After leaving BonBon Land on Sunday (and after Henry found his phone LOLOLOLOL), our bus of coaster freaks continued our Danish trek and arrived late that the afternoon at a small park in Aarhus called Tivoli Friheden.
Exhausted after all of the BonBon’ing. I mean, it’s not every day you get to ride a dog fart coaster and slide out of a dog’s asshole. That shit would take a lot out of even, I don’t, a Garbage Pail Kid maybe.
Random shots from the bus window, reminiscent of all the film I wasted in Europe as a kid, taking pictures with the flash on through smudgy tour bus window. I have boxes of blurry scenery photos and unknown castles in god knows what countries.
But I just really needed to capture this amazing house!! Also, look at Creepy Henry’s silhouette in the window :/
I am going to be diligent about including maps from now on because if we are being honest with each other under the blanket inside a pillow fort reading my vacation journal together with a flashlight after I just yelled at you for spilling a bowl of SALTY LICORICE, I truthfully didn’t know where the fuck a lot of the times, just me over there spending a large portion of the trip totally geographically blind.
We arrived at Friheden around 4:30pm. Looking back in my vacation journal, I can tell you that the bus ride was full of chatter which was not appreciated by many, lol. There were some quirky personalities on the bus, that’s for sure. It was thoroughly entertaining for me, though! At one point, an hour into the drive, the owner of the unappreciated chatter asked our group leader Tim, “How much longer?” which garnered some groans from those in earshot. At one point, Tim told him it was nap time, and when he tried to keep talking, Tim said, “It’s still nap time.” I was furiously texting my brother the play-by-play because he was very invested in these characters.
This park was very small, but beautiful – full of gardens and really quirky decorations. Even on an overcast day, it was stunning! Unfortunately, as far as rides, its line up was pretty sparse. Only three coaster credits. There were four coasters there up until a year ago, when one was removed after an accident :/ To be honest, when I heard about the accident last summer, I wondered if this park was going to be removed from the itinerary, but it clearly wasn’t.
A bunch of people wanted to do the SCAD tower thing, which was being offered to our group to do for free when normally it’s at up-charge. I’m guessing this is the reason the park was kept in the itinerary, because SCAD towers aren’t very prevalent. I mean, that’s just what I hear. I don’t like, run the SCAD tower Wiki page or anything. Jesus.
I 100% didn’t want to do this. Just looking at it made my legs turn to jello.
Meanwhile, Chooch got RIGHT in line.
I had to walk around and take pictures of the scenery while he was waiting in line because it was making me so nervous.
Ugh. Don’t smile at me.
Once that was over with, we went around to collect our creds. There was just a really old looking spinning wild mouse, an SBF Visa spinning coaster, and a kids coaster that was similar to the Wacky Worm but it was a dragon. Wow, I’m such a thoosie. I don’t even know the manufacturers or names of these coaster off hand lol.
I LOVED THIS!!
There was a funhouse too! It wasn’t as good as Bakken’s but it had a fun slide at the end.
So, something happened at this park that was actually kind of horrifying but also funny and definitely memorable. OK, look. I was riding on a high from the way a lot of these people were being so inviting and inclusive toward us. Especially Larry and Jean, Cassie, and Pam and Kevin. There would be more added to that list later, but man, even just standing outside of the bus waiting for Tim to get our admission settled, everyone was just kind of milling around and talking and it was so nice not having it be totally awkward, you know? Just a lot of friendly banter and chatter – it made me feel overwhelmingly accepted.
I had noticed earlier that day that there seemed to be a young girl, like in her 20s, who was there by herself. She ended up being in line in front of us for a dark ride at Friheden and I had mentioned earlier to Henry that I was going to try and take her in just like others did to us, pay it forward, etc. Right? Well, I felt like this was my chance! So I asked her if she was with Coaster Crew, and she said yes so I introduced the three of us. She smiled and said her name, then IMMEDIATELY dropped the smile and looked away.
Chooch gave me a look, like, “Stop while you’re ahead” but I KEPT GOING, YOU GUYS. I started asking her things like WHERE ARE YOU FROM and she said Cinci and all the while she was doing the SMILE/FROWN thing but I couldn’t stop myself! I yelled, “Oh, Jungle Jim’s! I love Jungle Jim’s!” and she was like “*smile* Yeah, it’s great. *frown*”
Then, why am I like this, I asked her if SHE WANTED TO RIDE WITH US. NO, she didn’t want to fucking ride with us. She wanted my crazy annoying friendly ass to leave her the fuck alone so she could have a fucking zen ride in the haunted house. But since I asked her to her face, I’m sure she felt backed into a corner and said OK and then we all rode on this stupid shooter ride together and it was so uncomfortable. When the ride ended, she got out and walked through the exit without a word, never looking back.
“SHE DID NOT WANT TO RIDE WITH US,” Chooch said, in a chastising-toward-me tone. “You are so annoying! She hates all of us now.”
“No, she was just shy,” I said, but I knew he was right when we were walking toward her later and I said, “Hi, <her name>!” and she LOOKED RIGHT PAST ME AND KEPT WALKING. I thought Chooch’s brain was going to come shooting out of his nose, the way he tried and failed to hold back his laugh. It may have been one of Top 5 favorite moments on the trip.
DO YOU WANT TO RIDE WITH US???
I’d rather not eat the American Way :/
Remember when I got made fun of so bad for loving the Wacky Worm?? Well, I found my people, you guys. Grown ass adults who allow themselves to enjoy a kiddie coaster!
Our dinner was a pizza buffet and it was actually amazing. I’m saying “actually” not because I think Denmark can’t have good pizza, but because I’m of the American mentality that amusement pizza is going to be mid. But this pizza was SO GOOD. The one I liked the most had almost like…a ricotta type cheese as the base? And then these very thinly sliced translucent white circles that I am SURE were parsnips, but no one would back me up on that (and by no one, I mean, Henry, Chooch, and Dawn and Robert who were sitting at our table too).
I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of it, but it was so fucking good.
This might have been the most boring carousel I’ve ever been on.
It had no music, and it went around SO SLOWLY.
There were two little kids that actually rode it twice in a row, what sad lives they have.
Look at these awesome terrarium things!!
This game had guns that you put actually ball-thingies in to shoot!!!! I DID NOT WANT CHOOCH TO DO IT. But I already let him fall perilously from a tower, so why not give him a gun too, all in the same day.
We ended the day by using our free snack coupon for some ICE CREAM which we ate at a picnic table with PAM and some others. I didn’t take a picture of my ice cream for some reason, probably because I got it in a cup. I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed it though.
Then everyone bitched because the gift shop had NO SHIRTS, MAGNETS, ETC with the park’s name on it. We quickly learned that park merch in this region is almost unheard of and their “gift shops” are actually filled with, well, gifts you would buy someone. Like toys and pretty much anything else you could think of that has nothing to do with amusement parks.
After leaving Friheden, we had a short drive to the hotel for the night, which you can read about HERE IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY.
Pretty much all of the parks from the next day on were full-day parks with bigger coasters, so look forward to that, I guess!