Ugh I have been lowkey dreading this recap because it was truly the only disappointment of the whole trip. Skara Sommarland was pretty out of the way from our next destination – the amazing Swedish zoo, Kolmarden. But it was worth the detour because it has this one crazy S&S coaster that is OOAK and therefore a rare credit. There were two other coasters there so 3 credits in total were to be had.
But since it was out of the way, we had to forego that good Curiosa breakfast in favor of a 6:30am bus call and bagged breakfasts.
I felt like a heel because there was this whole discussion with Tim the day before about how he was going to handle my breakfast – he asked if I could eat an egg sandwich and I was like yes for sure, I’m just a plain ol’ vegetarian but then reminded him that Chooch is one and he was surprised because I guess this whole time he thought it was just me, hi I’m the problem, it’s me.
(Will be whipping myself later for quoting T.Swift.)
Anyway, Tim was like, “I DID NOT KNOW THAT, I WILL SEE WHAT I CAN DO” and then said later that we apparently would have specially-marked bags, right? Well, the next morning, my bleary eyes saw two carts of bags: one cart was unmarked, the other cart had bags that said LACTO.
I grabbed one of those but then panicked and thought maybe it was for someone who was LACTOSE INTOLERANT but then I saw someone in front of me with the same bag (we had a new bus on this day and the seats in front of me were a cluster of 4 around a table so now I had two people semi-facing me) and I panicked even more so I gave Henry the bag back and told him to go back and return it because it must be WRONG but he came back and said there were no other specially marked bags.
THEN someone in front of me AND behind me complained that their sandwiches didn’t have MEAT on it so I guiltily said, “Um, maybe you have mine, because I’m a vegetarian?” but it turned out that NONE OF THE SANDWICHES had meat on it so people were really annoyed about that and I lowkey worried that this due to a miscommunication, like maybe Tim was all, “Hey-yo Curiosa friends, two of these sandwiches need to be meat-free” and they forgot how many he said so they defaulted to all sandwiches being vegetarian??
I don’t know, if Chooch was reading this he would say, “It’s not that deep.”
There was also orange juice and yogurt in the bags, in case you were wondering.
Anyway, now that we had a new bus, Marie and Eric didn’t want to sit at the table facing people so they moved to the other side of the bus and sat in front of Chooch. (Justin’s) Kevin sat in front of me and Jimmy from GP Coasters sat next to him, and then Lucas and whoever his friend was who might be the only person whose name I never learned, now that I think about it, sat on the other side of the table facing my direction.
This was all very irrelevant and probably a whole ass fucking snooze for you to read, my deepest apologies.
30 minutes before we arrived at Skara, Tim received an email from them saying that their MAIN ATTRACTION was down and they were waiting for a part to come in from another park. When he made this announcement, the mood dipped pretty low. We still had to go, it was paid for, we drove so far out of the way and it was, I guess, too early for us to go to Kolmarden. So, we had to make the best of it.
They even opened the park early just for us. The original plan was to have ERT on Tranan grab the other 2 creds, and GTFO before GP entered the park.
But then we got inside…
and learned….
….that only the spinning wild mouse was running.
It was soooo rickety. I rode with CoasterKev and asked him, “Do these normally shake this much?” and he went, “Nope! Not usually.” Cool cool!
THIS FUCKING THING WASN’T EVEN RUNNING!!
The only concession the park staff could make for us was to get some other dumb flat ride to run for us, where, as luck would have it, we were “transported to the swampy areas of the United States.” Henry actually rode this with me because everyone was riding it so he wanted to fit in, I guess. If this actually was the United States, he would have been sitting on a bench, holding my purse, and chuckling at IG reels.
Oh yeah and at one point, they were testing Tranan so everyone was screaming, but it was all for nought. It never ended up running for us. The part probably arrived right after we left, too! We probably passed it on the road!
lolol
Then we departed for McDonald’s! BUT FIRST, there was drama because Kevin was missing!! I remembered seeing him come onto the bus and he appeared to have taken his stuff and left, but I didn’t think anything of it. So Tim was doing a silent head count of the upper level everyone around us noticed Kevin’s empty seat and pointed it out to Tim who was like WHERE IS KEVIN? KEVIN ANSWER ME and Kevin wasn’t answering. But then Tim called him on the phone and confirmed that he had moved downstairs so Tim signaled for the driver to PULL OUT BABY.
But Chooch was like, “THERE ARE THREE KEVINS, WHAT IF TIM CALLED THE WRONG ONE AND NOW KEVIN IS LIVING IN RURAL SWEDEN??”
Also what if: I made a WATTPAD story about the Coaster Crew Norden group?!
McDonald’s was fine except that I felt really rushed and didn’t know what was going on and then Henry fucked up and didn’t get a receipt so we didn’t know what number we were. It’s always something.
But at least McDonald’s has a veg menu. If this was a US trip, Chooch and I would be eating fries I guess.
LOL as I’m writing this, one of the Coaster Crew members posted this on his Instagram story and it is so relatable:
OK, I’ll end here and the next post, we’ll pick up with Kolmarden day 1!