On Easter Sunday (which feels like forever ago), we decided to enjoy the gorgeous sunshine and take Mackenzie to the park for her very first time. We have a couple of small, local parks in our area…one of which is just two blocks from us. So we went there first, hoping that there wouldn’t be too many other people with the same idea.

It’s an older playground but it has a decent little fort to climb with a slide, a couple swings and one of those bouncy motorcycles that seems to be a requirement in all German playgrounds. Although there were not many people, the two kids that were playing there naturally wanted to play with everything that Mackenzie even looked at, just so she wouldn’t have a chance. They were 5 or 6, I guess, and being “watched” by an older sibling who was getting all cozy on a bench with their significant other. Kids? What kids? Those two were in their own little world.

We still managed to let Mackenzie try out the kiddie swing but she couldn’t really get interested in it because of the other kids. And although I had my camera all ready to go, there were just no opportunties to get any decent photos…and I am very hesitant to photograph anyone around kids I don’t know. Unfortunately society has trained us we’re guilty until proven innocent, now, especially when it comes to children, regardless of whether you just want to take a photo of your child’s first ride on a swing…or a bit of bath time fun. But that’s a rant for another day.

So we decided to try out the other, much cooler, newer playground located in a newer part of town. It’s a few blocks further away but easily walkable…and we decided to stop by the newest bistro in town which also has a small ice cream bar. Number 1, as they have so strangely named themselves, took the place of another cafe which had good food and terrible service. Hopefully the new place will be better all around. At least the people working in there are already more entertaining.

At any rate, the ice cream was pretty good but do I think it’s homemade? Probably not. The sign on the stracciatella which noted that the chocolate bits were artificial chocolate did make me a bit apprehensive. And you have to love that it took 3 people to make two cups of ice cream. The girl working the ice cream counter that day was having some serious issues.

We thought we’d just take the ice cream with us to the park and enjoy it while sitting on a bench in the sunshine. But we couldn’t have been more wrong.

As we got to the playground, we saw a kid climb over the relatively low fence that surrounds the playground.

“Wouldn’t it just be easier for him to actually open the gate?” I thought. “Even if it’s obviously not as much fun.”

But when we got to the gate and tried the handle, we knew immediately why the kid had hopped the fence. Because the gate was locked. That’s right. A beautiful spring day, Easter weekend, and the public playground is locked. Not that it was stopping the kids from going in. And if we hadn’t had Mack’s stroller we probably would have hopped the fence also. But it just really irritated us. And we just ended up taking our ice cream home to eat…which was delicious even if not as natural as homemade. The banana one….awesome.

Now we have to question whether only people that have new houses around there have keys to the park (which they can’t do here in Germany) although we didn’t see any signs indicating that it was a private park. Or were the local parks office workers just too lazy to open the gate? And why would it be locked at all? I’m sure it’s supposed to be a deterrent to keep teens out at night who may vandalize the very nice park…but the fence is 3 feet tall. Do they really think that’s going to stop them from getting in? It barely even slowed down a 5 year old.

I guess we’ll just have to try making a few more visits and see what happens. Or we just build a playground for Mack here and we’ll never have to worry about sharing the swings or being locked out again.