Excursions for young & old
"Pack your swimming trunks, take your little sister..." - Conny Froboess was just eight years old when she sang this song on stage for the first time. In the original, children were asked to bathe in the Wannsee in Berlin, then in later versions it was - understandably for all of Germany - sometimes the swimming pool, sometimes the open-air pool. If you remember this vividly, then you are exactly the kind of person this article is addressing. If you don't remember, you can still take a few things away with you here.
Outdoor pool and quarry pond call
The bathing season is naturally the ideal time for joint excursions to bathing lakes or the outdoor pool. Together here means that young and old should meet. Perhaps someone is now thinking of how the Hessian cabaret ensemble "Die Warzenschweine" sang in the 70s that the Honolulu beach bikini was also no longer fashionable, but had fallen victim to free body culture. The older gentlemen in particular would love to see this.... I don't think you would be allowed to sing something like that today.
On the other hand, there is another important argument why the generations should go swimming together. The fact is that many young people don't know how to swim at all. A study from 2018 showed that 40% of children of primary school age would no longer be able to achieve the free swimmer's badge: 15 minutes swimming in deep water plus a jump from a height of 1 metre. Most of today's older people still experienced a youth in which a swimming badge was a recognised must if you wanted to belong. Reason enough to pass on this knowledge to the next generations.
Forest, Zoo, Wildlife Park & Farm - United in Nature
Much is always discussed about school reforms and curricula, and in the end the realisation remains that it would be best to take the children outside and show them the things they are supposed to learn. Whether it is budget constraints, lack of time, political considerations or even insurance reasons, teaching takes place almost exclusively in classrooms and on a theoretical basis.
Here, the elderly are called upon to go out with the children - for example, the grandchildren and their friends or girlfriends - and explore things directly. You don't actually have to make a long journey anywhere in Germany to find a forest or a farm. It's even better if there's a wildlife park in the neighbourhood. When visiting the zoo, I recommend not only looking at elephants, lions and giraffes. In the botanical section or in the aquarium or terrarium, there are insanely interesting details to discover, but you also have to explain them to the young ones. You will see that when they have seen their first poison dart frog or the first smelly carnivorous orchid, they will start to take an interest in it.
Pictures of an exhibition
Even when you go to the museum, the transfer of knowledge ceases to be a one-way street. Art, history and science are subject to constant change, so it happens just as often that the young have interesting things to say and the old listen, as vice versa. So the trip to the museum is a win-win for everyone who attends - and perhaps also for a few of the guests who turn up to listen in.
If you are already retired and have the time, then you are ideally suited to organise such an exchange as a concerted action. It doesn't take much. And depending on the age of the young people or children, it may be a relief for their parents - but maybe they will come along and make it an event for three generations.
Escape Room - Action of a different kind
Have you ever heard of an Escape Room? Admittedly: This leisure tip is not suitable for every area, because Escape Rooms are not yet available in every city. But the trend is unstoppable, and sooner or later it will come to your neighbourhood.
What is it about? Escape rooms are very imaginative and vary greatly in their presentation, but the principle is the same everywhere. You and your group are locked in a room where various objects, furniture, pictures and clues are to be found. Even the smallest details can play an important role. Your task is to find out how to get out of this room into the next one. There, everything looks completely different again, but the task is the same: Find the way out! And in all this, the clock is always ticking. Excitement is guaranteed in any case.
This puzzle search requires the cooperation of people who approach problems in completely different ways when no correct solution formula is given: what the young have learned in combinatorics, powers of observation and logical thinking from videogames, the old bring with them from reading circuit diagrams and construction plans, from understanding legal texts or from checking documents.
By the way, the time is not running to increase the suspense, but to free up the space for the next paying group. If people don't come up with the solution, the supervisory staff whisper solutions to them over loudspeakers so that they can finally move on. Such groups then have to live with the ignominy of not having made it without help. This will not happen to your intergenerational team!
Guided city tour: Learn what you didn't know about yourself
City tours are not only interesting for guests from outside. In order to be permanently attractive, especially those stories are dug up that are not anchored in the general mainstream. There are always highly interesting anecdotes there, even for the locals.
In the case of large churches alone, architects and builders have regularly included little things that give the local churchwarden the finger. Not always as obviously as, for example, in Freiburg Cathedral, where one of the gargoyles does not show a demon's face but stretches its bare bottom into the landscape. But everywhere there are small and large details of this kind to discover, and for the city guides these are their most popular stories.
Pub quiz - English culture in its purest form
English and Irish pubs can now be found in cities all over Germany, and most of them also run a weekly pub quiz. All kinds of questions from pop culture and history, geography and politics are asked. Whichever team has collected the most points receives a prize at the end - usually free drinks.
Don't worry: German law allows children as young as six to sit in the pub without a parent or guardian accompanying them, as long as it's for a meal and a drink. This again brings out the strength of the intergenerational team. You may not know Lady Gaga's latest hit, but you know which Easter eggs Michelangelo put in the Pope's nest in the Sistine Chapel.
