While I was all alone without Matt, I decided to try doing all the things I never got to do because I was never single.
So while he was off chatting with famous scientists and curing cancer or whatever, I decided to go to a British theme park and stand in the singles line and go on all the rides over and over.
Unfortunately I soon discovered a major flaw in my plan. British theme parks do not have singles lines. In fact, they seem actively opposed to the idea. This boat ride had a wait time of almost three hours that morning. The boats are designed to hold 6 people. But most of the boats actually went with two or three people in them.
When I got to the front of the line he asked “how many people are you with?”. When I said one he looked like I was crazy then pointed to a boat. Which I got into, all by myself.
Next I tried a children’s ride, Toadie’s Crazy Cars. You drive around a track to help Mr. Toad find the missing moles. The moles are all hiding in very obvious pairs of pants in empty fields. You can recognize the moles by their odd flesh-coloured tails, which are sticking out of the pairs of pants.
After driving past several of these moles, the ride ends with a final mole in a field full of cocks.
Brtish children’s rides are weird.
I decide to try some adult rides next, and went on some awesome roller coasters. They do fill up the roller coaster cars instead of using one car per group, but they have signs everywhere as though this is not standard practice. And still no singles line, if a group has an odd number of people they just let the unpaired seat sit empty!
I took a break for a snack while listening to a talk about bugs. I was the only childless adult around. The presenter asked the kids “If you’ve been somewhere tropical you may have seen some scuttling across the floor. Many consider them pests. What am I talking about?” One of the other adults responded “children”. I laughed a bit too hard and people started glaring. So I moved on.
I went on a couple of random viking themed rides:
And their most blatant Disney ripoff:
Then I went over to the zoo part for a bit. The cooler British weather seemed to make some of the animals more active:
Not the Binturong though:
The chimpanzees had a new baby which was really funny:
I went on the safari adventure just as it started to rain. The giraffes started galloping toward the building. A galloping giraffe is the funniest looking thing I have ever seen. They huddled next to the building, which did not even have an overhang.
The rhinosauruses did not seem to mind the rain at all.
After that the park cleared out. It was really pouring, so I decided to go on the water ride. The staff were all freaking out about how they had never seen it rain this hard before. I thought this was odd, because it would have been a pretty normal storm for Edmonton. I guess London gets a lot of rain, but no real storms.
Next I wanted to do the ferris wheel, but when I got there the staff said they could not put me in a cart alone because it would throw the ride off balance. I’m pretty sure I weighed much more than the 4′ tall Chinese woman and her infant that they had just let on. I asked if I could ride with someone else and they said I had to leave and come back with the rest of my party. I turned around and asked the people in line behind me if I could ride with them and they said “of course”. The ride gave a great view of park with its thick green trees.
I did a few more rides after that, including riding the cobra several times. It was my favourite coaster:
Then I went back to London to find a pub for dinner. They sat me in the back at a large table. The waiter asked if they could sit another family with me! Because apparently it’s weird to share a car in a ride at a theme park with a stranger for two minutes, but being asked to share a table at dinner is normal.
I said yes, thinking I could meet some local people, but the family they sat with me was speaking a foreign language. I spent the entire meal trying to figure out which one. I was pretty sure it was Italian, but the words sounded more Spanish. Maybe Portuguese? Then one of the kids ordered chicken fingers, and I caught the word “pollo”, and realized they were just speaking Spanish with a Spanish accent instead of a South American accent.
After 3 months of Spanish lessons, I couldn’t even manage to introduce myself. The only thing I could remember was “Hola! Soy Canadian!”, which would leave me sounding like an awkward beer commercial. I couldn’t even come up with “my name is” in the entire 30 minutes I sat with them. After finishing my fish and chips I awkwardly waved an said “adios” and they laughed and waved back.
