שלום! Sorry, but I no longer have time to read or write for this site. I wo...
שלום! Sorry, but I no longer have time to read or write for this site. I won't cancel my account but I won't be active anymore.
Member since:21.06.2000
Reviews:218
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Way back in 1967 when I was at the tender age of 10, my family went to Montreal for a vacation and we spent most of our time at Expo '67. That was one vacation I'll never forget. So, despite some of the negative reviews I'd read about Expo2000, when I got the chance to go to Germany recently, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Unfortunately, I wasn't all that pleased with what I found there.
Granted, I was comparing Expo2000 (under the cynical eye of an adult) to Expo '67 (which I experienced with a child's innocence) and perhaps this clouded my opinion. Still, my own 15 year old son seemed to reinforce what I was feeling.
What struck me first was the large "hanger" type buildings where the smaller countries had their exhibitions. These were sterile on the outside and gave no indication to what was within. Since these were also very large, they seemed to dominate a large portion of the major part of the fairgrounds. This made taking the cable car
from one end to the other (not only an additional expense, but also) a boring ride. Most of what we saw from above were a bunch of flat rooftops with the names of countries written on them. How much fun is that?
Of the pavilions we were able to visit, we found many of them didn't seem to want to comply with the theme of the fair which was (if I recall correctly) "Air, Water and Land: Conservation and Preservation". And some that did, weren't all that interesting. Norway, for instance only had two large rooms - one silent one with sounds of dripping water and another one with large two-story billboards about how they are in the forefront of conservation. All well and commendable, but not thrilling. What they did have was a fantastic man-made waterfall outside their exhibit which was refreshing to walk under as we entered the building on one of the hotter days.
The vastness of the fairgrounds makes a visit an exhausting affair. This can be assuaged (also for an additional cost) by renting scooters and electric cars of different sizes (I believe the largest holds 6, but a guided tour with its own mini-open bus seemed to take at least 16). There are busses (gratis) that circle the grounds, but they were sorely slow in coming, insufficiently air conditioned, and always very crowded. Moreover, since there was no special marked-off route for these busses, they had to go very slowly in order not to hit pedestrians and other vehicles. We noticed many people brought their own modes of transportation such as those recently re-vamped little push scooters (what we here in Israel call 'corkinets') as well as roller-blades and skate-boards. Excellent ideas, those.
The prices were extremely high, both for entry as well as for food. We had a hard time finding any reasonably priced eating places and learned our lesson for the next day by bringing our own food with us. The admission prices are also high and one might be wise to take advantage of the evening reduced ticket which is almost bargain priced but you can only enter the grounds after 18:00. Since most of the grounds are open late, this isn't much of a problem unless you are desperate to purchase things at the gift stores which close by about 19:00. Still, that evening allowed us to see much more than we had thought we would be able to get to. Almost as much as we saw during the daytime since lines to the exhibits tend to be longer then.
As for the quality of the exhibits, I have to admit that some of them were truly excellent. Japan impressed us due to it being almost totally made of paper which, we were told, will be recycled after the fair ends! The UK pavillion was excellent (yeah, team!) with all sorts of hands-on and multi-media parts to it, focusing primarily on the theme of the Expo, but with a bit of fun and history included.
One of the more problematic things about the Expo was that many exhibits didn't have the possibility of reading or hearing information in any language besides German. A few had French or Japanese (or was that Chinese?) and some had English. Many didn't even have personnel who spoke the language of the country they were working in, let alone English - something that seemed very strange to me. On the whole, the non-German speaking international visitors will find themselves often at a loss to find information or guidance in a language they can understand.
There are things I will never forget about my visit to Montreal in 1967 that were sorely missing here. What I remember from then was the feeling that I had gotten a real, if tiny, taste of what each country was like; the vastly beautiful architecture of the different pavillions that gave one a small model of the earth in one spot, and; the possibility to have reasonably inexpensive tastes of different foods from around the world. Expo2000 may be interesting, but sadly, some of what I'll remember will not be just the good things. Perhaps that's the difference between when one visits one of these fairs as a child and when one visits as an adult. I'll still recommend that if you have a chance to go, you should do so, but I can't promise you it will be an "experience of a lifetime" - but it is an experience, nonetheless.
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I don't understand why this is under Hannover, the review doesn't really tell me anything about the place. Jane x
thingywhatsit 21.02.2004 18:46
Shame they make these expos so expensive.
wolle0509 21.07.2003 21:57
well it is even interesting to read this about three years after but I can´t understand the sense of writing this in the Hanover category. It doesn´t say a word about the town.
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Aug 29th, 2000
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