The Most Romantic Park. Sigh

So basically I’m just going to tell you about this amazing park that I went to yesterday. In Dortmund, Germany.

You know those movies, mostly in romantic comedies probably, where this adorable couple madly in love go on an amazingly romantic date to a park that is so incredibly beautiful, surreal, and fairy-tale-like, and then they end up falling in love deeper or he proposes or they just have a tender pic-nic? {sorry for the mega run-on sentence} Welp, I just found that park, people. And I am bound and determined that when I fall in love with the person I’m going to marry, we’re going to go to a park just like it. Go check my “things I will do” list at the top of this blog on a tab. It’s now on there. 

Seriously though, it’s like I was on the set of a movie.

{yes, no one needs to tell me I’m an incredibly hopeless romantic. I’ve known this my entire life. I just love, love. K? No big deal.}

This park was so lusciously green.

There was a little carousel that kids were happily riding on; a playground kids were running around and playing on.

Adorable German daddies that were giving their toddlers piggy back rides or teaching them how to kick a soccer ball. {that makes a girl’s heart goes awww!! Seriously, what is more adorable than a dad who loves their kids so much? Not very many things.}

Old couples that were helping each other walk with canes and walkers. It reminded me of president and sister Hinckley. So. Cute.

There was a dance floor where couples were legitimately dancing. Like the tango, waltz, and a ton of other dances. They were really good! And they looked so happy and in love! I want to learn how to dance like that!!

The dance floor, when it got dark, turned into the young kids {my age ish} dance. They played popular American songs and I got my groove on with Whitney, Addie, and Lindy.  Because that’s how American’s dance.  We don’t know how to do the romantic kind. Just the kind that looks ridiculous. “Embrace the weirdness, own the weirdness.” –Whitney

I saw a fe people playing badminton. {Betsy, I thought of you.}

There was this game where people were rolling these metal balls down this court thing. Lindy said, “Bowling meets horseshoes.” Which kind of looked like it was true. They were old guys who were playing.

People were having Picnics. Couples on dates kissing on their blankets.

Everyone had a BBQ. We bought German bratwurst and grilled with red and orange peppers and it was delish!!

The people on the study abroad doing 19^th century work brought their tent and were doing tintypes via the collodian process. So they had their 8x10 cameras out on big tripods and were getting people to model for them and then the park took on an even more movie-like quality. People would go up to them and ask what they were doing and took a particular interest in the process because most of them had never seen that kind of thing done before.

We met some photo students from the college of photography there in Dortmund that were in the park and helped them with a random photo project they were doing.

There were gorgeous purple flower bushes throughout the park.

There were food vendors and booths selling things.

A live band playing music and most of it was in English!

An outdoor movie theatre thing were the huge soccer game London vs. Berlin was playing and people were so excited about it!

This park was seriously amazing.

The only things that could have made it better would have been-

No cigarette smoke

And

If there was some sort of pond or river or water feature.

Here’s a funny part though. You know how in movies there are usually homeless people in the big city parks that try to steal your food or things or dig through the trash? Well, here, the bums steel your water bottles or pop bottles because they can turn the bottle in to most any store and get 25 cents per bottle!! I saw this happen with my own two eyes! I think 3 or four people in our group got their drink bottles stolen when they were not even 10 feet away from where they were sitting. Mine never got touched, which is weird because I’m pretty sure it was less hidden than everyone else’s. The bums literally had 3-4 huge bags of bottles! I should have been doing this too! I need some extra money!

the dance floor

If America started doing this, there’d be a lot less littering.

Anyways, to say the least, I’m in love with this park.

I want to put like 50 pictures up, but every where we’ve stayed has incredibly slow and annoying internet. For some reason, blogger takes soooo long to upload pictures and facebook is a lot faster, so hopefully I can put pictures up there soon.

Happy Sunday. I’m in Cologne, Germany now.

p.s. I’m in need of a large dr pepper. I’m scouting one out tomorrow. None of this coke crap. They have 6 drinks here- coke, diet coke, fanta, apfel {apple} juice, sparkling water, and this weird stuff that’s like my brother’s “suicide” drink where a few flavors are mixed together. Oh, and beer. Lots and lots of nasty smelling beer.

XOXOXOXOXOXOxoXOXOXOXOXOXO