Tuesday, September 1st
Europa Park
Today was entirely spent at Europa Park -- the most popular theme / amusement park in Germany (according to the wikipedia entry, it's the most popular seasonal theme park in the world, whatever that means). The park is located in Rust, just on the German side of the German-French border.
We left early in the morning, all five of us (we managed to convice Daniel, Miriam's brother, to join us), travelling three hours south-west to the park. After stopping at a highway rest-stop for a bit of breakfast and to buy our Europa-Park tickets, we arrived at the park around 9am. We parked at the suitably huge car-park and headed in for the day.
courtesy AArifovic
courtesy AArifovic
courtesy AArifovic
We headed in and started methodically hitting the various attractions. Europa Park is themed around European countries -- sections and rides for France, Russia, Switzerland, Italy, and so on, as well as the usual sub-themes for such places: Pirates, haunted houses, spaceships, etc.
By the way, you'll likely notice that all of the pictures on this day are from Asmir. This is because I decided not to take my bulky DSLR camera to Europa Park, where it might get subjected to either being left behind, dropped, soaked, or otherwise damaged on all of the various rides. In retrospect, I probably could have taken it on most rides (but not all, so leaving it was a good idea. I think I should get a portable waterproof cam for this sort of thing).
courtesy AArifovic
courtesy AArifovic
courtesy AArifovic
Europa park does have it's share of thrill rides -- roller coasters and such. Now, I've never been a huge fan of roller coasters. Something about not being in control or something. You might think since I'm ok with lots of high mountain walking, cliffs, ropes, thousands of feet of air, and all of that, that that would not be the case. But as I said, it's more about control than anything.
Anyhow, although I was a bit uneasy at first, as the day went on, I became more comfortable. Upon first waiting in line for the park's newest mega-coaster, the loop-ey upsidedowny-doopey Blue Fire, I opted out. However, after a few more intermediate-level rides and a bit more stew time in the brain, I went back and was able to ride the coaster no problem at all. Pretty nice ride, actually. Smooth!
courtesy AArifovic
courtesy AArifovic
courtesy AArifovic
We finished off the park with a number of the water rides - rides that had some component of splashy water in them. Some of these got us quite wet, as you'll see from some of the pictures. Although they were tame by 'thrill' standards, they were kinda fun because they usually allowed all of us to interact together in one boat.
courtesy AArifovic
courtesy AArifovic
courtesy AArifovic
Horsing around at Europa Park
The end of the day was pretty much decided for us when bad weather moved in around 5 or 6pm, dousing the park with heavy rain. We'd had a good, full day up to that point, though, and so we returned to our car and drove the three hours back to Miriam's home town.