Orlando

6/23/2006

For Claudio’s last day, we planned on going to Orlando, which is a good 4-hour trip one way. It’s a city famous as a vacation destination because of it's multiple theme parks, the famous of which is Disney World. I let the two of them decide which theme park to go. We don't necessarily want to go to Disney World, since it's usually a bunch of kiddie rides. After some discussion, they decided to go to Islands of Adventure—-A theme park with supposedly adult rides.

To be honest, I wasn’t _that_ thrilled to go to Orlando. It was a long trip just to get there. Although I couldn’t think of any other good places or things to do, to send Claudio off.

I’ve always hated long journeys. *grin* It just seems to me to be the most tiring part of a vacation. Anyway, I reckon that it’s my first time to go there anyway, I might as well go for it. And besides, it might turn out to be fun. I was curious to see the famed theme parks that Florida is so famous for.

We started out early. We woke up at around 6:30 in the morning. And got out at 7:15.

Screw breakfast, we're out to make the miles as early as we can. By 10am, our bellies got the better of us, and we stopped by at a station to get coffee and some breakfast. After a hearty meal, we continued our way.

We arrived there a little after 11am. And the sun was starting to beat on us. This is on a Friday, and I was half expecting the park to be empty since it was a workday.

I was to be proved wrong... Throngs of crowds greeted us as we parked our car. It was a lot of people so early. Undaunted, we worked our way through the entrance, paid the entrance fee and got inside.

The first thing you'd see is this huge green roller coaster named the “Hulk coaster”, with a picture of the Incredible Hulk right beside it, to scare of any would-be riders. He didn’t scare us though and we braved the ride entrance, only to be greeted by a 60-minute line of humanity. Yes, for a ride that lasts less than 5 minutes, you have to go by a 60-minute line.

To be honest, I’ve never ridden a roller coaster before. I’ve always been too nervous to ride one. And this day would constitute the very first one. My roller coaster virginity will be taken away… and who better else to do it than the Hulk?

After a long wait at the line, we finally got there, strapped ourselves into our seats and awaited the ride to start. As the roller coaster started to move, our laughs became laughs of nervousness. During the line we talked about shouting “NACHOOOOO!!” from our midnight movie watching the day before. We tried that, but the nerve-wracking slow ascent is just sheer terror.

If that wasn’t enough, I saw the top of rails. It curved in such a way that the roller coaster will be upside down and make a loop down towards almost ground level. My heart almost skipped a beat.

Time seemed to have frozen. I can’t possibly get out of this now. I guess this is it. I want to scream, but I can’t. Why did I go through this in the first place? But at the same time, I felt this surge in me. It was probably adrenaline. I just said to myself, “Oh, it’s on now. Bring it, bitch.”

To be continued...


Nervous laughter as we strapped ourselves into the ride. And it was kind enough to get our pictures at the beginning. (At least not during and after :p) Note they superimposed some background that I just cut. That's Claudio, me, Manu and some random guy.