A Never-Ending Sunday in the Theatre of Life

After half a day water-sliding my way through life at Alpamare, you'd think I'd've been on the couch recovering.

Not so. I did have a reviving cup of tea, but then realised we should think about heading into the city to see the annual Santa parade down the Bahnhofstrasse.

So off we set, into the Kinirtaq (!), and on the train to the Hauptbahnhof, where floods of kids and parents were making their way into the city.

As we got off the train at the Hauptbahnhof, we were a little surprised to see a Harry Potter mural along one side of the train parked on the very next platform (or Gleis).

Not only that, but there was a queue of people lined up to go on the train. DH and I cast excited looks at one another and, without further ado, swung into action.

He and the kids joined the queue as I headed for the nearest 'Hogwarts Security' guard, who explained that we could go on the Hogwarts Express (read: ZVV train all Pottered up for promotional purposes). He told us it was an exhibition which included costumes from the most recent movie, as well as props and partial sets (read: the launch of The Order of the Phoenix DVD).


We really couldn't believe our luck (remember how DD was reading all those Potter books in parallel?), especially when we boarded the Hogwarts Express to see the real live robes of Harry Potter, Lucius Malfoy and Luna Lovegood, as well as a reconstruction of part of Umbridge's office complete with pink cat-plates.

DH was rather taken with the rows of ingredients for making potions and frankly, even though this sort of blatant promotion aimed at children makes the cynic in me cringe, I couldn't help feeling somewhat excited and more than a bit interested in the costumes and theatre of it all.

And we even had time to get to the Santa parade! (Which we privately and totally undeservedly congratulated ourselves on...)

In fact, the parade was just about to get underway as we arrived, and I must say I rather enjoyed seeing all the Elves and Santas in costume, congregated in the just-rainy night with their various floats and horses and Christmas lights.

Brass bands played very oom-pah stuff as the procession worked its way down the Bahnhofstrasse, but even though it was very Euro and Christmassy and all that, there were bucket-loads of people lining the street, and the kids were starting to get cold and hungry. Plus, I suspect seeing approximately 37 Santas could have been a mite confusing for DS.

PS. I took a few photos of the parade, but after the HP adventure my camera kept shutting down and telling me I had zero charge. So I had to keep tricking it and quickly taking a photo before it shut down again.

So if you look closely at this last photo you might see one of the old trams all lit up like a Christmas tree, and - at the top - you might also see the vertical Christmas lights which are hung the length of the Bahnhofstrasse (the ones people complained about last year). And I must say they are kind of interesting, but not really Christmassy in the twinkly sense. Another photo later, perhaps, when I have a charged-up camera.