Have you ever had anything that was sort of funny but for some strange reason it just tickled you? I had that yesterday during a health and safety course. I had these two questions:
You see a broken trolley, which somebody might injure themselves whilst pushing it. Do you:
a) Ignore it
b) Report it
c) Kick it
You try to lift a box, but it's too heavy. Do you:
a) Lift it anyway because you're as strong as an ox.
b) Get help
c) Go get a coffee and hope that somebody else moves it for you while you're away
They were the genuine answers and, although they don't seem that funny now, when I first read them I was just laughing nonstop at the thought of somebody kicking a useless trolley just in passing, as if it's a normal thing to do while walking the halls, and of somebody just leaving a box in the middle of the floor hoping that it'll go away. Oddly though, nobody asked what I was laughing about - I guess it's just perfectly acceptable for me to burst into laughter whenever the mood takes me.
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
No... that didn't feel as good, somehow.
Have you ever had anything that was sort of funny but for some strange reason it just tickled you? I had that yesterday during a health and safety course. I had these two questions:
You see a broken trolley, which somebody might injure themselves whilst pushing it. Do you:
a) Ignore it
b) Report it
c) Kick it
You try to lift a box, but it's too heavy. Do you:
a) Lift it anyway because you're as strong as an ox.
b) Get help
c) Go get a coffee and hope that somebody else moves it for you while you're away
They were the genuine answers and, although they don't seem that funny now, when I first read them I was just laughing nonstop at the thought of somebody kicking a useless trolley just in passing, as if it's a normal thing to do while walking the halls, and of somebody just leaving a box in the middle of the floor hoping that it'll go away. Oddly though, nobody asked what I was laughing about - I guess it's just perfectly acceptable for me to burst into laughter whenever the mood takes me.
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
No... that didn't feel as good, somehow.
Huzzah!
Firstly, I must apologize for a necessary lie. As Robbie rightly pointed out, each year I have a "virus" attack my PC for two weeks - this is just a cover story for my summer vacation. The reason I hide this is a remnant of my mother's techno-phobia - she used to believe that an American who learned my name was Paul and I lived in England could track me down and kill me using only those two points of information. Thankfully she's a bit more settled with the Internet these days, but I still feel the need to tell the lie. I think from next year I will be brutally honest and just say adios, dos mios!
So anyway, my summer vacation. Went with the family hip-a skippy dipping across the pond to your own US of A. Florida, to be exact, for the third time. The holiday had a rough start that, for me, ruined the first week of the holiday. So we arrived at Sanford Airport at midnight - two hours later than expected thanks to Monarch Airways. It's dark and we're tired (five in the morning on our time, midnight in America) but we have to drive to the Holiday Inn that was, apparantly, five minutes away from the airport. Twenty minutes later we're in some sort of carpark the the satnav has led us to. We're tired and frustrated, and we try to use the car park exit but have to go through a drive-thru bank to reach the exit.
We crash into the bank.
The bank is okay, we're all okay, but the car is totalled. Front wheel bent out of shape and brake fluid leaking all over the place. It's pitch black, we're in a foreign country without a car, without a working mobile phone and we've no idea where we are. Thankfully a nearby Subway was open late, and they guys there were brilliant - they gave us a free drink, let us use their phone to call a tow truck, stayed open an extra half hour when the tow truck didn't show up and then gave us a ride to the Holiday Inn - ironically a two minute walk up the road.
We were staying at a villa in Kissimee, just south of Orlando, and it was absolutely amazing when we finally got there (the car hire company sent us a replacement, covered by the insurance - hurrah!). It had a full-size American pool table, an air hockey table, three big TVs, an electric dartboard and a private swimming pool.
That is a toy mouse called Mojo that I keep by my keyboard and take on holiday with me. The taps in the villa looked like robotic versions of him.
American TV is strange, for certain. There are only three types of adverts, it seems - fast food commercials, political commercials and lawyer commercials. The political ones always made me smile...
"John McCain finds babies attractive, funds terrorism by blackmailing war widows and urinates on the American flag - but only after drinking vodka, the drink of those dirty commie Ruskies! Obama hugs children, builds orphanages with his mind and travelled back in time to sign the declaration of independance. Vote Obamma!
I'm Barack Obama and I approve of this message."
What would happen if he didn't approve of the message? How would America react if McCain approved a message that criticised his own policies? We may never know.
Speaking of fast food commercials, the food in America is crazy. In England, if you're quite hungry going into the resteraunt, you can comfortably order three courses without feeling bloated. In America it's like one course or DIE. They have starters, they have desserts, but the main courses are so large that you can share them between your whole family and still not eat all of it. And Dunkin' Donuts - oy vey! We went in there determined - absolutely 100% no way no how - that we were just going to order four doughnuts, one each, and that was that, because last time we ordered too many and wasted most of them. "You can get four for a dollar each, or for an extra dollar you can have twelve."
We left with twelve.
Best resteraunt was Ruby Tuesday's - worst was Ponderosa Steak House, which was our favourite last time we went, oddly.
I went on The Mummy ride for the first time too. Twice, in fact - once with my dad, once with my mam. My brother doesn't like rides, y'see, so one of them has to wait outside with him while the other goes on with me. Anyway, we were told beforehand by friends of my parents that it was a smooth, gentle ride. Afterwards, all I can say is that their friends are utter bastards who want us dead. Terrifying, it was, but brilliant fun. If you've been on it, then the worst bit has to be
The Simpsons ride was amazing, though. My favourite ride, it has to be said. It's a simulator ride, replacing the Back to the Future ride there previously, but it's just so funny. When you're in line, they show clips of old Simpsons episodes where they've been to theme parks (Krusty Land, Kamp Krusty, Duff Gardens) and new ones exclusively for the ride, including my favourite where Professor Frink (gluh-hayven) travels back in time in a Deloreon to stop Krusty buying the Back To the Future ride, but accidently causes it to go bankrupt in the process.
Some of the characters keep you entertaiined while queueing with their own stalls - I would have taken more pictures, but I was told off by a member of staff.
The first week was great, although I kept my eyes closed while we drove - I started taking a book, The Magician, with me whenever we drove. The second week was a waste, however, due to Hurricane Fay.
This strange old man owned a gift shop, but he was jogging laps through the car park instead of manning the shop. In the rain, too. He told us to shout him if we wanted to buy anything, but really we could have just stolen whatever we wanted. We didn't, of course - we need to clean up the Scouser image, what what.
The first day of Fay we stayed inside while the world outside was drenched. We watched movies (Mystery Science Theater - woo!) and were able to order Dominos Pizza before the storm hit. Then for the next two days we were stuck shopping in malls as the rain made it impossible to do anything else. Wearing plastic ponchos we made it to Magical Kingdom and Epcot - lamest ride of the holiday, btw, was O Canada at Epcot, which was little more than a tourism video - but were soaked in the process. We even had unused tickets for Nautica, Typhoon Lagoon and Busch Gardens, three parks that we'd never been to before and, because of Fay, were unable to reach.
Really though, the Florida government really need to prepare better for rain. The weather we had there, though persistant and more "Hollywood", was no worse than what we get in England, yet most roads had huge, river-sized puddles that the drain system just couldn't handle.
Anyway, to summarize - I enjoyed the holiday mostly, although the weather, my dad's driving and some crazy giant spider that kept building webs across our pathways, ruined a lot of it. And now to finish with some cheap humour, found at Seaworld or Animal Kingdom - I forget which.
He he.
