Europa Park

When my friend Erin from St. Louis said that for her birthday she wanted to go to Europa Park, Germany’s very own theme park, I set my expectations accordingly. Not to sound rude, but I come from CA, home of Disneyland, the happiest place on earth, among many other top quality theme parks. So with that said, I am not sure if it was the lowered expectations, the actual quality of the park or the mass quantity of sugar and beer consumed, but I found myself pleasantly surprised.

The park is themed around the various countries of Europe, offering local cuisine, appropriately themed rides and the traditional structures and decorations from each country. Countries ranged from Switzerland with a Bobsled ride, Greece with Poseidon’s Revenge (a water ride), Portugal with Pirates (I guess that sort of makes sense) and my favorite country of all, Chocoland, located between Russia and Holland.

While the rides were fun (although slight knock-offs from various other parks), the highlight of the day was “winning” my 6ft long green crocodile stuffed animal. Quotation marks are necessary as I technically did not “win” the toy playing the shooting game, even with numerous “free” attempts, but rather, the he was given to me by the very nice game supervisor.

We wrapped up the day at one of the many themed restaurants adjacent to the park recounting the day, all the fun we had, the number of stuffed animals won (10 in total) and of course, all of the food we ate. To summarize, my 7 friends and I enjoyed:

· 8 slices of pizza
· 3 sides of french fries
· 3 chocolate bananas
· 2 bags of popcorn
· 2 cotton candies
· 2 bags of toasted sweetened nuts
· 1 waffle with whipped cream and chocolate
· 1 bag of chocolate covered churros
· 1 bag of chocolate covered donuts
· And 1 lollipop

And that was all before dinner.