Schwimm-bad

So, the adventure of the weekend had its genesis in a tip passed on to us by the 5-year old son of M.'s first seargent, N., who alerted us to the fact that there is a "reeeeally cool" indoor schwimmbad (pronounced "schvimm-bahd") at Bad Mergentheim, just over the Bavarian border into Baden-Württemburg. So, on last Saturday afternoon, which was decidely cool in a fallish-feeling way, we set out to see if we could find the schwimmbad. What's a schwimmbad, you ask? Aah, this is critical knowledge for surviving summer sans-air conditioning here in Germany. Schwimmbads are nothing more than swimming pools (usually more like water parks) but they are a very, very big deal here in Germany, in part because there aren't too many of them and most people here live in un-airconditioned housing. So, spending a day at the pool is generally a family event and is very, very popular in the summer. Acting on N.'s tip, M. and I drove over to Bad Mergentheim, and then quickly realized that the town schwimmbad also meets the other axiom of most German swimming pools: for some reason or other, they are always totally unmarked and ridiculously hard to find in any given town! In fact, the schwimmbad here in my town was so hard to find, that a few weekends ago, we drove around for a good 20 minutes looking for it until finally, we saw a kid with a pool noodle walking through a residental neighborhood and I'm in the passenger seat screaming at M. "FOLLOW THAT KID! FOOLLLOOWWW THAT KIIIID!" We wound up basically having to stalk this poor kid and his whole family through a residental neighborhood just to see which route they were going to take to get to the pool-but it worked! They led us to this incredibly well-hidden, but public, water park just a few minutes from where I live in Hessen. So, anyway, we've quickly learned that when you set out to find a new schwimmbad, it's bound to be somewhat of an adventure. So, yesterday afternoon, a few wrong turns, empty parking lots and one conversation with a non-English speaking gas station cashier later, we found the pool called Solymar. Even though it was an indoor complex, it was a lot like the outdoor parks: there were several pools, all with different themes and there was even an indoor waterslide and some waterfalls for kids to play in. But all of this fun comes with a hefty price tag. Unlike parks in the states where you might pay a flat rate for the day, at this pool, you pay by the hour. With the exchange rate, it costs roughly $20 for two people to swim for 2 hours, but it was well worth it to add another schwimmbad to our "found" list and as an added bonus, M. got to test out the waterslide. Plus, we found out later that Bad Mergentheim has been known for centuries for it's mineral water baths and it's a beautiful town that we plan on re-visiting soon. It was a successful adventure to cap off the weekend. Hope your weekend was relaxing, too!