We have a goal, these summer holidays, to explore the playgrounds (spielplatzes) of Berlin. We went on a mini tour last holidays, but we have about six times as much time to explore this time and we intend to make the most of it! My mini challenge within this is to explore the Top Ten Berlin Spielplatzes, having recently discovered that there was such a thing. Jill was absolutely thrilled when she found 'the elephant park' in the list, the listed picture online being the larger elephant multi-level part of the park. We trundled out of the house with our bikes and a picnic lunch and went to see the Zirkus Aladin spielplatz.
It turns out she named the park well. There are two elephants at the park: this is the smaller of the two.
The second elephant has about three levels, accessible by ladders, with a huge metal slide as a trunk. It's brilliant.
It also has a wee circus wagon. Isn't that delightful?
The circus park of course includes dozens of the carvings that are found in so many of the lovely Berlin spielplatzes, as well as rope ladders, climbing ropes, two spinning toys, and the obligatory ping pong table. I have no idea if the carvings are a German thing or just a Berlin thing, but I do have to wonder how they come about. Is there one guy out there who supplies fabulous, carved animals for parks? Is it an industry? I can't say I ever wondered about where playgrounds in Australia came from--they were just there and generally resembled each other, with differences mostly in layout and size, etc. The parks here are such a wonderful enigma, with their metal slides and wooden structures, with the carvings, statues, and ping pong tables instead of swings. I love them, but I also digress. The seating was more than adequate, with a lovely little round seating area decorated with carved animals. Then there was the water toy! 
The kids spent a solid hour pumping water and constructing a 'river' until I made them get out of the sun. It was 29 degrees Celsius today, so I didn't fancy them in full sun even with 50+ sunscreen, but rather than having to go home the multi-level structures provided more than enough shade for them to play without getting burned.
As per the above link, last year's Karneval attracted 1.45 million people, and you can quite believe it given the sheer mass of people there. The struggle to get out of the train station just to get to the Karneval should have clued me in, but when we went looking for our neighbours we were almost immediately trapped in a slow moving crowd. The stalls on either side of the walkways were doing a very brisk trade as people ducked into them just to get away from the crowd, and the noise was pretty amazing. All manner of voices, languages, and accents. Tangential and I cracked up when a voice called out in a very distinctive Australian accent, 'Hey, do you wanna crepe? I wanna crepe.' Bless.
It seems silly to be surprised by a cultural difference in a carnival like this, but one of the first things we were struck by was the number of people who liked Maddyn's monkey backpack. We've never used it frequently, but it has D rings on the bottom, clips across the chest, and comes with a lead. He thinks it's fabulous, but I've never come across too much support for the idea of leashing children and so was very surprised when we had a number of people come up and ask--one even in English--where we bought it! The one who spoke English mentioned he has a two year-old, and would love something like that so she couldn't run away. I hear him. We took it off so the kids could go on the bouncy slide and before I could put it back on Maddyn spotted a gap in the crowd and sprinted away. The kid's been training for nearly six months on his balance bike and he can run. I pretty much dared for anybody to judge me after managing to catch my son after a five minute run and him deciding to weave in and out of the kind of toilet line you get when you've got over a million people in one spot. 
After a couple of hours of browsing through stalls and admiring the sheer number of alcoholic options available, we came across a harassed-looking woman who, for a euro fifty, was able to load us up with all the sugar energy we needed to get back to the music stages once more. At least, with the number of people there I ended up with Maddyn on my shoulders for about four hours all up, so if nothing else I needed my strength! We trundled back through the enormous German barbecue stands, found a bier tent which kindly sold cola and apfelschorle (apple lemonade?) in glasses, and I shared a chicken curry with Maddyn outside an Indian stand quite hastily upon finding out that the plastic bowl I was using had a two euro pfand--a deposit that you can get back once you've returned the bowl. 
After lunch we went walking again--past little poles with beads decorating them!-- to a park. To access to the park one has to walk through the grounds of a gorgeous church. I left the kids playing with the others and went back to take a photo of the church only to find myself, camera out, in the middle of a park full of naked men. I'm getting more and more used to the idea of naked sunbathing here, and I think the idea is quite excellent, but I never expected to see naked sunbathing a) quite that close to a playground, nor b) in front of a church!
The most inventive, excellent idea I've seen so far is from a yoghurt company. Tangential and Maddyn took off for a bike ride during the week to pick up a few necessities and came home with a four pack of yoghurt with a special gift. On opening it, we discovered the special gift was seeds! Collect the set and you'll have cress, parsley, chives, basil, and Thai basil. Essentially, this means my little yoghurt fiend can eat as much as he wishes and I might get my kitchen garden after all without needing to pop down to Bauhaus and bring home seedlings on the s-bahn. I'm afraid we're fresh out of dirt, so the garden might have to wait, but I think it's a brilliant idea.