Send My Conscience Home in a Taxi

Before I left on this trip, I did some research into... Legolands around the world. Actually, initially it started as an attempt to work out how to get to Legoland Deutschland... Which turned out to be in an obscure southern area of Germany. So far from Berlin, where I was staying, that in fact original Lgoland in Denmark is closer to Berlin by about 150 kilometres.

But as luck would have it, there are no less than four Legolands - Denmark, Germany, California and Windsor in the UK. Windsor is a short train ride out of London, so I suggested to Deb that maybe we should do a little side expedition to visit it. She thought that an excellent idea!

With our wad of tickets from Waterloo station (Train, seat on specific train, bus ticket to Legoland which doubled as admission ticket) we headed out West to Windsor. There is also a major castle there, which I ashamed to say I have now only seen from the outside... from a bus... a bus heading to Legoland...

Legoland must be the only theme park I've ever actually been to, as far as I can remember - childhood visits to Wobby's World not counting. We were the only adults there, as far as I could tell, without children in tow, which made me feel a bit perverted! It's basically a series of kinda lame rides with vaguely lego themes, plus some other bits and pieces, like remote controlled trucks and boats.

We really only went on one ride, a roller coaster. We were actually sitting in the ride before Deb saw fit to inform me that what she does on roller coasters is... scream like a banshee the entire ride. So besides being flung about very quickly on a twisting turning vehicle of sorts, I was also slightly deafened in one ear by a continually screaming girlfriend! Well, next time I'll know not to sit next to her :-)

Actually, we did go on one more ride, the lego train which does a figure of eight around some of the park, past some lego animals of various sizes. Lego animals are rendered in old-style lego bricks, so they look like they're pixilated, except the pixels are three dimensional...

The best bit of the park is the lego "lands" themselves, towns and countries rendered in Lego. So there's a Lego Denmark, a Lego Netherlands, even a lego Stone Henge. And of course a lego London, complete with working London Eye and moving cars and buses. And a Lego Carnary Wharf, complete with Lego Dalek half way up one building! See the Dr Who episode featuring the Battle of Canary Wharf, between the Daleks and the Cybermen... Yes, pop culture brain overload.

I almost spazzed out when we went to the obligatory Lego store on the way out. It had whole pile of Lego stuff I'd never seen before, although unfortunately not a lego T-shirt in my size. I did however score retro Lego men in little packs complete with the year they were from, various Lego key rings, and a whole big box of Duplo for the two year old we were staying with. The most amazing part, which I kinda regret not taking advantage of, was a wall of pick-and-mix lego bricks. Basic, old-style bricks, the kind they used to make before going off on weird Star Wars lego tangents. There was at least three walls of the things, little bins of different sized and colored lego blocks. One went about with a scoop and paid by weight! I sorely regret not getting a kilo of assorted lego to take home :-)

Waiting for the bus on the way home, our huge newly acquired collection of Lego caused some consternation amongst the other kids (other kids???) waiting for the bus. One little boy looked at us for a moment with a puzzled look, then said to his parents "they have lego... Why don't we have lego?" I missed their no doubt difficult response!

Mind you, later we were telling an English friend about our trip to Legoland and the delightful emporium at its end. She'd been taken there as a kid - which now that I think about it must make her quite young, it's only been there some twelve years - and her parents had sworn blind that there wasn't a shop selling lego at Legoland! I suppose that's another strategy! She was a bit amusingly put out, realising her parents had lied to her. As parents are obliged to from time to time.

We took the Duplo back to Blackheath, and left it for our very tiny host Katherine. She was asleep by the time we go home, so we didn't get the chance to see her play with it. I personally believe that Lego is a basic human right, and should be written into the UN charter. Every child should be issued with a cubic metre of Duplo at age two, to be exchanged for several cubic metres of "grown up" lego when they're old enough to know not to swallow it - somewhere between five and thirty two. And then possibly exchanged again for technical lego if you're expected to grow up to be an engineer or a nerd of some sort :-)

There were actually some areas of the park we didn't really make it to, which I would have liked to have seen in retrospect. There's an area where you can build Lego Mindstorms robots. And another area where you can watch the lego modellers at work, making large things from little plastic bricks. Now that'd be a fulfilling job! I'll just have to go back one day...

This one is for the nerds out there. Just what the world needs - a rubber-band firing Lego chain gun: