great of a G-force. OK, maybe not pass out, but the upside down part is fun. Turns out they only have 2 extreme coasters. One did a lot of loops and the other had a very high drop that seemed like it was straight down. In the blog I posted that it dropped you from a height of 1 mile (1600m), but that’s because of my inability to read German. The coaster was actually 1 mile in length (not height), drops you from over 200 feet high with a max speed around 80 mph.
Keep in mind that the signs are in German. This says ‘Oldtimer Ride’, what did you think?
Denise and Euromaus.
Fun is universal. As the ride plunges straight down, it doesn’t matter what country you are from or what language you speak. Smiling, laughing, screaming – the international language of fun.
We took the 4pm bus from Rust to the train station in Ringsheim, except the bus was about 20 minutes late, so we missed the train to Basel. The bus arrived at the train station as the train pulled in, but since we did not have tickets, we didn’t want to jump on and risk getting caught, especially since it was only a half hour for the next train. Of course at the time, we didn’t know the next train was a half hour wait. The train let us off in the German sector of Basel. We got on another train to transfer to the city center, then walked to our hotel.
During our stay in Germany, we ate schnitzel, sauerbraten, bratwurst, pork chops, mussels, big pretzels, hausgemachte käsespätzle, and delikater bauernschmaus.
My electric plug adapters worked in every country but Switzerland. They have these small recessed outlets. The hotel wanted to charge me 10 Swiss Francs (about $10) to buy an adapter. My adapters cost $1. I guess these are the standard outlets in Switzerland. Next time I’ll bring a screwdriver and see if I can’t hot wire something 🙂
