Verkehrshaus

This morning I had to interrupt this cute scene. The kids were playing with a fishing game that Ella made yesterday in a fit of creativity, with poles fashioned from sticks, string, and magnets, for catching little construction paper fish with paper clips attached.

I still remember the version of this game that my mom made my sister and me when we were small. She was inspired, I think, by a Smithsonian catalog. And I remember thinking it was so funny that she included an old boot in with the eels and sharks and fish that she carefully drew and cut out for us.

Mom, Ella's version had smelly old boots, too, worth negative 10 points. It's tradition.

The kids had plans to kick back and have a day-long fishing tournament, but instead I marched them out of the house before 9:00, for a trip to Luzern to the Verkehrshaus, the Museum of Transportation.

My three blondies, on the ferry boat

The trip there was fun, in and of itself: we passed the hour-long trip down with so many games of Uno, with Joey acting as the ultimate wild card, changing the deck stack at his whim. And then we got to hop on a ferry boat for a ten-minute trip to the far side of Lake Luzern (also called Vierwaldstättersee).  It was exactly the right length of a ride for my kids: they spent the trip, hanging over the rail, laughing at the seagulls that were flying next to them. Alex decided that the birds were trying to get high fives.

Ready to scoot

The other day I had a conversation with a neighbor.  He's Swiss, himself, although he lived in New York for several years.  Bucking the trend of Swiss national pride, he was talking about how dull Zürich was. And I found myself in the strange position of defending his country: he did concede that his three-year-old daughter loved living here and that it's a great place to live if you have children: all public places cater to them. And this museum was no exception.  It was, unequivocally, awesome.

There are five large halls, the entrance hall, and then four others devoted to cars, trains, boats, and airplanes. And, in the middle of these is an enormous play area for the children.  Most of it is very smoothly paved, and the museum set up dozens of scooters and bicycles for the kids to zoom around on.

"Non-means of transportation" might be bit of a stretch,
but the kids had fun.

The exercise corner

One corner of the courtyard had exercise equipment, as well as a huge merry-go-round and enormous trampolines.

Another corner was turned into a large mini-construction site with several gravel and rock pits, and many little peddle-powered diggers for the kids to ride around on.  Alex and Joey, especially, were absolutely in heaven, rushing about importantly with wheelbarrows filled with rocks.

Joey, who had brought his Trucks & Cars & Things That Go bible along with him on this trip, made a two-year-old's joke by hiding behind some of the trucks and then, when I found him, laughing: "Mom! Guess what! I Goldbug. See? I hiding."  When I tucked my little Goldbug in for bed tonight, he told me, with his sweet toddler accent, "I love you, mom. And I love the rocks. I miss the rocks."

They had some great machines for the kids to play with, including several
hand-cranked ramps and a sorting jigger.

While Joey and Alex were hefting and shoveling, Ella was off in a different corner of the playground, getting educated.  When we'd first entered the courtyard, Ella had bolted directly for some large peddle cars parked in a little miniature roadway.  But the attendant shook his finger at her and told her that she had to go to a half-hour traffic school, first, before she was allowed to play on those cars.  Ella was totally game, and she put in her time learning about road rules yield signs and which side of the street to ride on.

When the lesson was done and it was time to practice on the cars, Ella carefully, carefully, stopped at all of the stop and yield signs, and she and attentively rode on the correct side of the street, and she cautiously went in exactly the wrong direction around the traffic circle.  Instantly, the attendant was at her side, correcting her. He meant business.

Traffic school

But Ella loved it, and in the end she got a little driver's license and a deck of traffic-safety playing cards for the game cupboard.

Finally, behind the wheel

In between traffic safety sessions, the attendant opened the track to the 3-to-5-year-old set, so Alex got a turn to play on the cars as well.  He absolutely loved it, and zoomed, non-stop, for the full half-hour that the little kids were allotted, while Ella took her turn constructing with Joey.

Needless to say the kids were wiped out by lunchtime.  Joey, sweaty-haired and dusty, was on the verge a rock-throwing fit, and Alex and Ella were overheated and hungry.  So we found a shady table and ate a pile of food (it's excellent, how I can always count on museums to be serving large slices of schnitzel) and recharged with some books.

The kids were ready to run back to the playground after lunch, but (aw, Mom!) I made them go inside the exhibition halls.  In the first one, filled with airplanes, Joey, clumsy with fatigue, smashed his thumb in a one of those wooden quiz displays, the sort where you lift a board to see the answer beneath.  His thumb eventually swelled up and darkened with bruising, but he can still use it, so I'm hoping that it will heal by itself.

An exhibit on thrust

Alex, on a hand-gliding simulator: there was a television
in the center

But that was the last straw for little Joe: he retreated to the safety of his stroller, and, halfway through the boat exhibitions, his eyes were closed.

While I was walking Joey around the quieter corners of the hall, trying to lull him to sleep, I sent Ella and Alex off on their own to explore.  When I went to find them, I found them just about to begin a rowing competition with two teenaged boys, with a large group around them, chuckling.  Ella was in the middle of scolding one of the boys for touching the machine before it was time to start: the machines were touch-sensitive, she knew, and wouldn't start, but I think the boys thought she was being a sticker about fairness. But they humored Ella, up until the race started.  My kids fought valiantly but there was no beating the two boys, who were clearly in a pissing contest.

Feeling the burn

It was very convenient that Joey had fallen asleep just then, because the top story of the boat building was (for some reason) a computer-science-themed play area.  The kids hopped around to different stations, where they played games that taught them different sorting algorithms (tournament, bubble, and insertion) and had them attack the traveling salesman problem, and then do a little coding on their own, logo style.  It was just excellent.

Joey stayed asleep just long enough for the kids to work their way through all the computer games, and reawoke in the hall of cars.

One whole wall of the hall was covered with different classic automobiles: the audience could vote as to which car would be presented, and the chosen one was pulled from the shelves by the vertical parker while a video about the car played: incredibly slick.  And I was amused to see that even two- and five-year-old boys drool over Lamborghinis.

That left us with just the trains to visit: of course, this being Switzerland, they had a very impressive collection, and I wish we'd had longer to climb around on them.  The kids got distracted by a train-sorting puzzle, however, that was the cause of some strife: Ella was intent on solving the puzzle, while Joey just wanted to play choo-choo.

It seemed that, after five hours of museum time, it was time for us to to exit with a bit of grace intact.

At lunch I'd told the kids they could have ice cream later in the day, and it was time to make good on that promise.  I was amazed, however, that, when I took the kids to the gift shop to choose a popsicle, Joey told me, "No. No ice cream. I want a little car."  I was so impressed that my two-year-old negotiated an alternative.  He seemed pretty proud of himself, too.

I was certain that I would some pretty placid kids on the way home, after that long day, but Alex, it seemed, has bottomless reserves.  As we were waiting to board the ferry he started doing jumping jacks: he must have been thinking of yesterday, I think. And, even after that, he still had enough energy to beat me in four game of Uno on the way home, and then to run from the train station to the front door.

I took a little bit of video footage today, especially of the playgrounds.  Enjoy, grandparents!