There happen only a few days in our lives that we remember long after.
This particular weekend or rather the saturday happened to be one such day. The day started with a phone call at 7 am which broke me out of my sweet dreams. It was Billy and it was his wake up call - for we had decided to embark on a short journey to the San Antonio Sea World - a water park.
So at 9 am sharp 5 of us were cruising at 70 mph - me in the rear seat still trying to catch up on my sleep and recollect those sweet dreams from which I had been cruelly woken up from.
Another 2 hrs and we were at the gates of the Sea World and took our tickets and a map. We were in time for a show with sea-lions and seals. The animals were well trained and a story was enacted which got the audience spell bound. So came an end to the 22 minute show.
We just had enough time to grab a lunch there before we could see another show involving killer whales. Talk about lunch for a vegan like me and there cannot be a sadder story. French-fry's and a coke - both king sized made my lunch while I jealously watched others feast on chicken this and chicken that.
Then, the lunch still playing on my mind, we went for the show. It was nothing like I had thought. The whales and their trainers put up a brillant act on the tunes of an equally melodious song. The killer whales behaved like holy cows. The killer instinct no where to be seen. The next 22 minutes flew by without even blinking an eye. As the front row people were wet with splashes of water (courtesy - whales) and the rear row people like me wet with sweat (courtesy the stadium), the show came to an end and we made our way to the next show. It was water ski show. Again no less in brilliance than the other shows and a hilarious act got me wanting to see all that again.
But as usual in all places - time was a constraint. Around this time I happened to see closely for the first time the rides that were present in that place. I wanted to finish off the shows as soon as possible and move on to the rides.
So next came a 4D movie show - don't ask me what's the 4th D. I am still trying to figure out. So we waited.. waited and waited at the entrance of the theater. The sweat and the heat taking it's toll. It was not only me because I saw clothes coming off people. Seeing people in their various stages of undress was surely exciting. So after a long wait, the gates did open. Every body made a beeline and we were among the first few bees.
Inside the seats were wet! No, not with sweat but with generous quantities of water all around. With suspicions I settled down in my seat with those cheap glasses for a 3-D movie.
Those glasses reminded me of my childhood days when on Republic day, Independence day, Dusshera, Durga Puja etc, there were fairs hosted in my sleepy little town.
Squeezing a few rupees out of my Dad's pocket for the cheap sunglasses and other things always used to be thrilling. Probably another time and another post will talk about all that.
This was a 3D movie with special effects - generous quatities of water was sprayed all around from the ceiling whenever there was a splash of the sea waves or that drunk old captain spit out his beer - talk about imagination. But the best part was when the kids in the movie unearthed a bunch of rats. Such was the effect produced that both my legs came off the ground on to the seat. I believe some people might have stood up on their chairs. I realized that it was small jets of air being released from under the seats that produced the effect of rats passing on our feet. My heart beat so fast that it might have put Schumi and his ferrari to shame.
Next in the order was the last show. Being in the a/c in the theatre made me forgot about the sweaty conditions outside and the progressive undressing. This show was some gymnastic stuff along with dolphins. I captured some amazing shots with my camera of the dolphins in the mid-air.
Then came the STEEL EEL - a ride. It was a long long time since I had been on any ride - so long that I had forgotton about all the thrills involved.So buckled in my seat I was all set to go. We slowly climbed to the highest point of the ride and without any notice we started descending. I was thrown out of my seat. I thought that it was the end of me. Second time!! - just a few weeks after the Maharana-pratap incident (don't know what this is? - serves you right for not reading my previous posts - hahah) had I seen hell so closely. So as I clutched to my precious life with my finger tips, the descent ended. All of us looked around. Every person had a my-brains-just-blew-out look on his face. I was grinning that I was not the only one to have the shaken persona. So I braced myself for the next few bumps in the ride. Having made the longest dive, my confidence had increased million-fold and I screamed my way through the rest of the ride.
So as we got out we had to wait for a few minutes to regain our senses. Imeediately was another ride in the vicinity. Some parties in our team chickened out. But I put up a brave face. Nothing in the world could have prepared me for that. A less than 2 minute ride that made me recollect the song "aaj main upar, aasman nichay" - for we were cruelly turned upside down, left, right and in all curves that we were and were not taught in the mathematics classes of our engineering.
I could barely walk after getting down - my kidneys were in my head. The undressed people no longer interested me as I was only bothered to get my kidneys back to the place they belonged. It took a mammoth 15 min for that to happen.
The next 1 hour was spent lazying in a wave pool and having some body slides. the water took away all the exhaustion of our bodies. I could have lied there for ever like an hippo but the time was limited. So we concluded our day with a visit to an aquarium and started back.
We promptly halted for a brief dinner of burgers, french fries and coke. My fries won me a milk shake - lucky me. What a day had that been. It's a different issue that my godowns were so full with fries and coke that I had to postpone the milk shake.
I am here sitting down the next day consuming the refrigertaed milk-shake and all the memories are coming back to me - I put them down here to immortalise them.
Have fun.