Plant’s trip to Strasbourg – Part 2 – Europa-Park 2

Well, I’m going to write a bit more about Strasbourg while it is still interesting. Starting with more Europa-Park! Aren’t you happy?

I’m going to write about my favourite roller coaster there. The Euro-Mir! This is quite literally the coolest ride ever. It is themed, for some reason, around the Russian space station Mir, which was still operational at the time the ride was built. Bet they’re feeling foolish now. The theming is incredible. To start, you go through a tunnel with stars on the inside past fictional space vehicles and stuff, until you reach the spiral lift tower, which is occupied by a HUGE rocket! And all this time you are listening to the best themed music you could imagine.

Boop, da-boop-boop-boop, da boop-boop-doop, da doop-doop-boop etc.

I hear the ride is themed around re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Kind of apt considering what happened to the real Mir. The theming is seriously incredible. None of the other rides came close. Even the queue was close to enjoyable.

There were other good rides too. For instance, the ‘Matterhorn Blitz’ was good but had the most annoying queue in the universe. You queued through a ‘traditional style’ Swiss house with an inordinate amount of automata people doing things. A fibreglass man in a bed snored loud enough to shake your skull loose from your neck. A woman waved a peeler in the vincinity of a potato. A girl brushed a goat so much that the goat’s plastic skin had a hole in it. It was all worth it in the end, however. The Matterhorn Blitz itself is set around a sort of skiing lodge thing. Sod the Silver Star. This thing feels so fast that your liver implodes.

Now, one person on the coach after Europa-Park refused to beleive that the Silver Star only went at 80 Mph. He said that it went much faster. No it didn’t. For those who have never ridden a proper roller coaster, it’s all about perception. 70 or 80 Mph in a car may not feel that fast, but the Silver Star was like doing 80 mph on an office chair. And the Matterhorn Blitz was like doing 200. For the Cadets reading, I can only describe it as like doing your AEF 20 feet above the ground.

More still to be written.

This blog written by James Plant.
All trademarks acknowledged.
A legal footnote? So it is!

Plant’s trip to Strasbourg – Part 1 – Europa-Park

Well, now I have returned to a normal state after the bewildered tiredness a day-and-a-night-long coach journey will leave you in, I think it is high time I wrote about the trip as a whole before it stops being interesting.

So, here goes. I think i’ll start with the best part of the trip, the visit to Europa-Park. Now, for those who don’t alrealdy know, Europa-Park is a huge theme park in Rust, Germany. It’s kind of like Alton Towers here in the UK, but more…

..German?

I can now say with pride that the first proper roller coaster I have been on was the Silver Star, the (at the time of writing) tallest and second-fastest roller coaster in Europe. Riding it was certianly one of the more awesome things I’ve done, especially the first drop. You know those dreams where you’re falling? It was kind of like that, but.. on some rails. With a restraint. Then it sort of “swept” up to the left and went up and down a bit before turning 180 degrees and heading back to the station. Seriously, it was pretty awesome. It was so awesome that I went on it twice. My original plan to go on the front row for the second ride was abolished when I saw that the queue for the front row (for which there was a seperate queue than the rest of the train) would have taken three times as long and would have meant I wouldn’t have been able to ride the Poseidon.

Which quite neatly brings me on to the Poseidon.

The queue for this ride was truly immense. I estimate it must have taken me an hour at least. But it was worth it for the little bit of completely overdone silliness that came over the tannoy as I approached the end. I should probably do a bit of explaining first. The Poseidon is a water roller coaster with an ancient greek theme to it. During the inordinate amount of time a rider spent in the queue, a man with a commanding voice was informing everyone over the tannoy (presumably) that Poseidon is a WILD and UNTAMED BEAST that will EAT your SKIN if you disturb it. I dunno. He was speaking German, that is, until he said this little gem of a sentence:

“I, as your emperor, decree that there will be NO SMOKING in the empire of Poseidon!”

(I think I got that right. I got the gist of it anyway.)

This is on the same lines as the little signs that said ‘No pets’. I can see why they have this, to stop people sneaking their gerbil aboard. The interesting part, however, was that the sign had a little picture of a dog on it.

…What?

…WHAT?

How on earth do you get a DOG on a roller coaster!? I mean, a mouse could probably be snuck aboard pretty easily. But a dog? No. Apart from the fact that You wouldn’t be able to fit the thing in a seat, do you not think someone would notice? I guess a terrier or something could sit in between your feet but the dog on the sign looked like an Alsatian or something. The thing that comes to mind here is that someone must have actually tried taking a dog on a roller coaster. Silly, silly people.

Here’s another thing. The people at Europa-Park sure like their ‘Euro’s. EuroSat. Euro-Mir. Euro-Maus. They’re literally everywhere. This makes sense, with the park themed as it is (A part each for most countries in the EU) but they might have gone a little overboard.

Well, I’m done for now. I might write about the other rides sometime.

Signing off;

~James

PS. Welcome to my new blog page! This’ll mean I can put stuff like my little webcomics up for your viewing pleasure.

This blog was written by James Plant.
All trademarks acknowledged.
A legal footnote, classy eh?