A Day of Thrills

Here I am writing to you, satisfied with the day but utterly exhausted.  I spent eight hours at an amusement park with Lisa, Celina, Celina's younger sister and her two friends.

Movie Park is an awesome amusement park about an hour away from my grandparents' house.  Despite what the name suggests, it is not a movie theater.  One section of the park, called Nick Land, has rides based on Nickelodeon shows, but there are other sections as well.  (If you click on the link, you'll see the page is in English.  Click on the tab 'attractions' and you can see great pictures of almost all of the rides.)


After picking Lisa and me up at Lisa's house, Celina's mom drove all of us to Movie Park.  We listened to a lot of popular American music but, finally, I heard some popular music that was in German.  Celina was, of course, singing along to all of the songs.  The sad thing is, she probably sings the American songs better than I do.

I saw a Smart sports car on our way to Movie Park.  I didn't even know there was such thing as a Smart sports car, but apparently there is.  I don't know about you, but I personally think that Smarts and sports cars do not mix.  But decide for yourself:

Everyone got really excited as we pulled up to Movie Park.  There were maybe ten cars in the parking lot.  Because only a few schools had school off today, there was practically NO ONE at the amusement park.  Literally, on some roller coasters my friends and I were the only ones on, and we just went over and over again without ever having to get off.  It was awesome.

After entering the park, we had to stop and take a few pictures by the welcoming sign:

From left to right: Celina, me, Lisa

There were so many amazing roller coasters.  I was so freakin' excited!  Part of it might have been that I hadn't been to an amusement park since fifth grade.  There were so many different kinds of rides, and I loved them all: rides that spun, roller coasters that made you feel like you were going to fly off on tight turns, water rides, roller coasters in pitch black, roller coasters that went upside down, and roller coasters with huge drops.  We did them all, from the little kid carousels to the scariest roller coaster in the park. :)

One of the rides was called High Fall.  Some of you might be able to tell what's coming by the name. :) You went up 60 meters.  The going up was probably the best part; you could see everywhere!  Then you get tilted forwards a little bit, and you start to realize that you now have to go down.  And that you're high up.  After a few painstakingly long seconds, you drop, and you think you're going to die.  Afterwards, all you can do is sputter about how hard your heart is beating and making weird noises like "Uhhhhhhehehehe!"and other weird shaky noises.  And then you'll want to do it again. :) I did it twice, and the second time wasn't any less scary than the first.

TALL!

Close-up of the people at the top of the tower

Another ride, a roller coaster this time, that I did was something that really pushed me.  Since the last time I was in an amusement park was in the fifth grade, I didn't really do as scary of rides.  This time, though, I was determined to do the scary, super fast roller coaster with the loops and corkscrews.  A few of you are probably rolling your eyes and thinking, "What a chicken" and others are probably thinking, "Scary!"

Anyway.  I was getting more and more nervous as we got closer and closer to the roller coaster.  As were on the roller coaster and going up the big hill at the beginning, I was so scared I was almost crying.  But it ended up not being so bad.  When you were upside down, you couldn't really see anything but the sky, so it wasn't obvious you were upside down.  And I'm here, writing to you, so I didn't fall out like I was irrationally scared of doing. :)

I rode that.  Yes, I did!

From these two descriptions, you probably think that the whole trip was a test of my bravery, but it really wasn't.  These were the only two things that really scared me.  There were a few roller coasters that we rode over and over again, like the Spongebob roller coaster (it was full of tight turns and you thought you were going to fly off the edge) and Van Helsing's Factory.  It was supposed to be scary, but it really wasn't.  I just loved the pitch-black parts. :)

Don't worry, I'm not going to taunt you with a description of every single roller coaster we rode. :)  The point is, I had a blast!  All the rides were a lot of fun, and there were yummy food dispensers (AKA restuarants and vending machines) all over the place.

I also became better friends with Lisa and Celina today.  Eight hours of walking around, screaming on roller coasters, and laughing hysterically together can do that to you. :) I also really enjoyed the company of Celina's sister and her friends, who were eleven or twelve. 

Many of the roller coasters take pictures of you while you're going down a big hill.  We always laughed when we saw ours because we all looked horrible.  Lisa's hair billowed in all directions, Celina had weird looks on her face, and I always looked really awkward with weird facial expressions of my own.  On one roller coaster though, Lisa and I decided to try to coordinate something for the picture.  We tried doing a few different poses, all of which failed epically (and hilariously.)

While walking around, we of course had to stop and take pictures with some movie characters:

From left to right: Patrick, Celina, Lisa, me, Spongebob

SID! :D

 Not a character, but it still had the nerve to eat me!  How dare he?!

Lots of things happened today that I enjoyed so thoroughly, and I don't think I'll ever forget this day!  I challenged (and scared) myself, enjoyed rushes of roller-coaster-induced adrenaline, and bonded with friends. :)


Julia's Encyclopedia of Roller Coaster Reactions:
Screaming at pretty much everything
Cackling like a possessed person the whole entire way
Pursing your lips and squinting
A weird face between smiling and yelling (it looks kind of like a grimace)

The Sunflower Project: Another sprout!  We've got plenty of green stuff, but they're mostly just weeds.  But we've got two legit sunflower sprouts!

German word of the day: Achterbahn.  Pronounced ACH-tare-bahn.  (The 'ach' comes from the back of your throat, kind of like a purr or growl.)  Meaning: roller coaster