KiKa Summer Tour returns to Wiesbaden

Today I visited the KiKa Summer Tour in Wiesbaden with my daughter.  This was our third visit to one of the tour events, having visited Wiesbaden and Cologne in previous years.

With temperatures forecast for around 30°C it was the perfect day for it, even though there was a chance of thunder storms in the afternoon.

Juri and Singa welcome the cast onto the stage

Juri and Singa welcome the cast onto the stage

The amount of attractions laid on had either increased in number compared to the event two years ago, or were spread out more.  I certainly felt that there were not as many people there as there had been two years ago, but maybe that really was due to having a larger area and two different stages.  Certainly the queue to climb up “Bernd das Brot” was not as long!

The audience in front of the main stage

The audience in front of the main stage

In fact, the queues are the worst part of the day – that being reminded with subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) hints that KiKa is funded by the license fee.

Everything else is well done for the children.  There is an area in front of the main stage where only children can enter.  On entering, the mobile phone number of one of their parents is written on their arm, so that when they want to leave, the crew can contact someone.  Obviously the phone needs to be turned on and audible for this to work!

But this year, for the first time I saw the security crew making sure that the smaller children got to the front of that area so that they could see, and also that the children were offered water to drink whilst they were in there and out of the reach of their parents.

The active stage

The active stage

The smaller “active” stage is lower, so that the children really can go almost up to close to it.  At one point, a number of children – including my daughter – were allowed onto this stage to dance!

And dancing certainly was the order of the day.  We danced to the A-E-I-O-U song a total of 4 times, with my daughter having the slight advantage that we had practised the steps together the previous day!

Towards the end of the afternoon with less than an hour to go until the finale, the thunder finally arrived and aptly interrupted the Tabaluga show, whose cast were slightly caught off guard by the fact that it wasn’t their thunder sound effect!  It rained for about 10 minutes, and then stopped for all of the stars to gather on the main stage for one last dance.

The summer tour is well worth a visit.  On the way home my daughter cited dancing on the active stage with the presenters Juri and Singa as her favourite part of the day, with meeting Juri himself (to have a CD autographed) coming a close second.

Räuberteller

Many restaurants in Germany offer a free item on their menu.  It is usually hidden away at one end of the children’s section and is called a “Räuberteller”.

It really is free and almost looks out of place being listed with € 0,00.

But what is it?

Plate with cutlery - ©iStockphoto.com/DNY59

Put quite simply, a Räuberteller is a plate and a set of cutlery.  The word literally translates as “thief’s plate” and that is exactly what it is.

For small children who would not manage even a child’s portion of food (or prefer something else than the few items on offer), they can use the plate to eat small portions of food from their parents, grandparents, or other people who are in the restaurant with them.

This not only reduces the cost of the meal, but it also saves on waste if they are lacking in appetite.

Jugendamt

The Jugendamt is an office, usually located in each Kreis or Kreisstadt and sometimes in other large towns.

The office is not only responsible for child protection and assisting parents that are unable to cope with their children, but also to arrange courses and activities for children.

They are also a point of contact for clubs and societies, eg. to apply for financial support to fund training courses or building repairs.  The rules for this vary from state to state.

Volunteers those clubs and societies can prove that they have a certain number of hours of training can go to the Jugendamt to apply for a JugendleiterInnen-Card, which gives them free or discounted entry to places such as swimming pools and museums.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download a transcript

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