Return Of The Gem
Geminosity
:3 Join Date: 2003-09-08 Member: 20667Members
:3 Join Date: 2003-09-08 Member: 20667Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Amerikaland Strikes back!</div>Waii! I'm back! :D
I readied myself for shores foreign armed with my weetabix and DS and set off on an epic adventure. Amazingly the tale was greater than I'd expected as on reaching the airport the plane was delayed! Sitting about I bought myself Warioware and bomberman to pass some time (they've still failed to make a decent bomberman story game since bomberman 1, why they don't learn from it I'll never know; luckily warioware rocked until I completed it :3 ).
Anyways, as I danced my way though an array of minigames our flight suffered delay after delay after delay. By the time we got on our flight it was somewhere in the region of 4-5 hours past when it was supposed to have left and I'd discovered 'su-doku' which is some kinda number puzzle the japanese like that's starting to gain popularity over here.
This was when the next lil piece of the adventure plopped into place... the plane was having fuel problems and as they neared fixing it they realised that the cabin crew and pilots had now exceeded their legal working hours (it would've been against the law for them to fly us because they'd already been working 16 hours straight).
Net result? We get stuck back in the airport where they get everyone to queue just to be told something they could've announced over the tannoy. Anyways, the plan then becomes that we're to be put on coaches to some rather classy hotels to stay till next morning when the plane will be fixed and the crew is rested... except of course the coaches take over an hour to make an appearance :p
Add to this bundle of fun the fact that they weren't allowing anyone to get their luggage back off the plane and you have a crowd the size of a jumbo-jet's capacity looking for blood...
Anyways, next morning we finally get our flight (with £7 off whatever we bought for breakfast at the terminal; ooooh!).
We get a lil turbulance thanks to early storm season but it's all hunkey dorey till we land where the last straws fall into place and people start almost having nervous breakdowns XD
First the regulations don't allow us to disembark from the plane until the nearby outgoing plane has fully finished loading and taken off which means we're stuck in what's starting to feel like an oven and of course smells like people who haven't had access to clean clothes for 2 days and have had to endure endless hours of sitting about and an 8 hour flight. The captain jokes about the guy attaching the bridge being a learner driver to try and lighten the mood and I noticed a few people preparing their lynch ropes... cheery stuff :3
Fast forward about 45 minutes or so and we're inside at last, stuck in yet another gigantic queue that puts all others to shame (and it's really hot this time).
As the long, long, long, long queue shuffles towards the security desks the lights die and the computer system goes down which means nobody is going nowhere fast...
Anyways... enough of that bad stuff :D
2 hours later we finally escape the airport and get our first bit of luck; because we were late the car hire people don't have the cars we booked anymore and they have to give us much bigger, better ones with loaaaads of room in them ^^
After that it was to our place which was nice, mess about in the pool and the rest of the holiday went as you'd expect I guess with nice restraunts, themeparks and shopping spree-dom :p
Generally it was a good giggle.
Highlights? hmmmmm... lesee... Sheikra at busche gardens is one heck of a rollercoaster, that had me squealing in delight, as were the gwazi and montu also there. The dueling dragons, incredible hulk, spiderman ride, dr doom's deathfall aaaand the ripsaw ride at adventure islands were snazzy too, giving me much 'waii' for my buck :3
ooh! I went on the kraken at seaworld too (in the middle of the storm... getting lashed with rain while flying upside down and around at high speed is strangely fun :o ).
We didn't get to feed the dolphins because it was <b>packed</b> (people were almost feeding each other to the dolphins to get close) buuuut I got to feed the stingrays which were fun ('specially a lil' one who'd dart up when she saw us at the edge, flipping her lil flippers excitedly :D ).
Ooh! ooh! I almost forgot universal studios! The mummy managed to make me scream a surprised obscenety or three when it dropped us backwards but it was a daaaarn good ride!
Men in Black was ok I guess... you kinda compete with the other 'car' on the track for top score shooting aliens. Each car has 6 people and the final score for each car is the average of the 6 occupant's scores. Sadly we lost to our opponents by 10 points (they were both 80k or so averages) so I was thinking I'd let us down. I didn't really think about it much but I looked at my score (about 180k... yeah the average was 80k... I didn't really click what this meant but bear with me :p ) then over at the old guys sitting next to me (I jumped on the single rider queue with the person I was with so we'd get in faster, I don't sit next to old men by choice ok? XD ) expecting to see somewhat similar scores and was kinda surprised to see they were pretty dismal with only 12k and 9k or thereabouts.
It was about then I heard two of the boys laughing together in the back and realised they were pointing at my score thingy and caught the tail end of"...scored more than the rest of us put together!!!" ^^;
Anyways I sorta teased them about it and they shut up :p
outside of that I managed to get in a lil ddr extreme (waii!) aaaaand... oh yeah! I bought a PSP and dynasty warriors (I was torn between that and lumines then as we walked out of the mall I was all like "NUUUU!!! I SHOULD'VE GOT METAL GEAR AC!D", but dynasty warriors turned out fun anyways :D).
The trip back was without incident, and so now I sit here sorta tired in my pjs after an 8 hour flight that started friday and ended saturday.
So... did you miss me? ^~
<b>eep edit:</b> all that and I missed out my mum getting a serious throat infection and megaman battlenetwork 2 losing my save (at the last boss) meaning I had to start it all over again!!! ah well, it was fun and you get the idea :p
I don't holiday with my parents very often anymore so it was kinda nice spending some time abroad with them again for the first time in years and we had a family along for the ride that we're all good friends with so all's well that ends well :3
<b>gems edit notes:</b> Here's a lil list of stuff I noticed while over in florida that I'd somehow forgot or just failed to notice last time I went...
- American TV is awful
- ...Especially the Adverts; the medical ones go something like "these pills will make your life a perfect heaven warningmaycausediahorreasicknesscancerbleedingorinsevercasesdeath. Womenwithuterusesshouldnottakethismedicine. Whateveralixin; making life perfect" o.O
- There's a <b>lot</b> of car adverts. Bad ones.
- Old ladies riding those trike things in the parks? They're the devil!!! One almost ran me over then had the cheek to call me an idiot ><
- You can have immense fun with friends on the horizontal escalators if they're turned off; merely stand on it somewhat forward a bit and lean on rubber handrail thingy as if it's moving. A small crowd of puzzled people will form as they step onto it and take a goooood few seconds of standing perfectly still to not only realise it's not moving but it's not going to start moving either any time soon :p
Of course lots of people will see this crowd and this reinforces the illusion that it's working meaning they'll become part of it too...
- Tea from the UK > American Tea
- America has a lot of different kinds of bread, most of which I didn't even know existed like honey-rye which is yummy :o
- The Red Lobster restraunt is poop; whatever that sauce is they give you with your lobster is it sure as heck ain't butter and it tastes like melted plastic o.O
- There really <b>are</b> people in the world who drink V8 juice... how? I dunno, but it frightens me :p
- Twinkies should be stuck under class A drugs for addictiveness.
- That bottled water that coca-cola company does is evil. It has salt in it for hecksake!!! They're trying to kill you!!! @.@
- The tapwater in Florida tastes like bleach... mmm... bleaaaach... :s
I readied myself for shores foreign armed with my weetabix and DS and set off on an epic adventure. Amazingly the tale was greater than I'd expected as on reaching the airport the plane was delayed! Sitting about I bought myself Warioware and bomberman to pass some time (they've still failed to make a decent bomberman story game since bomberman 1, why they don't learn from it I'll never know; luckily warioware rocked until I completed it :3 ).
Anyways, as I danced my way though an array of minigames our flight suffered delay after delay after delay. By the time we got on our flight it was somewhere in the region of 4-5 hours past when it was supposed to have left and I'd discovered 'su-doku' which is some kinda number puzzle the japanese like that's starting to gain popularity over here.
This was when the next lil piece of the adventure plopped into place... the plane was having fuel problems and as they neared fixing it they realised that the cabin crew and pilots had now exceeded their legal working hours (it would've been against the law for them to fly us because they'd already been working 16 hours straight).
Net result? We get stuck back in the airport where they get everyone to queue just to be told something they could've announced over the tannoy. Anyways, the plan then becomes that we're to be put on coaches to some rather classy hotels to stay till next morning when the plane will be fixed and the crew is rested... except of course the coaches take over an hour to make an appearance :p
Add to this bundle of fun the fact that they weren't allowing anyone to get their luggage back off the plane and you have a crowd the size of a jumbo-jet's capacity looking for blood...
Anyways, next morning we finally get our flight (with £7 off whatever we bought for breakfast at the terminal; ooooh!).
We get a lil turbulance thanks to early storm season but it's all hunkey dorey till we land where the last straws fall into place and people start almost having nervous breakdowns XD
First the regulations don't allow us to disembark from the plane until the nearby outgoing plane has fully finished loading and taken off which means we're stuck in what's starting to feel like an oven and of course smells like people who haven't had access to clean clothes for 2 days and have had to endure endless hours of sitting about and an 8 hour flight. The captain jokes about the guy attaching the bridge being a learner driver to try and lighten the mood and I noticed a few people preparing their lynch ropes... cheery stuff :3
Fast forward about 45 minutes or so and we're inside at last, stuck in yet another gigantic queue that puts all others to shame (and it's really hot this time).
As the long, long, long, long queue shuffles towards the security desks the lights die and the computer system goes down which means nobody is going nowhere fast...
Anyways... enough of that bad stuff :D
2 hours later we finally escape the airport and get our first bit of luck; because we were late the car hire people don't have the cars we booked anymore and they have to give us much bigger, better ones with loaaaads of room in them ^^
After that it was to our place which was nice, mess about in the pool and the rest of the holiday went as you'd expect I guess with nice restraunts, themeparks and shopping spree-dom :p
Generally it was a good giggle.
Highlights? hmmmmm... lesee... Sheikra at busche gardens is one heck of a rollercoaster, that had me squealing in delight, as were the gwazi and montu also there. The dueling dragons, incredible hulk, spiderman ride, dr doom's deathfall aaaand the ripsaw ride at adventure islands were snazzy too, giving me much 'waii' for my buck :3
ooh! I went on the kraken at seaworld too (in the middle of the storm... getting lashed with rain while flying upside down and around at high speed is strangely fun :o ).
We didn't get to feed the dolphins because it was <b>packed</b> (people were almost feeding each other to the dolphins to get close) buuuut I got to feed the stingrays which were fun ('specially a lil' one who'd dart up when she saw us at the edge, flipping her lil flippers excitedly :D ).
Ooh! ooh! I almost forgot universal studios! The mummy managed to make me scream a surprised obscenety or three when it dropped us backwards but it was a daaaarn good ride!
Men in Black was ok I guess... you kinda compete with the other 'car' on the track for top score shooting aliens. Each car has 6 people and the final score for each car is the average of the 6 occupant's scores. Sadly we lost to our opponents by 10 points (they were both 80k or so averages) so I was thinking I'd let us down. I didn't really think about it much but I looked at my score (about 180k... yeah the average was 80k... I didn't really click what this meant but bear with me :p ) then over at the old guys sitting next to me (I jumped on the single rider queue with the person I was with so we'd get in faster, I don't sit next to old men by choice ok? XD ) expecting to see somewhat similar scores and was kinda surprised to see they were pretty dismal with only 12k and 9k or thereabouts.
It was about then I heard two of the boys laughing together in the back and realised they were pointing at my score thingy and caught the tail end of"...scored more than the rest of us put together!!!" ^^;
Anyways I sorta teased them about it and they shut up :p
outside of that I managed to get in a lil ddr extreme (waii!) aaaaand... oh yeah! I bought a PSP and dynasty warriors (I was torn between that and lumines then as we walked out of the mall I was all like "NUUUU!!! I SHOULD'VE GOT METAL GEAR AC!D", but dynasty warriors turned out fun anyways :D).
The trip back was without incident, and so now I sit here sorta tired in my pjs after an 8 hour flight that started friday and ended saturday.
So... did you miss me? ^~
<b>eep edit:</b> all that and I missed out my mum getting a serious throat infection and megaman battlenetwork 2 losing my save (at the last boss) meaning I had to start it all over again!!! ah well, it was fun and you get the idea :p
I don't holiday with my parents very often anymore so it was kinda nice spending some time abroad with them again for the first time in years and we had a family along for the ride that we're all good friends with so all's well that ends well :3
<b>gems edit notes:</b> Here's a lil list of stuff I noticed while over in florida that I'd somehow forgot or just failed to notice last time I went...
- American TV is awful
- ...Especially the Adverts; the medical ones go something like "these pills will make your life a perfect heaven warningmaycausediahorreasicknesscancerbleedingorinsevercasesdeath. Womenwithuterusesshouldnottakethismedicine. Whateveralixin; making life perfect" o.O
- There's a <b>lot</b> of car adverts. Bad ones.
- Old ladies riding those trike things in the parks? They're the devil!!! One almost ran me over then had the cheek to call me an idiot ><
- You can have immense fun with friends on the horizontal escalators if they're turned off; merely stand on it somewhat forward a bit and lean on rubber handrail thingy as if it's moving. A small crowd of puzzled people will form as they step onto it and take a goooood few seconds of standing perfectly still to not only realise it's not moving but it's not going to start moving either any time soon :p
Of course lots of people will see this crowd and this reinforces the illusion that it's working meaning they'll become part of it too...
- Tea from the UK > American Tea
- America has a lot of different kinds of bread, most of which I didn't even know existed like honey-rye which is yummy :o
- The Red Lobster restraunt is poop; whatever that sauce is they give you with your lobster is it sure as heck ain't butter and it tastes like melted plastic o.O
- There really <b>are</b> people in the world who drink V8 juice... how? I dunno, but it frightens me :p
- Twinkies should be stuck under class A drugs for addictiveness.
- That bottled water that coca-cola company does is evil. It has salt in it for hecksake!!! They're trying to kill you!!! @.@
- The tapwater in Florida tastes like bleach... mmm... bleaaaach... :s
Comments
What's that? You chose Dynasty Warriors over Lumines?
Hiss!
High score = pro gamer, you showed them americans!, dya think the old guy you were with was an ex military?
QFT!!!!
Out of all the channels on TV, there are only 3 that are worth watching.
Discovery, TLC and the local station for the news.
I don't think the old guys even noticed steel, they kinda seemed to give up shooting halfway through when the car started rolling round lots like a waltzer :p
We totally would've won if they hadn't sorta just been all 'meh' about it. I have a funny feeling that if you score in the high rank (there's 3 ranks, bad, medium and high, the bottom two seem to end in the same place) you end up at a different exit. The lower two get you flashed with a memory wipe thingy and the exit is all "aliens don't exist! we are alone in the universe!" themed; the winning car went down a different track from us :o
If you do go to florida and only get on 3 rides I'd definitely suggest sheikra, hulk and the mummy... the mummy has got to be not only the first rollercoaster that's dared to drop me backwards unexpectedly but how many rides do you know where they set the roof on fire? XD
<b>TV edit:</b> yeah we watched fox news 35 for stuff like the hurricane reports and london bombings. Outside of that and the rivetting stuff that was "rockstar: inxs" and maybe "60 minutes" the rest of the programs and especially the adverts made me feel like my brain was being reduced to mush :s
What's the big kerfuffle over every car dealership and their cousin's dog offering 'employee discounts... for everyone!' too? I was seriously starting to get sick of hearing about them ¬.¬
<b>TV edit 2:</b> just for reference sake, there seriously was an advert that said "this drug should not be taken by women with a uterus" o.O
Marry me.
and yus, TV sucks, thus why I don't watch it <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
hehe, poor gem found out alot of the things that sucks about america that most of us natives learned a loooong time ago <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
now get on IRC so we can pester you <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Edit: You can get Weetabix in Seattle.
Sounds a lot like my trips to the US too.
Mmmm i have the urge to go back again.....iv only been back like 4 weeks as it is....
my desk is littered with empty cans/bottles of v8 btw...
Well that one should be pretty obvious shouldn't it? The birth of our country started with a big old "Screw You Tea!" Party.
As far as food you can't beat a Nebraska/Iowa corn fed steak, with a baked potato and a vegetable (Damnit I need to learn how to cook).
edit:
american burgers>British burgers.
Hey! Don't be stealing my word XD E-merica is mine!!
lol Nice to see you had fun Gem, this just makes me wanna go to E-merica too some day <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Nice to have our resident Gemmy back! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I hope you mean splash.
Especially in NYC or out on the island (where i live) <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I feel the pain... Anyhow yeah, glad to see you had a good time, hope you don't think America sucks now.
I feel the pain... Anyhow yeah, glad to see you had a good time, hope you don't think America sucks now. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Heh.. it's not like theres any difference between american and european television <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Most of the time I'm watching "terra nova" which basicly is discovery channel. Oh yeah.. we have a pretty good anime channel round here, but thats about it.
So... where are the pictars?
- American TV is awful
- ...Especially the Adverts; the medical ones go something like "these pills will make your life a perfect heaven warningmaycausediahorreasicknesscancerbleedingorinsevercasesdeath. Womenwithuterusesshouldnottakethismedicine. Whateveralixin; making life perfect"
- There's a <b>lot</b> of car adverts. Bad ones.
- Old ladies riding those trike things in the parks? They're the devil!!! One almost ran me over then had the cheek to call me an idiot ><
- You can have immense fun with friends on the horizontal escalators if they're turned off; merely stand on it somewhat forward a bit and lean on rubber handrail thingy as if it's moving. A small crowd of puzzled people will form as they step onto it and take a goooood few seconds of standing perfectly still to not only realise it's not moving but it's not going to start moving either any time soon
Of course lots of people will see this crowd and this reinforces the illusion that it's working meaning they'll become part of it too...
- Tea from the UK > American Tea
- America has a lot of different kinds of bread, most of which I didn't even know existed like honey-rye which is yummy
- The Red Lobster restraunt is poop; whatever that sauce is they give you with your lobster is it sure as heck ain't butter and it tastes like melted plastic
- There really <b>are</b> people in the world who drink V8 juice... how? I dunno, but it frightens me
- Twinkies should be stuck under class A drugs for addictiveness.
- That bottled water that coca-cola company does is evil. It has salt in it for hecksake!!! They're trying to kill you!!!
- The tapwater in Florida tastes like bleach... mmm... bleaaaach... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sorry to hear you had so much bad luck flying.
Most of your descriptions here are relatively accurate, although I've yet to figure out what a horizontal escalator is. Sounds like it's a moving walkway?
And Twinkies, dunked in milk, are damn sure runner up only to Oreos!
Wb Gem!
They have lots of them in the universal parking thingy and gateway leading to the citywalk.
mmm... oreos...
oh and no pictars; I don't bother with cameras because I'd just end up dropping them when I go on the rollercoasters or have to waste time finding a locker for it :p
We have missed you so much, and it's starting to get fun! as it turns out everything above level40 is enjoyable. pleeeeease joiiiiin uuuuusssssss
Wow, about that whole airport thing. when i was flying back to canada from australia it went super-smooth, we didn't have any delays or anything. the only thing that could be classed as an annoyance was having to disembark the plane at hawaii and go through american customs (we had to take our shoes off ffs) just to re-board the plane to canada. why couldn't we just stay on the godamn plane?
<a href='http://www.amigaremix.com/files/1C/PRESS%20PLAY%20ON%20TAPE%20-%20Monkey%20Island%20%28Live%40TG2003%29.mp3' target='_blank'>http://www.amigaremix.com/files/1C/PRESS%2...40TG2003%29.mp3</a>