Originally my plan was to eat lunch at home and then go to the pool, but ZDG called and had forgotten a crucial adaptor for his computer (he was giving a talk in the afternoon) so we needed to deliver it. We met ZDG at the tram stop and headed to the pool. This particular pool had a restaurant, so LGG had some chicken nuggets and I had a pair of wienerli, potato salad, green salad, and a roll.
We paid admission and after a couple of tries I finally figured out how to use my card to get through the gate (turn the card over so the scanner can read the bar code). We went to one of the changing rooms to change into our bathing suits. After a couple of visits to another pool we have learned that the lockers are not very wide, so it's important to bring your stuff in bags that will fit. Also, you usually need a coin for the locker which you get back in the end. At this place it was CHF 2. We went downstairs and showered and went to the pool area. There was a diving pool, a "swimmers" pool, a "non-swimmers" pool, and a two story water slide.
The "non-swimmers" pool was about four feet deep so LGG was happy that there were various pool floats that we could use. Her favorite one was a red one that had a smiley face. It reminded me of the Spitzbuben cookies that we see here. The pool wasn't too crowded at this time and there were other floats available so I didn't feel to guilty about using it for so long. We went back and forth many times, sometime with her on the float, sometimes with her holding onto and kicking. Eventually she got cold and hungry so we went to the "picnic" area for snack (in the restaurant area they ask you not to eat food from home--however I sneaked LGG some grapes while we were waiting for her chicken nuggets).
When we returned to the pool it had become more crowded and a two different groups of older kids were using all of the floats (ie stacking them up very tall). At one point LGG tried to grab her favorite float from a stack and the boys told her no and offered her the blue surfboard float. At this point she kind of broke down. I remember hearing other parents talking about how emotional kids get at age five and we're certainly seeing more of that. She didn't cry, but was close. I talked to her about how it wasn't that nice that they were using all of the floats, but we would have to wait (I didn't think there was any point in saying anything to them).
Eventually the older kids stopped playing with the floats and they became available. However, I was too slow to get her favorite float. We kind of stalked the family with the float until it became available, but another family grabbed it. However I figured a parent might be more receptive than a kid so I asked in my bad German if we could have it when they were finished (I said: Können wir haben, wenn fertig? and the correct way is: Können wir das haben, wenn Sie fertig sind? So I guess I'm still forgetting a lot of words). He said yes and when they were done we took it for a couple of rides. On our way out we went to check out the water slide. We climbed up to the top, but she decided it was too scary so we took the stairs back downstairs.
We actually didn't stay as long as I thought we would. I think the water was not as warm as the other pool we've been too and the other pool is shallower so maybe she was tired of not being able to stand on the bottom of this pool. But she really liked the float so maybe we'll be back. And I know that ZDG will like the diving pool and the water slide.
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