Day 47 (July 25th): Duisburg & Cologne

Woke up and went to our usual corner bakery for breakfast. I brought food back for the kids and they didn’t get out of bed until 9:30 AM. Since yesterday was our usual road trip day and it was raining out we decided to shift it to today. We motivated out of the room around 11:00 AM and drove 30 minutes north to Duisburg. In Duisburg, there was a huge old industrial facility that was converted into a park. At the information booth at the park, we were told there was a playground and rock climbing area. We started walking around and the place was very unusual. It felt as though we were in an industrial ghost town. As we kept following the path we finally came upon the playground area. There was a huge enclosed slide that the kids (and dad) loved going down (see bottom picture). They played there for a while until we walked over to the slides and rock climbing area. The rock climbing was built right into the old concrete walls of the facility. There were a few walls with easy climbing for kids and then others which were much more difficult for experienced climbers. The kids then laid down together on a black plastic concave toy and looked up at the sky admiring the clouds. After relaxing for about 30 minutes we headed back over to the big slide and played some more. It was way past lunchtime and we were all getting hungry. We went to the one restaurant in the park. The menu was limited and not “Zach friendly”. Zach ended up eating bread and French fries, Hannah ordered the tomato soup and I had the barley stew (all you can eat). The food was actually not bad. After lunch we walked over to another park and that had a strange spinning disc that you stand on and spin (see top left picture). We played some other games in the park and then walked back to the car (after going to the restroom for the 4th time). I knew there was a casino in Duisburg so we headed in that direction. At the casino they had a difficult time understanding exactly what I was looking for, but they were very nice and let me go inside even though I had shorts on. Everything worked out and I got my 6th poker chip. We then headed home and arrived around 6:30 PM.
Al had not been to Cologne yet and she wanted to see the big cathedral so we decided to road trip there for dinner. It was about a 30-minute drive and YH joined us. We parked the car at 8:30PM and went over to the cathedral. This was my second trip there but enjoyed it again. In front of the cathedral there were a couple of artist drawing with chalk. One of them was drawing the Mona Lisa and doing a wonderful job at it. The kids were thoroughly impressed (see top right picture). The walked around the cathedral and took some pictures then headed down to the Alstadt by the Rhine. Everybody was hungry so we headed back up to the cathedral and found a restaurant to eat dinner at. Al and Zach had a burger (not served with a bun), Hannah didn’t order anything since she wasn’t hungry and I had a “teriyaki” steak that tasted good but didn’t have any teriyaki flavor at all. After dinner we got some ice cream and did one last lap around the cathedral before heading back to the car. We drove 30 minutes back home and arrived around 11:15PM. We did our dose our Gilmore Girls before going to sleep around 12:30 AM.