Back to the Old Country

Today was Busch Gardens day with HP2. I had been greatly anticipating this event for some time, to the point where I was having bad dreams about misplacing the tickets and so on. To the point where the excitement leading up to the event (coupled with the grander issue of someone snoring next to me) impeded a large amount of my sleep last night. (Frankly, the snorer had a bit more to do with that, but that's not as interesting, is it?) We arrived at the park before they even opened, a feat that I have heretofor never accomplished. Got to ride one of the better roller coasters, Alpengeist, twice in a row because of our head start.

I won't go into the nooks and crannies of our entire day, but HP2 was very tired too from moving until 4am and yet we managed to not get on each other's nerves all day. Through the lines (which were really not bad at all) and the fatigue and the bad jokes (guess whose?) and the large quantity of people with NO sense of humor who seemed to be surrounding us. (See example in upcoming humorous anecdote paragraph.) This is because when I am in the company of women I can say that I haven't had a lot of sleep, please be patient with me if I become snippy or snappy and the woman will fully understand and rise to the occasion. It helped that we were on similar levels of fatigue, but I think the greater thing here was the XX Chromosome combo. I think women are better at inspiring women to overcome their crankiness because they're supportive and understanding. When you're cranky around a man, he just gets defensive and refuses to try to hear you out and calm you down. Men just do whatever they have to do to shut you up, down, whatever until you're back to your usual non-cranky self. I'm not as bitter about this as I sound, I'm just pointing out that the day would have probably been a lot different if it were a man and a woman with the same level of fatigue-based crankiness.

Humorous anecdote: We had a beer about 6 in a little pub in Ireland called Grogan's. We wanted a little something to munch on with it and settled on some soft pretzels, but we were curious what the Cheese Platter they were offering looked like. A man came up and ordered one shortly after that and we were cooing over it. I made a crack that HP2 should distract him while I grabbed the platter, to which she laughed hysterically but he didn't even smirk. After he left, I said that apparently someone had already distracted him and stolen his sense of humor. She thought that was even funnier. That's the great thing about old friends, but particularly the sleep-deprived ones: they always think I am incredibly hilarious. Sometimes as much as I do! ;-)

But, I digress. HP2 & I had a marvellous time. We learned many interesting things. We learned that parrots can develop a vocabulary up to 1000 words. We learned that ravens are also similarly intelligent and can even be taught to count. We learned where all of the bathrooms are at Busch Gardens. We marvelled at the amount of culture and beauty there is at the park in addition to the sheer amusement side of it. But MOST importantly, we learned that while rain is not generally something that causes pain when it is flying at your face at 70 mph while you are upside down, this is a particularly painful event.

You see, we managed to avoid the rain until the very end. We were heading over to the Loch Ness Monster, the ride which NO trip to Busch Gardens is really complete without, to ride it at night, but also for the first time. It was just drizzling a little bit, but I guess they must have seen lightening because the Monster was sitting empty and forlorn on the tracks. I was crushed. It didn't even feel like a real trip. We poked through the gift shops forlornly and bought our little souvenirs for our boys. (Ok, so the boys are no good when we're cranky -- that doesn't mean we don't miss 'em!) We decide to take one last gaze at our Monster, just to be sure she's really down for the night. But, what this I hear? That infamous clicking and cranking as she goes up that hill? And is that screaming? YeeHA! We hurry to the line and it moved fairly quickly. As it gets down to our turn to ride we start to notice that the people coming off are a little damp. And they're getting damper each time. I'm foolishly thinking it's from that little splash you get in the tunnel. Nope. We can hear it as we climb on board and it's running off the car. It is pouring down rain. We say, this ride is only -- what? 90 seconds long? It'll be over before we know it and we won't get that wet. Wrong. I believe there have been times when I have been in my SHOWER and not been as wet as I was when I was just 2 clicks down the track. I thought it would get better once it sped up, because then we'd be going too fast to get TOO wet. Wrong again. Got wet that much faster and it HURT. I think the rain actually left dents in my skin it was so hard. I was actually happy to be in the tunnel part of the ride and normally that is the part I dread because it's very dark. I kept muttering in a maniacal fashion, warm tunnel feel good -- warm tunnel feel good. (Now I know how men feel, heh!) But, still -- in spite my pain, I don't regret it. It was awesome, even for an old dilapidated coaster, the Monster is the bomb!

So, my last big event of the summer has already past and it's not even July yet. Guess I'll have to drum up something to keep my fans coming back for more! God bless you three!

KISSES!
HP