Heyyyyyy you guyyyysssssss! We’ve reached the part of the trip where I got to practically pee my pants, act like a goddamn corn-shuckin’ sex-through-holes-in-a-sheet-havin’ Amish bitch on motherfucking Rumspringa, boiiiii. Hold while I wrench the bonnet off my dumb god-fearin’ head because this Dutch slut is about to get fucked by the ONLY RMC coaster on this trip: WILDFIRE.

GODDAMN SHIT-SUCKING WILDFIRE.

(Sorry, the Lost Boys quotes come out of me at weird, irreverent times.)

(I’ve had two sips of wine so far and I am like HOLLA LET’S GO WHERE MY PARTY PEOPLE AT like I just stepped out of a Goodwill copy of Girls Gone Wild.)

(I actually saw an old GGW videotape on a road near my house a few mths ago. Someone ripped all the tape out of it and left it and the box it came in strewn along a sidewalk. It was there for weeks. The first time I walked past, I only just glanced at the box and thought it was porn at first because: Brookline.)

And I wonder why I’m still sloughing through vacation recaps!! FOCUS.

OK, what’s with the (ish) in this blog post title, you might (not) be asking? Well, Kolmarden is actually this enormous zoo in Sweden that JUST HAPPENS to house one of the world’s best roller coasters, and arguably the coaster with the best view, Wildfire. You know one of my bucket list items is to ride every RMC in the world. I guess I would have imagined that I would conquer the ones in Texas and California first, yet here I am, about to cross the only RMC in Scandinavia off of my list.

Wildfire. Shit son are you even serious right now. I was SQUEALING.

After the disappointment earlier at Skara Sommarland, the whole group was looking forward to some positive vibes.

I love this picture! Should I print and frame it? Do I have any wall vacancy??

OMG the thing about Kolmarden is that it is massive and you have to walk up a fairly steep hill straight away. One of the girls that hated me had to sit down halfway up because she was so winded. Thank god I have been training for this unknowingly for the last years! Professional walker up in this zizzoo.

See the entrance down there on the lower lefthand side? Now see the sign for Wildfire all the way up there in the upper right? Lol. Pray for us.

(JK I WAS FINE. PRAY FOR OTHERS.)

THOOSIES ON THE LOOSIES.

!!!!! I-FUCKING-CONIC. HOLY SHIT.

A 10 minute wait. For an RMC.

Do these non-thoosie local zoo-goers even know how lucky they are to have this incredible coaster in their ZOO??

LOL that red thing on the righthand side of the photo is the “clown nose” on my phone case. Sometimes it gets in the way when I do .5x pictures.

WILDFIRE STATS.

(Fun fact: I have spelled Wildfire incorrectly every single time so far because we are now up to 4 SIPS OF WINE.)

OK real talk: this is not my favorite RMC. BUT, it was still a terrific ride! I do have to say that my favorite part was the view from the turnaround after the lift hill.

HERE watch this POV!! I’ll watch it with you:

MY EVERLOVING LORD. I am so thankful that Rocky Mountain Construction exists. Did you see that beautiful view at the top?? That’s what I BELIEVE TO BE the Bråviken Bay, part of the Baltic Sea.

We got to split into groups and do a tour of the maintenance shed, which involved us CROSSING THE TRACK while the coaster was running. The maintenance supervisor was like, “You guys are enthusiasts so I know I don’t have to go over safety rules which you” and I was like, “Mm, that’s because you haven’t met me, but OK.”

I was so embarrassed/annoyed at Henry because we were getting off the coaster when he noticed that a small group of us were being taken down to the infield for the tour and he was like “LET’S GO” because two other people from our group who had just gotten off the coaster also tagged along, but WE WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO DO THAT. Tim was separating everyone into small groups at the exit after they were getting off the ride, and we BROKE THE FUCKING RULES and went rogue EVEN THOUGH I DID NOT WANT TO DO THIS. I felt like such an asshole.

HENRY IS NEVER RIGHT. I knew it was wrong to follow his lead!!! If this truly was Rumspringa and I was following some creepy bearded American man into a restricted coaster area, you know I’d be waking up in row 4 of the spare train in the maintenance shed, missing half of my organs and hair slick with track grease.

Dude.

I got to get a shot of PAM AND KEVIN riding together, from the restricted area of the brake run!! That non-Coaster Crew broad is looking at us like, “WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE MILLING ABOUT IN RESTRICTED AREAS, SHOULDN’T A SIREN BE SOUNDING.”

In line for ride # who knows at this point! Henry is…wow, why are you here, Henry? Do you even like coasters?

Getting credit #2 (there were 3 in total!).

This one was taken by Larry and sent to Chooch, everyone’s favorite Oh Honestly. That’s Jean and Arnold in front of us! <3

Dude, vegan gyro for dinner at the zoo! We sat with Pam! TMI but I was feeling REALLY SICK after this, but I think it was mostly from the McDonald’s. The last hour or so was V.UNCOMFY for me. LOTS OF BATHROOM BREAKS IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

ERT after the zoo closed! Here’s Chooch riding with his buddy Sam!

Ew Henry.

The one bad thing about Wildfire is that the ops were like NO, YOU MUST SIT WHERE YOU ARE ASSIGNED even if there was literally no one else waiting. It was whatever. At least during ERT we got to do whatever we wanted. Oh!! Tim got to dispatch one of the trains during ERT too!!! I wish I had a video but it was after I claimed defeat because my stomach hurt so bad that I needed to sit down, doubled-over, on a large rock.

Afterward, we had a very long walk back to the bus.

The bus was parked next to a PICKLEBALL COURT, BOOOOO.

Then we drove to our hotel for the night in nearby Norrkoping, which I blogged about in real time.

And here’s a video which includes scenes from the drive to Kolmarden featuring A WASP INCIDENT where Brent was like I AM ALLERGIC AND WILL DIE and Lucas was like I HAVE TRAINED ALL MY LIFE FOR THIS, HOLD ON SIR while Henry aggressively shoves food in his mouth like he’s an ACTUAL Viking (have I mentioned how EMBARRASSING he is?) and I accidentally show you a view of Up My Nose. Then we have Wildfire stuff, and Norrkoping footage!

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!

OK man, let’s wrap up Liseberg so we can move on to the next before my old lady brain completely stops spitting out the facts.

After our lovely day carousing around Gothenburg, we went back to the hotel for relaxing time (see: Henry immediately took a nap while Chooch and I went gallivanting around the hotel) and then returned to Liseberg around 6:30 for dinner and to get some more rides in before ERT on Balder started at 11PM.

We had originally planned to eat at the very first restaurant we came upon because the menu outside had veg options but when we got inside and were seated, the actual menu was different and the veggie burger wasn’t on it. I was under the impression that this is what Chooch wanted, that it was a deal-breaker, so I thanked the server and said we would need to go somewhere else.

BOY HOWDY, this set Chooch off, injected not just one bee but a whole goddamn HIVE of bees straight into his bonnet and now I was suddenly Enemy #1 because I EMBARRASSED THEM, and HE NEVER SAID HE WOULDN’T EAT ANYTHING ELSE.

Mmm, ok. Have you met Chooch? MR. FUCKING PARTICULAR? So now he was pissed at me and I was retaliatory pissed off at HIM. 90% of our fights: over food / college shit / the state of his room. It’s so dumb. Literally, what a waste of time.

Henry was caught in the middle, trying to diffuse the dynamite we seemingly had shoved up our asses.

My favorite part was when we were like this:

Collectively: BITCH BITCH BITCH *SCOWL* BITCH BITCH FUCK OFF

*Sees Robert & Dawn approach, puts on BIG FAKE SMILES*

Collectively: OH HELLO!!! *prays we’re playing the role of Happy Family believably*

But then, you know what? Something came over me and I dropped the charade. “WE ARE CURRENTLY FIGHTING WITH EACH OTHER OVER WHERE TO EAT DINNER” because we had spent hours upon hours with these people at this point, might as well keep it real, you know?

“People are going to remember us as ‘that family who was always fighting,'” I added, with a self-deprecating chuckle.

“Look,” Robert said, “you should hear us at night when we’re back at the hotel.” Dawn nodded in agreement. “We get it!”

It was such a nice, real moment, you know?? They suggested the place they just dined at, but it was pretty much all seafood so that did us no good.

We ended up at Spokbaren Gasten, which was the sister restaurant to the haunted house! It was sat right at the end of the exit of the haunt, how convenient!

Chooch got “non-alcoholic” wine, so basically grape juice. He said it was OK. I think I got a cider and Henry got a local beer. It took a reallllly long time for our food to come out so they comped our drinks, which was very nice.

Not gonna lie though, the food was pretty effing good. While we were eating, Tim and a bunch of other Coaster Crew guys came in and claimed the tables behind us. Tim came over and talked to us for a good bit and it is honestly what I remember more than the food itself – the good conversation with Tim. It was like our first REAL TALK and I loved it. I wish anyone who is reading this could meet Tim. If you are a fan of riding roller coasters, you should seriously consider joining Coaster Crew. Annual memberships are not very pricey (I want to say our family membership is like $50??) and you can attend fun events with super amazing people. This was our first time meeting Tim in person but I could tell by comments online that he is sincerely beloved in the coaster community, and, once meeting him, I very quickly understood why. Patient, funny, caring, attentive, knowledgeable – he’s the kind of person you want on your team, you know?

So, I’m looking at this picture of my food and all I can think about is Tim leaning on the railing next to us and asking us about our lives back home, etc.

After dinner, we went on the Lisebergjoulet – the Liseberg Ferris Wheel. WHAT AMAZING VIEWS.

When I say the wheel was “off the beaten path…” It was like we weren’t even in the park anymore, but some type of nature preserve! The path wound up the hillside and was completely hidden from the rest of the park. You couldn’t even see any of the rides.

After this, Chooch and Henry rode the drop tower with Pam, Kevin, and Johnny. I almost always sit out when it comes to drop towers, and this one was no exception. I just really don’t enjoy them! Anyway, Chooch bullied me about it afterward and tried to make me jealous that I missed riding something with Pam. He also said that Kevin had a very high-pitched scream and that it was jarring.

Pam and Kevin both had decided to opt out on Balder ERT since they gotten enough rides on it during regular park hours. So after the drop tower, they both planning on calling it a night. However! Johnny had given us the scoop that if you ride the little boats near the entrance, you get an actual license at the end. I didn’t really understand what that meant, but I was sold and apparently so was Kevin because he stopped to ride them before retreating to the hotel for the night:

Chooch and I were soooo giddy on these boats. We somehow caught up to Kevin and kept bumping into the back of him, so finally he turned around and yelled, “These aren’t bumper boats!” and that just made us crack up even harder. Chooch and I can be the ultimate pests when we buddy up.

But dude! Johnny wasn’t kidding – there are these machines at the exit where you put in your name, it takes your picture, and shoots out a license. I am obsessed with it. I actually forgot that it was in my wallet and saw it the other night when I was at dinner with some work friends and I tried to get them to look at it but they ignored me. Story of my life. I will strive to be more exciting so that I can captivate an audience.

Played more candy roulette, rode the best pendulum ride of my life (it was also apparently the first one I’ve ridden by Intamin so I guess that’s the difference), rode some flat ride that looked super thrilling and daunting from the ground, but was actually pretty tame, went back to the hotel lobby for ICE CREAM, got a final ride on VALKYRIA, and then joined the group at the entrance of Balder for an hour of insanity!

We stayed for the full hour and the energy was sizzling, man. It was electric! Everyone was chanting BALDER BALDER BALDER, the ride ops were hopping on with us, they were BARELY pushing down the restraints so we’d get max airtime – I was in love with everyone on this night. My face hurt from smiling and my throat hurt from screaming! These rides on Balder were by far the best that we had during our time there. I was mildy underwhelmed when we rode it on the first day, but no – this is a back row night-ride coaster through-and-through.

Chooch never left his seat in the second row – people just kept rotating out with him. I got to ride with him once and he was like, “Be prepared to be annoyed” because the one girl who hated me also was staying in the same seat with her friend and Chooch said they were being so obnoxious but clearly not enough to get him to change seats, lol!

Since the park was officially closed, we got to leave through a restricted, employee’s only area that took us under the track of Valkyria! This is also where Chooch realized that he left his backpack in the cubby in Balder’s station, so he had to run back. I was like, “Give me the room key, I’m not dealing with this” LOL and sent Henry off with him.

Luckily, Chooch said that Eric and Marie were actually still in the park so they didn’t have to actually open a gate up for him or anything, THANK GOD. I would have been so embarrassed if Tim had to get involved! But Chooch said that when they got to Balder, the ride crew was walking out, having just shut everything down for the night, and one of them had his backpack slung over their shoulder.

Anyway, it was well after midnight at this point and we had a 6AM bus call in the morning so that was concerning. Tim was VERY CLEAR that we were going to be on a tight schedule and therefore would be waiting for NO ONE. I guess there had been instances on past trips where people were late getting to the bus and it screwed everything up for everyone, so Tim was trying hard to not let that happen again.

(It didn’t! This isn’t a cliffhanger, lol.)

Anyway, I spliced all of my Liseberg videos into one comprehensive wrap-up and will post it here FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION. I should have been doing this with my videos from every park. Sigh.

We took a break from Liseberg Day 2 in order to explore the city. I mean, it would be a crime to go to Europe and only ride roller coasters, right?? I was so excited when I saw we had two days at Liseberg because I knew I was going to want to use some of that time to be tourists.

There was a tram stop right across from our hotel and we were able to very easily take it right into town.

We got off at the central station area and spent the rest of the afternoon just walking around with no real plan other than looking for a hardback copy of Beartown in Swedish (no luck), somewhere to grab a light lunch, and somewhere for Henry of the Petite Bladder Clan to piss. (Spoiler: the Ikea there did not have a public restroom.)

Random ice cream sign that needed to be remembered. I miss you, GB Glace. I miss you bigly. No one misses you more than me. I’m a person that misses the most. A tremendous amount of missing.

Gothenburg had a poppin’ shopping district where I bought zero things.

I think I know that kid.

I’d like to add that Henry is supposed to be helping me write this but he claims he “doesn’t even remember that day.” Now he’s looking at some man soap website on his phone that is not even Swedish.

“Is that when I was looking for a bathroom?” he just mumbled. OH SO HE DOES REMEMBER.

You know how when you’re in the moment, you just start snapping photos because you want to remember everything, no matter how insignificant it might seem, say, two months later when you’re sitting at home looking at them and trying to think of how to caption them for your blog?

Yeah…

If I lived in Gothenburg, I would sit in this courtyard often. It surrounds the magnificent Gustavi Cathedral, btw.

No photos allowed inside, but we went inside to gawk and light a candle. Big fan of churches from a tourist POV.

I MISS SWEDEN. Literally not a single shitty experience was had in the entire country. Wonderful people. Chill vibes. Beautiful culture. PREVALENT LICORICE. Korea is still my past life country (not in the sense that I think I was Korean bc that would be a gross and inappropriate line to cross being the white mutt I am; I just mean that Korea feels so familiar to me like I lived there once), but Sweden is somewhere I definitely see myself revisiting again and again.

I asked Henry if he would go back. He paused, looked up at the ceiling which I guess was to illustrate that ‘look at me, thinking’ and then said, “….I think so. Yeah.”

Wow.

I liked this door so I took a picture of the door. Oh, I remember now!!! We were walking aimlessly toward where we thought the water was! And Chooch sidetracked us because he wanted to climb some random steps that ended up being a good plan because it allowed for some nice views at the top (PLUS THIS DOOR).

I mean, even with that crane in the skyline, isn’t this place just a goddamn dream??

I look old AF (because I am old AF) but I’m including this because MEMORIES of walking around looking for food while Chooch complains because he wanted to buy his friend Zakk something from some random sci fi shop and we made him leave because we were LOOKING FOR LUNCH.

He threw this in my face for like 3 days afterward. “I can’t wait to tell Zakk that I wasn’t allowed to buy him anything from the sci fi shop.”

OMFG please. That brat just wanted to buy himself something and I promise you it’s something that he could have bought anywhere, not unique to just Sweden.

LAKRITS. I want a giant LAKRITS ice cream cone for my front yard.

At one point, we ran into Kevin (the one who sat in front of us on the bus for nearly the whole trip) and Marshall who were excited to tell us about the great lunch they had nearby and what a good value it was on top of that and we did go inside briefly to check it out but IF YOU RECALL, I wanted a small, light lunch that day for some reason. Maybe I wasn’t that hungry? And as usual, who cares when Henry and Chooch wanted, am I right? Haha ha hahaha. Ha.

Then we found the famous Ahlstroms! This was on my very unorganized list that mostly lived in crumpled ball in my head. But I recognized the name! It was established in 1901!

“I was just glad they had a bathroom,” Henry sighed.

While he was pissing his heart out in a 1901 urinal, Chooch and I braved the sandwich counter. The people working there (and in line with us!) were so wonderfully patient and helpful. When I asked if one of the ladies if a certain sandwich had meat on it, she couldn’t think of the word in English and the girl behind me paused her convo with her friend and said, “It’s cod!” and we all had a laugh.

No cod sandwich for me, please!

Henry was still in the bathroom!!!

EW HE JUST TOLD ME HE DIDN’T JUST HAVE TO PEE, THAT WHOLE TIME HE HAD TO SHIT TOO. He pooped in a 1901 bathroom!!!! He ruined it with his American waste!!!

You guys, this sandwich was just what I needed. The bread was so perfectly poppy-seedy. I can’t remember what Chooch got – some kind of cheese sandwich? Mine was EGGS. I got a cinnamon bun and Chooch got whatever he got.

Then Henry came back from stinking up the bathroom and pouted because we had food so we were like, “You are a grown-up, capable of independent decision-making. If you want your own sandwich, go the fuck up there and get one?!?” So he did. Something with meat on it. He thinks he liked it.

Then…more walking! It was the perfect day. High 60s. Blue skies. Fresh air. We had just signed Balder that morning. Writing this blog post, 2 mths later, and I can still remember how content I felt!

Guys, let’s go back to Gothenburg.

German Christian Church. I’m glad Chooch isn’t the type of kid who gets all put-out and whiny when it’s time to pop in a church for cultural purposes.

Otherwise, we might have missed this.

My geotag on this tells me it’s Gustav Adolfs Torg, a town square.

We went into a souvenir/candy shop around this area to buy magnets, etc.

Made our way back to Central Station because there was more fun to be had at Liseberg and we needed to start heading back.

But first one of these two doofuses I was with put us on the wrong tram and we were headed in the opposite direction. Luckily, it was an easy fix but UGH these two and their constant map-quarrels. They both have to be right and I feel like they purposely choose different routes just to be forever contentious with each other. Idiots.

Before we went back to Liseberg, we tore into this famous Princess Cake that we got to go from Ahlstroms. I wasn’t sure if I liked marzipan but turns out, sure! I sure do! I wish I hadn’t had to share this with Henry. Fuck.

But Gothenburg? Will you have me back someday? Because I really want to come back, stay at the Curiosa again, spend a day at Liseberg and then do all of the Gothenburg things. This was, to summarize the best way I can think, a comfortable day. The transportation was easy-ish, I bought a ton of licorice treats at Lakrids By Bulow—they have the best, fanciest, designer licorice, you guys – we got jars of lemon-coated licorice balls and mango-coated licorice balls and…I miss those balls, is all I’m saying. The lemon ones especially were amazing because they were slow-crafted and therefore $$ but 100% worth the inflation—and we just had a nice day of not rushing around and only moderately hating on each other.

ONE MORE GOTHENBURG/LISEBERG recap after this, and then we will move on to another part of Sweden. Please don’t jump ship. Stay with me. Pretend like it’s the 1950s and I pulled out the old, overheated projector and we’re going through a slideshow of blurry photos, most of them with Chooch mid-eye roll and Henry airplaning food into his own gaping maw while I’m trying to get shots of the scenery behind them while I’m narrating it in a monotone and making you eat salty licorice. See? It could be worse.

I would be remiss not to take some time out to fully appreciate the splendor* that is the Grand Curiosa Hotel in Gothenburg, the official hotel for Liseberg amusement park. It was seriously like stepping back in time. I know that if we had visited Liseberg on our own, Henry would have reserved some fly-by-night not-hostel but not-hotel for us and we would never would have known the opulence that could have been. I made a whole post that included pictures of our room while we were still there, but I have some more – plus a video! –  that I want to share before all of this gets lost in the insane dump of coaster snaps on my phone that I am still wading through.

Yes, I know, I already posted this picture, but it fits in better here.

Random restroom guardians.

THIS SINK, HENRY CAN WE GET ONE.

This was the fancy Chinese restaurant on the top floor!

Licorice ice cream from the lobby – Tim was actually walking past when we were about to pay and slipped us some extra dining coupons which worked at the hotel ice cream parlor! THANKS, TIM!!

LOBBY UNISEX RESTROOM PIC.

You guys, please understand – when we travel, we stay at very mid-tier (sometimes low-tier, who am I trying to fool – no one’s believing we’re rich lol) establishments so this had me wanting to tap dance down the steps while singing a duet with Daddy Warbucks. This place was god-tier. And the hotel itself told a whole story about a couple who liked to travel around the world collecting cool artifacts and mementoes and then built a hotel to display everything when they ran out of room. Concept lodging, give me more of that.

You better believe we were all sad kids the morning we checked out and moved on to the next location.

I forgot to do the MAP THING on my last post so how were you ever to know where we were?!?! Anyway, here it is. Day 7, we were still in Gothenburg.

Before I get into our second day at Liseberg, here is some important information:

Remember how I said a bunch of times on this wasteland that the roller coaster that turned me into an enthusiast is T-Express in South Korea? Well, fun fact about that coaster: it’s one of only four “pre-fabricated” wooden coasters manufactured by Intamin (one of the best in the game; even if you aren’t an enthusiast, if you have ever ridden VelociCoaster, then you know just how god-tier Intamin can be). The second pre-fab we rode was El Toro at Six Flags Great Adventure, and I was so stoked to cross #3 off the bucket list at Liseberg, home of Balder.

One of the fun facts about Balder is that sometimes the park will let people into a restricted area to sign the wooden supports. Usually city officials, engineers, plus I’ve seen some of the “bigger” coaster YouTubers get to do it. I really didn’t think anything of this though, didn’t even consider that it would be an option, until I started seeing this one guy commenting on nearly every informational post in the Coaster Crew Norden event page.

“Are you going to sign Balder?”

“Can we sign Balder?”

“Will we get to sign Balder?

“Balder, can we sign it?”

I guess it wasn’t just me who was like, “OMG calm down – did Balder ASK for your autograph?” because on our first day at the park, we ran into Tim and several other people from the group and Tim mentioned that while we had ERT on Balder the next night, he wasn’t sure if we could sign it. I guess the park had tightened up their rules because you know how it goes – it only takes one person to ruin it for everyone else and someone / some people had apparently written unsavory things on the supports.

“If we don’t get to sign it, Justin will be furious,” Tim muttered, and we all cracked up because EVERYONE KNEW about his obsession, like he was sleeping with Sharpies under his pillow.

Anyway, at some point that day, Tim made an announcement that the park had graciously changed their mind and anyone who wanted to sign Balder could meet at the park’s entrance after breakfast the next day.

You guys. I didn’t know how much I actually wanted this to happen until right then. This had even become an inside joke with some of my friends at work. I sent Nate a Balder postcard and wrote BUT CAN WE SIGN IT?? on the front. God only knows if he ever got it though because it was with the bundle I gave to Henry to mail. He took it to the front desk and asked if he could mail them there, because some hotels still do that shit even though it’s 2023 and I’m part of the 1% that still hand-writes notes about stuff that no one else would consider worth “writing home about.” Anyway, he said the woman at the front desk acted confused and said she didn’t know, and then took them from him with the famous last words: “I’ll handle it.”

Well, she probably handled them straight into the trash because a bunch of people never got their postcards and I’m certain it was all the ones he handed over that day – WITH NO POSTAGE. That was literally what he was trying to ask her, if he could buy stamps or pay to have the hotel handle. I mean, the hotel in Copenhagen charged him TEN DOLLARS to mail two postcards, so no way in hell any hotel was going to do this service for nothing.

(Not surprisingly, those two postcards made it to the recipients while we were still in Denmark. Henry was like, “Wow that was fast” and I said, “Well, you paid $10 for that speed, so.”

Jesus, I “talk” a lot, even on here. Anyway, breakfast on day 2 was just as exquisite as day 1!

I was so fucking giddy that morning.

The day before, after Chooch and I rode Balder for the first time, we were behind some of those guys up there and I heard one of them mention T-Express so I said, “I love T-Express!” which was Chooch’s cue to eviscerate me with his eyes.

“Oh really?” one of them said.

“Yes, it’s what got me to love roller coasters!” I said enthusiastically. And then, because I don’t know when to stop, I blurted out, “I mean, I always liked roller coasters even before that, but I guess just…moderately.” I wasn’t even haldway through that sentence and was always psychically shoving my foot into my big stupid always-moving mouth.

Chooch said one of them rolled their eyes at me but then said he was kidding but I feel like he wasn’t kidding since he said it in the first place!!!! I AM SUCH AN OLD LADY LOSER DORK UGH.

Mark probably wouldn’t have rolled his eyes at me. :(

Hold on, I’m asking Chooch again for the truth.

Wow, nevermind. Little bitch has his NOTIFICATIONS SILENCED.

SOME VIDEOS because I always want to remember this atmosphere, everyone being in a surreal state, the ethereal Balder music playing in the background…this was one of the best moments of the trip for me, you guys. I got so emotional. I’ve watched so many YouTubers come to Liseberg, watched so many POVs of Balder, and never in a million years did I think that one day I’d get to come to Liseberg and ride it, let alone SIGN MY NAME on it.

YOU GUYS I DIDN’T REALIZE UNTIL NOW THAT PAM AND I BOTH PUT HEARTS AROUND OUR SIGNATURES!!!

Anyway, we were only allowed to write our name / Coaster Crew / date. I was OK with that!! Otherwise, I might still be there trying to think of what to write or trying to creatively draw over my inevitable mistakes.

I also didn’t realize at the time but we signed near Robb Alvey who is like King Coaster. I feel like most of the coaster YouTubers don’t like him / interact with him. He’s like the OG, possibly the first one to start making coaster content years and years ago, and probably has the most credits out of everyone too. In fact, after I became obsessed with T-Express, his channel was pretty much the only one that had T-Express POVs. Dude has literally been everywhere.

I’m also pretty sure I heard some Coaster Crew members make sounds of disgust when they saw his name lol.

Tim said mine was really pretty!!

Pam took this! When I posted this on Instagram that day, Megan commented on how genuinely happy I looked and it’s so true. You can tell because my smile is real!!

I’m so glad I got to this with this group of people. It was amazing. Tim is amazing, and Liseberg is ESPECIALLY amazing for permitting this to happen. They took such amazing care of us while we were there.

Henry’s thoughts on signing Balder: “It was great. What else do you—it was great, it was a one time….” voice tapers off into oblivion. Guy literally can’t even give me one full sentence.

After Balder-signing, the park opened to the public and guess what time it was?? CAROUSELFIE TIME! Interestingly, only children can it on the horses, so we had to sit in the spinny circle seat.

Us, live on the carousel, guest-starring Chooch’s massive eye roll.

We got in a morning ride on Helix while Henry waited for us at the CHILL FACTORY with a latte. Prissy little bitch.

The station of Valkyria – I honestly have never ridden a dive coaster as much as I rode Valkyria – this one was just that good!!

We left the park around noon in order to go explore Gothenburg for a bit. TO BE CONTINUED.

Welcome back to more Liseberg lovin’. Our dinner that evening was an early one with the group in the park. It was a buffet, but fancy AF.

We sat with Kevin and Pam!

Somehow I didn’t take a single picture of any of the food, but the buffet was actually a vegetarian’s wet dream because one entire table was spilleth over with a wide array of salads – so many salads! Greens, quinoa, pasta. To be honest, I loaded the FUCK up on that and rye breads. And then I hit the dessert section and THE PANCAKE BAR.

Goddamn I miss these perfect pancakes.

This was the lobby of Restaurant 1923.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel to rest for a bit because we had ERT on Helix that night from 11pm-12am and wanted to be able to stay for the whole thing because that coaster was WONDERFUL and we wanted night rides!

We went to the grocery store across from our hotel because Henry needed aspirin probably. I took this opportunity to buy treats.

And Henry bought dumb drinks.

FUCK. I wish I could walk down the street to the local gas station and buy these. Salty licorice, fuck me up.

Went back to the park after about an hour or so and got our kiddie credits. Here are too many pictures of Chooch and me riding both of them. I was pissed because when we were on this dumb little baby coaster, some of the coaster crew picture walked by and stopped to talk to Henry and it was killing me to not know what they were talking about and of course as soon as I ran over to him, panting, and wheezed, “What were Larry and Jean saying to you??” Henry conveniently “forgot.”

Chooch is actually smiling here, genuinely, because I think this was when Jean was also taking pictures of us – someone from Coaster Crew was, anyway!

“I miss those people,” Erin said in a tiny voice. 

This was the only half-past-kiddie more-toward-family coaster that we also rode and actually had to wait in line for it!! It wasn’t too long, maybe 25 minutes, but still. All for a credit.

Nearly every game at the parks we had been visiting on this trip where roulette type of games with giant candy as prizes. I had seen this on various YouTube videos but had no idea how prevalent these games really were. There had to have been at least 20 different booths with all different types of candy prizes. It was nuts. You see people walking around the park with oversized candy packages tucked under their arms like it’s the most natural thing.

Henry and Chooch kept taking turns playing and every time it was Henry’s turn, he would put his coin down on a number other than the one Chooch and I were suggesting, and every time, it was our number that was being landed on. It was infuriating. Henry sabotages us so bad, I goddamn swear.

And then Chooch finally won! Of course I wasn’t recording when the actually “win” happened because this was probably the 27th time he tried and after a while, recording got old. He chose this box of Anthon Berg assorted chocolates and there were actually 4 double-layered boxes inside the big box. We didn’t try any until a few days later, but um….holy shit this was goddamn sensational chocolate, people. We’re from the land of Sarris Chocolate, which is the best American chocolate I have ever had (get your Sees boxed chocolate away from me, please). I don’t want to say I’m a chocolate SNOB, but growing up with Sarris makes you feel a certain sense of expertise when it comes to this shit, you know? So when I say that this Anthon Berg motherfucker has fathered some delectable chocobabies. I’m not exaggerating. This chocolate was divine. I looked it up online and one box is like $35, so I guess this was some good winnins after all. Congrats, Chooch!

He had to lug this enormous box around with him for the rest of the night though, but it made him super popular with our group during Helix ERT later on though, because he was the first person from Coaster Crew to win at any of those games and everyone was EXTREMELY interested. I had to laugh because Judy came over and took an entire box out of it so she could get a better look, lol. (<—added that ‘lol’ in case you forgot that I started the sentence with “I had to laugh.” #writing) No boundaries with Coaster Crew!

<3!! I can’t remember if it was Tim or Austin who took this. It was right before Helix ERT was about to start and we were trying to get one last ride on Lisebergbanan – this coaster gave me supreme giggle fits so bad! Made me want to holler obscure thoughts into the ether.

So creepy being here after the park was closed to the public!

Helix ERT was so chaotic and hilarious! The constant switching seats, switching ride partners, screaming, shivering because that second launch at night was FREEZING, riding with PAM!, laughing at Pam for screaming ‘I feel the need for speed!’, riding in the front row with Larry!, Henry actually lasting the entire hour of marathoning, Chooch riding with pretty much everyone BUT us until the very end when I caught him getting into an empty row and managed to slide in next to him much to his chagrin!

Just thinking back to this night…I’m smiling so hard but also on the verge of tears. This was one of the best moments. I never want to forget this!

OMG I couldn’t imagine going to sleep after this because of the adrenaline, yet somehow….some way….we trudged back to the hotel as a group and I was barely able to get through washing my face and taking out my contacts before fully passing out in bed.

Here’s Johny’s POV! It’s a 360 degree video so you can move it and see Chooch sitting next to him – Chooch was like, “Oh great. I didn’t realize his camera could do that. Fuck, I rode with him on a lot of things, too…”

The next day was day 2 at Liseberg, but we also skipped out for a bit in the afternoon and explored Gothenburg so you know, look forward to that post I guess?!

Please bear with me. The next park I’m going to be recapping was one of the most beautiful, epic, and magical parks I have ever been to. I think Liseberg was unanimously everyone’s favorite park on the trip and with good, valid reasons.

We spent two full days here, stayed on site at the park’s majestic and BRAND NEW Hotel Curiosa, while also carving out time to explore Gothenburg. (Spoiler: if I wasn’t already betrothed to Seoul, I’d consider marrying Gothenburg.)

Our first full day in Gothenburg started with coffee in the room:

And just because this was in my camera roll, I’m including it here so everyone will know that this was the ONLY bev I had during the entire trip that I 100% did not like an would never get again. In hindsight, it really does sound fucking disgusting so I dunno why I thought I would like it. Also, we very quickly learned that PEAR is like the national fruit of Sweden. Everything is pear-flavored! I’m not mad about that (so long as caramel sits the fuck down). I had so many wonderful pear dranks, but this sadly WAS NOT ONE.

ANOTHER breakfast buffet to write home about (and I might have literally done so in at least one postcard but sadly the postcards that were mailed from this hotel have not seemed to have reached their recipients as of yet…).

It has been a huge adjustment being back in America and staying in cheap hotels that offer instant oatmeal and packaged Danishes as their free breakfast. That Coaster Crew Life really had me thinking I was Rich Kid Erin again. Th bread table alone had me feeling like the Power of Carb was compelling me to kneel in front of it like it was a goddamn altar.

And don’t get me started on the FIKA SECTION. Dessert after breakfast? MM YES, THANK YOU.

The cake portions were so gigantic, even for this little piggy. Patricia was behind me in line and offered to split a piece of carrot cake with me when I was openly whining about it being too big (mostly because I wanted room for other desserts  too, thanks) because that’s what Coaster Crew is all about you guys. It’s a team sport, really.

Getting our wristbands and meal vouchers. As I go back and edit these pictures, especially the ones like this one that feature so many of our coaster friends, my heart does some weird things.

For early entry, we all booked it to Luna, the park’s brand new family boomerang, because these types of rides are one-train ops by design so the lines can get long.

August asked Henry if he could ride with him and Henry was so smug about it. Bro, he doesn’t think you’re cool! He just wanted to sit as close to the back row as possible, probably!

Anyway, this was a fine ride for what it is! Smooth, pleasant, offered some seriously divine views of the park.

There were a couple of flat rides in that upper area that were also running for early entry but we had to wait a few more minutes for the rest of the park to open before getting to dig in to the rest of the coasters.

When I say this is one of the most beautiful amusement parks I’ve ever been to, please believe that I’m not being hyperbolic. I had watched so many videos on this park fore the last several years but it did NOT prepare me for this. I loved that the part of the park was on a hill, with various ways to access it – steps, ramps, escalators, elevators. So many of the rides were built into the terrain and it was incredible to see the absolute tangle of tracks and realizing that it belonged to three separate coasters AND a log flume.

(MICHAEL JACKSON RODE THAT LOG FLUME! I heard someone say it – Justin probably – and that info nug was firmly inserted into my brain so I kept reiterating it over and over, and yes we did eventually ride it!)

Chooch being annoyed and acting so put-out that he had to wait like a peasant for the rest of the park to open like the GP (general population).

OK WHAT HAPPENED NEXT THOUGH WAS ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOMENTS OF THE WHOLE FUCKING TRIP: The ropes were dropped and we all ran like morons to the nearest coaster – Valkyria, the park’s B&M dive coaster. However, as soon as we ran up the steps into the beginning of the queue, there was a big sign that said NO BAGS were permitted, only small items that could be put in a bin. Chooch and I turned around, saw that Henry had caught up and was lumbering up the steps, and tossed our stuff at him.

“HERE, HOLD THIS BYE!” we cried and ran back into the queue like giddy hyenas. All of the COOL YOUNG GUYS were with us when this happened and they ALL had bags so they were groaning about having to get a locker. Henry, desperate to be cool and probably still running on the high that he got from August asking to ride with him, offered to hold all of their stuff since he couldn’t ride anyway thanks to us being assholes.

Chooch and I didn’t know this was happening at first until they all came running back into the queue, yelling, “THANKS, DADDY!” and one of the guys, Hunter I think, said, “Your dad just offered to hold all of our stuff!”

“That’s why we bring him,” I said cheerfully.

“Oh my god,” Hunter said, laughing.

Also? This was the best dive coaster I’ve ever ridden! (Also it was only my fifth, but still!) I’m not usually a fan of these, but this one had great station theming, a fun layout, the drop went into a smoke-filled tunnel, and the view of the park from the top of the lift hill was just such a vibe.

Baggage claim. I think these were the last two to retrieve their things, so I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of Henry with the whole mound of belongings.

The queue for Helix, which would end up being one of my top 5 favorite coasters of the trip. More on that in the next post!

Kiddieland!

Again, every single park had the loveliest restrooms! Here in the US, you go into a restroom and you have to play the “look for feet under the stall door” game most of the time to see if there are any vacancies. I hate it! Please give Americans floor-to-ceiling doors! I have never felt more comfortable in public restrooms than I had in Scandinavia and Finland.

Chooch and I rode this adorable boat ride that had something to do with gardens, maybe?

OK look. Liseberg is home to Helix and Balder, but WAS THEIR MINE TRAIN MY FAVORITE COASTER OF THE PARK?? It was definitely the sleeper  hit amongst everyone in our group, that’s for sure. Lisebergbanan, you were (Liseberg)bananas. First of all, this coaster is 100% built along the hillside. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to be that intense, and it *is* a family coaster after all, but H O L Y S H I T this fucker was so much fun and had me giggling my face off every single time. I think, aside from Balder and Helix which we had ERT on, we probably rode this the most out of everything. I just couldn’t stay away! And with Liseberg’s app, they give you so many opportunities to reserve ride times so you can skip the line, and we pretty much used it for this every time.

Although honestly,  the park wasn’t very crowded so even without using it, the most we waited for anything was probably around 30 minutes.

View from Lisebergbanan’s queue.

You can see Henry in the reflection!

Looks like it’s going to be your basic family coaster. BUT IT IS SO GOOD.

This section of the park was sooo cool and had the best restaurants. We ate at that first one a bit later. What does that say, Skeppsmagasinet??

A darkride about rabbits! The queue was adorable so I didn’t mind that we had to wait for about 20 minutes for a kids ride.

Never pass up a photo op with a mascot!!

OK back to that place for lunch. Chooch and I both had bbq seitan which was DELECTABLE but for me, the real show stealer here was the FRENCH FRIES. Definitely the best goddamn fries I’ve had in quite some time. They were cooked perfectly – the kind of greasy crisp that melts in your mouth. Ugh, this is painful. That picture is causing a flash flood in my mouth. Would I request this for my last meal? I DUNNO, MAYBE??

I think I took this by accident, but it’s the queue line for the HAUNTED WALK-THRU. It was pretty decent. Almost immediately when we came out of it, we ran into Kevin and Pam and Chooch of course was like, “PAM YOU SHOULD GO IN THIS, IT’S DEFINITELY NOT A HAUNTED HOUSE AND THERE ARE DEFINITELY NOT CLOWNS” and she was like, “OK, do you guys want to go in again with us?”

So that’s how we ended up going through a second time with Pam slowing us down and screaming every 2 seconds.

The haunt was really fun though, great theming and some genuine live-actor scares.

We rode the famous log flume on this day too and it was pretty effing incredible. You start out on the main level and the first hill takes you all the way to the top of the hill, where you then proceed to interact with Luna, Helix, and Lisebergbanan. What an incredible log flume, and they even squeegee it for you before you get on!

Rumor has it that it’s going to be removed and, unless the park has no choice but to remove it because of age/deterioration/end of its ride cycle, I really hope that this isn’t true. This is hands down, without there being theming, one of the best log flumes I’ve ever been on for sheer atmosphere and views alone.

Here you can see two Lisebergbanan trains in action.

The author of Pippi Longstocking! She’s also on the 20 kronor bill which I made Henry keep so I could have it as a souvenir,

I dunno any of these people because I’m not current on Swedish pop culture, but I thought these hand/feet prints were really cute and fun!

Here we are waiting for dinner.

DINNER CLIFFHANGER.  Once I get too close to 2000 words in one post, I start to get the shakes. Check back later for the rest of day one at Liseberg.

This is a great video of our day at Tusenfryd! You can see Henry on the escalator, my serving side eye around the 3:00 minute mark, Chooch riding Teeny Weeny…it was a great park! And Airtime Thrills is one of the best coaster YouTubers out there – we were so lucky to be on the same trip as him, even though I was sincerely trying to dodge his camera every day but that’s mostly because I didn’t want to ruin his vlogs with my extreme resting bitch face. You’re welcome, Chris.

I still haven’t had a chance to sort through my pictures of the next park we went to, but this post was from later this night when we arrived in Gothenburg so maybe click the link if you missed this one and want to feel irritated at my refusal to post things in order. :D

Let’s start this recap off with some lunch talk. First of all, OK Norway, I see you with your not-Surge! This actually was moderately triggering because I have a partially blacked-out memory of having a HUGE blow out fight with Psycho Mike in Mingo Park over Surge. Janna – you were there. If you’re reading this, COMMENT DOWN BELOW.

Lol.

Anyway, I was pretty embarrassed at this place because Henry barged in and started piling things on a plate from the salad bar BUT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PAY FIRST. Way to constantly be an exemplary posterchild for ‘murrica, Henry. Ugh.

I was so over Henry by this point (I think it was actually the only rough patch of the day, because you know and I know that there were no fully smooth days on this trip as long as Henry was around, haha) but then our food came and I was like, “Oh wow, look at that – I guess I was just hungry.”

This pasta was DELICIOUS! Seriously, European amusement park is quality. These mushrooms tasted like they were foraged from the mountains surrounding the park, I swear to god. It was heavenly. I could have licked the plate.

(Oh yeah, we sat with Kevin and Pam! They were probably making hostage eyes to each other from across the table, like “Hey, how we gonna shake this annoying family? It’s been an hour.”)

After lunch, some BLUE SKY started to peek out from behind the fluffy Norwegian clouds!

(WE WERE IN NORWAY. HOW.)

A troll trail!!

Hnnnng.

Actual troll under the bridge!

Oh man, I loved it.

Came back for a bunch of afternoon rides on Storm. Total walk-on every time. I felt like Chooch and I had a bonding moment with Hunter over our shared love for the backrow on this one. Anytime any guy from that Cool Kid Group acknowledged my presence, I felt so validated. (See also: I’m a sad person.)

Preparing for dorm life.

SKY!!!

SKY AGAIN!!

WOULDYA LOOK AT THAT SKY?? AND THE NORWEGIAN FOREST??

Anyway, Henry and I rode this earlier while Chooch hung back with Pam and Kevin because HE HAD ALREADY RIDDEN IT during his Tusenfryd Orphan Era. It was a fine ride and all but what I want to remember is the young ride attendant who was so happy to talk to us about English thangs and I loved it because I too wanted to talk to HER about Norwegian thangs, primarily: HOW EFFING BEAUTIFUL IT WAS THERE, so beautiful that it did not matter to me one bit that the day started off gray and rainy, and that it was still chilly even with the sun out.

Because, Norway, you guys. Get me back there, STAT. I need to take a walk in the forest.

Our one and only Norwegian #carouselfie!

I was ready for some after-lunch ice cream. As we were walking over to the ice cream place though, Pam called out to us from an outdoor cafe table and said that the word on the street was that the kiddie coaster was running. Chooch was like, “Peace out” and ran over to get that elusive credit because:

• it’s known for being the smallest coaster in the world (it didn’t seem any smaller than a lot of other kiddie coasters I’ve seen though but I’ll take the thoosies’ word for it);
• it absolutely won’t run in the rain.

I was too busy enjoying my ice cream with crunchy strawberry things. I think actually it was bits of real dehydrated strawberry? It was so wonderful – so far, Denmark and Norway were killing the ice cream topping game. I STILL think about the Danish pastel sprinkles!!

We meandered over to the little coaster to spectate the madness. Look at all these grown-ass adults in line – I FUCKING LOVE IT. The great thing about our group was that every time an actual kid would get in line, everyone would go, “KID COMING THROUGH!” and they’d let the actual kid cut all the way through to the front. That’s awesome. I love that.

Apparently, it was Jean who first noticed that this was testing, so she sent out a CODE RED on Facebook and word spread from there. Someone posted a picture of it later that day and the caption was “teenie weenie thanks to Jeannie” lol. I think the coaster is literally called “The Smallest One” haha.

Chooch rode with Johnny and apparently only two adults could ride at a time, lol. After Chooch rode, it started to rain just a bit harder than a drizzle and there were still Coaster Crew people in line! It was almost devastating for them but the girl operating it made a call and got the OK to get it running for our group. Iconic. Legendary. Love to see it.

What other obnoxious things can I say about that.

I’m too tired.

This was one of the best rapids ride I’ve ever experienced – it had this awesome serpentine whirlpool feature that was insane. The theming on every rapids ride we did on this trip was CHEF’S KISS.

Yeah, this place was adorable. Before we left, we went to the candy shop and filled a bag with so much candy. I loaded it with a variety of licorice, much to Henry and Chooch’s chagrin, and that bag lasted me until we got home to Pittsburgh (I THINK??). When I tell you I miss that licorice. Shoooo.

Freaking iconic. What a day.

After this, we made the drive back down to Gothenburg and I didn’t know it then, but that place. The city, the hotel, the park. All of it. It’s imprinted on my big dumb heart. I’m so excited to start those recaps!

My crude guesstimate of the route our overnight busride took. 

Guys. Before we start talking about Tusenfryd, the only park we’d be visiting in Norway, can I please tell you about how I woke up at one point on the overnight bus trip and the wind was blowing so violently that the bus was slowly rocking side to side. It was horrific. All I kept thinking was, “Is this how I die? When people kept sending me news articles about roller coaster deaths, I’m going to die on the upper level of a doubledecker bus somewhere in….where am I?!”

I couldn’t see much out the window. I’m wondering if this was when we were going over the bridge to Sweden?? Because I woke up at another point too and I believe it was a border check?? I vaguely remember looking out the window, noting that we were pulled over, and seeing at least one person in uniform walking over and presumably getting onto our bus.

Another time I woke up, it was around 4:00AM and we were parked in front of the CURIOSA HOTEL in Gothenburg, dropping off the handful of people who voted against the overnight bus ride. I was kind of confused because at that point, we had like 4 hours left so why not just stay? I guess it was more of the fact that they weren’t into sleeping on a bus, not showering, and then spending a whole day at a park. I guess I get it.

But we paid for this trip with Norway on the itinerary, so if we had to drag our asses through a park wearing the same clothes as the day before, well, that’s what we were going to do. (Actually, I was already wearing layers the day before, so I came prepared with a different top layer to change into – GIRL SCOUT 4L.)

So yeah, if you’re wondering why it’s the next day and most everyone else is dressed the same, well, now you know.

Our grand introduction to Norway was rolling up to a gas station in the morning, everyone lining up for the bathroom, grabbing gas station foods for breakfast (our first skoleboller was purchased here and even though it was from a gas station, it was DELICIOSO – a custard bun rimmed with coconut flakes?? more please), and then brushing our teeth as a group in the parking lot.

It might not have been glamorous, but it was a goddamn adventure!

Got to Tusenfryd around 8:ooAM. This entrance is so iconic! In the background, you can see the famous Norwegian loop, an element on the Intamin launch coaster, Speed Monster, which was the first of its kind. There are only two other coasters in the world with this element and I have been on all of them! Fahrenheit at Hershey, and Helix at Liseberg in Sweden. This is very thrilling to me for some reason. Probably because I am a very empty person who will latch on the smallest things to feel full, lol. That’s me.

Of course, the park wasn’t open to the public yet, but we had two wonderful Tusenfryd representatives taking care of us. That thumbs-up man unlocked the restrooms for us, and the woman was SO FUCKING SWEET and totally excited to give us a VIP tour before the public arrived.

Snagged this from Coaster Crew’s IG story. We’re missing some people who were in the bathroom though! I made damn sure I was around for EVERY GROUP PICTURE.

I think I got this from the event FB page. I love that I’m nowhere near Henry and Chooch in either picture, lol.

The first thing that happened was we got ERT on the park’s brand new launch coaster, Storm: Dragon Legend. The really cool thing is that they did a double launch for us, meaning each train was cycled through twice so when it came back into the station, it RELAUNCHED which was so crazy! They don’t run it like this regularly, so this was just another “I can’t believe I’m here, doing this cool thing with these amazing people” moment.

Either Larry or Jean took this!

I honestly think this may have been my favorite coaster on the trip. You get launched forward, roll back into a backward launch, and then launch forward again at an even greater acceleration before basically getting your face ripped off on the rest of the layout. And then with the double-launch, you come barrelling back into the station and launch forward AGAIN and go through the whole layout a second time. What an amazing experience!! I definitely liked this the best in the back, later on in the day after it warmed up – the backward launch practically left you completely inverted in the backseat. It was so incredibly intense! Chooch still maintained that he liked the front seat better, and I definitely can understand that too. This coaster honestly blew me away.

Chooch in the backrow with Sam – I love that he made his own friends on this trip.

Next, our awesome Tusenfryd host walked us over the Speed Monster, where we got to walk around the infield and go inside the engine room, which was a REALLY BIG DEAL for the true thoosies.

Chooch never waits for us.

Then we just walked right into the station from the employee entrance and got on! Here’s Chooch riding with Debbie! I think this might have been the first train of the day.

I ended up liking this more later in the day when we re-rode it.

After that, the park was officially open for the general public, but it never got crowded. Probably because it was still drizzly and dreary but!! It ended up being a beautiful day after a few hours. We actually to SEE THE SUN. I don’t think we had seen the sun and blue skies since Bakken and Tivoli Gardens back on Day 1! Storm Hans really did a lot of damage over those few days. I watched some news footage on YouTube after we came home and it is actually amazing that the worst we personally had seen was the gale force winds at Farup Sommerland. That storm ripped through parts of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden and was apparently the worst storm the region had seen in over two decades.

More pictures of Chooch being a Coaster Crew orphan.

I vividly remember having SUPER BAD CRAMPS around this time and wanting to curl up in a bathroom stall and die. Luckily, Henry the Pharmacy had Ibuprofen or something and I ended up being OK so pretty much this was the end of the period saga. I had like 87 tampons in my purse and zero accidents happened on my watch. MMKAY.

This coaster was actually terrible. I should note that around this time, we “lost” Chooch. Not really, but we were all in line for the park’s spinning coaster and it broke down. A bunch of us didn’t want to wait, but Chooch opted to stay with some others from our crew. We rode this wooden coaster with Robert and Dawn and I was not a fan. Henry was not a fan. I don’t think Dawn was a fan. But Robert was WOO HOOING to the high heavens. He said he loves rough coasters! I really thought my spine was misaligned after that.

FUN FACT though: People say that the first part of this reminds them of a wooden Phantom’s Revenge because the first drop angles down to the right like Phantom, and then there is another drop right after, similar to Phantom’s as well. I didn’t even realize that because I was too busy having my brain jackhammered out of my head.

This park WAS SO BEAUTIFUL. Even in the drizzle, everything was just so lush and vivid. I need to go back to Norway for real, and soon.

We eventually reunited with Chooch who recounted all of the people he rode with on various rides without us and I had so much FOMO because there I was, stuck with Henry. But then something amazing happened! We ran into Pam and Kevin and rode Thor’s Hammer with them!!

It’s a 3D dark ride and honestly, none of us knew what was going on because, Norwegian, but it was so much fun and of course I had to purchase the souvenir picture! Pam is covering her face because this was a scene with SNAKES and Pam hates SNAKES. If there is one thing I’m great at, it’s instantly retaining the things that people hate, like some fucked up savant, and then using these things later on to fuck with that person.

(Although, I did find out later from Kevin that she hates snakes because her mom was bit by one!!)

OK, I need to end here because Henry is being a baby and wants to sit with me but apparently I’M REALLY MEAN WHEN I’M BLOGGING. So they say.

I’m really having a great time reliving these moments but it’s making my heart feel like it’s on fire. :( Especially because after Tusenfryd comes Liseberg and I had the best time at that park, and in Gothenburg in general. I still can’t believe most of this trip was real. I am so fucking broke now because of it, yet I FEEL SO RICH.

This just in: Jean had taken this picture of us on the Bat crazy mouse and sent it to Chooch on Facebook. He only just now felt inclined to share it with me. :/ Some things to note that I may have forgotten:

• this was one of the most intense crazy mouses I’ve been on! We spun so hard and I thought I was going to die the whole time. It was great. I couldn’t stop screaming my dumb face off!
• this was Jean’s 1000th coaster!

Man. Now I’m really missing Jean and Larry. I hope we get to hang out with them sometime again! Larry messaged Chooch the other day and told him that he and Jean went to Cedar Point and saw Alex from Coaster Spot and it gave me the most physical tug of FOMO I think I have ever had! I want to see my Coaster Crew friends out in the wild in the US!!

Also, just for context, check out the wind:

So, I believe the first thing that happened after lunch was that I popped into the restroom and discovered that my period had started. No big deal, right? I’ll just reach into my LUGGAGE THAT IS STORED AWAY ON THE BUS AND GRAB ONE OF THE COPIUS AMOUNTS OF TAMPONS I BROUGHT.

Yeah, I had none on me and I had no access to my luggage. The bathrooms didn’t have tampon/pad dispensers and none of the gift shops could help a bleeding bitch out. The one cashier told me I would have to GO INTO TOWN AND GET SOME.

Let me remind you that this was the day we would be doing the OVERNIGHT BUS RIDE. Yeah, there was no hotel for the night. Once we left the park, we were ON THE BUS for all of perpetuity it seemed.

My one saving grace was that the hotel from the night before was on park property and we were able to go back to it without actually leaving the park. I was so worried though because we had obviously checked out, but when I tentatively approached the lady at the front desk (I walked past the young guy who came to help me first, LOL, omg men don’t know about periods, etc etc), she pulled out a big tupperware container of assorted pads and tampons and told me to take what I needed.

I took the most super-duper absorbency tampon they had plus a pad for extra protection because I wasn’t sure when we would be stopping and if procuring FEMININE PRODUCTS would be an option. First of all, definitely should have taken more but I wasn’t trying to be a greedy American. Oh, I am such a martyr. “No! Don’t worry about me! I’ll just bleed out all over the bus, please save those for someone who needs it more than me.”

I fucking hate myself.

There was a rumor that we were going to stop at a Lidl on our drive back to Copenhagen and I was so married to this idea, like I threw myself into it so hard, had a dowry to offer and everything. Lidl of GTFO! I kept casually mentioning to people too, like, “So, I heard we might stop at a Lidl…..DO YOU THINK THAT IS TRUE.” And everyone (OK by everyone I think it was just Pam and Cassie who had to yield my Lidl queries) was like, “I don’t know, maybe?”

Of course you’re probably wondering why I didn’t just ask one of the women if they had anything on hand to assist a fellow woman in her monthly time of need, and you know….great question, lol. I don’t think I considered this!?!? Also, and not to be presumptuous, but most of the women on the trip appeared to be much older than me so I’m not sure if,  you know….?? And two of the three that appeared to be younger than me were not approachable, as we’ve already discussed. So yeah, if you were wondering what was going on with me particularly in the late afternoon and evening of this date, it was just me obsessing over, you know, making a mess.

We thought this was just a random pirate ship but apparently, you could actually walk onto it! We’d discover that in a bit.

Yet another Danish fun house!

I have so many regrets. I should have got a Skum Fest!!

OK, we almost didn’t do this  maze because it didn’t seem that involved but holy shit, I’m glad we did because GUESS WHAT? On the other side of it was the entrance to a ROPES COURSE! American amusement parks need to have these!! Knoebels, get a fucking ropes course!

I must have taken this picture of a grassy rooftop while Chooch and I were still in the middle of the ropes course. (Henry conveniently left to go to the bathroom right when we started, what a lame-o.) I want to say that it took us almost an hour to complete. There were some things I couldn’t do, not even because of age or unathleticism, but because I have a fear of heights. I actually got stuck in one clubhouse-type thing because I was too afraid to climb down the ladder so I had to backtrack and literally almost cried about it.

This was how we ended up on the pirate ship though!

I really wish I could describe to you how amazing this entire course was. Luckily because of the weather, we had the whole thing to ourselves so I didn’t have to worry about children heckling me. My hands had rope burns on them, though! I really felt like I went through it, you know? But I came out the other side like, look at me now bitches.

The exit of the course brought us right into a gift shop / snack bar because of course it did. Chooch got ice cream and Henry and I shared these adorable waffles:

OMG it was so delicious and I wish I had gotten it just for myself, honestly.

Chooch also got a certificate for completing the course! I took it back over to the little podium where the pens were so that I could add my name to it and the one girl who hates me was just coming out of the course exit too. I tried to bond with her over it by exhaling dramatically and saying, “Wow, I thought that was course was going to kill me a few times!” She just looked through me like she always did and snippily said, “No, I thought it was so much fun.”

WHEN DID I SAY IT WASN’T FUN THOUGH.

*(Please note that somehow, even though Chooch stole my hair elastic to keep his diploma rolled up, it somehow failed to make it home with us. WHERE DID IT GO?? Probably in our room in Helsinki. And now, a garbage dump.)

Whatever. Then Jean, Larry, Robert, and Dawn came in and I was like, “Yay, people who actually like me.” LOL. I want to say I’m being paranoid but every time I would say, “That person who hates me,” Chooch would say, “Which person, there’s more than one.” UGH. Oof. I’m officially too old for that generation to give a shit about me, I guess!

Farup Appreciation.

LOGS!!

The really busy station for Saven.

More logs!

I dunno if Farup does a Halloween haunt but I think they could just do Camp Crystal Lake and call it day.

(I’m listening to horror movie themes – a normal thing for me no matter the season, it’s one of my preferred background soundtracks – and Friday the 13th came on right when I typed that!!)

Um. This is one of the coasters we didn’t get to ride and I was very bummed about it but some of those hardcore thoosies MIGHT have cried. I cannot confirm nor deny. Fonix was one of the most anticipated coasters for pretty much everyone, so getting to stand that close to it while not riding it was torture.

:(:(:(

I’d also like to add that we went to the main gift shop where I outed myself to the cashier as a menstruating woman oh noes three separate times. It was actually pretty comical because she kept looking at us like we were planning to stage a coup or something. No one could possibly find three separate reasons to keep coming back. Well, have you met us?? I think the last time we went was right before we were leaving and Chooch wanted to get a pair of socks because his were wet. I dunno. I just remember him buying socks and me trying to help one of the guys from our crew find the magnets but he was terrible at following my directions so I had to walk over and actually point them out to him. Then I don’t think he even bought one after that!! And they had a decent selection too, which was nice since a lot of these European parks are like “fuck merch! buy these generic toys and dish towels and instead! no, our logo is NOT on them, thank you!”

We had a tiny bit of time to kill before we could get back on the bus (and who was in a hurry, really? Our asses were about to have 13 hours or so getting acquainted with the bus seats) so we got some drinks and snacks at the cafe by the entrance. Pam and Kevin were there! So of course we sat with them. My favorite moment possibly of the whole day was when Henry came back to the table with a croissant and Chooch and I lunged across the table to rip pieces off for ourselves before Henry even had a chance to sit down.

Kevin, observing this, asked drily, “Did you know that you were buying a family croissant there, Henry?”

I died. The execution was flawless.

LOL it’s a good thing that Chooch straight up never reads my blog because he would hate this picture.

Anyway, Pam told me that the girl working at the cafe told her that all of the pictures on the wall are of people that came to Farup over the years, who sent their pictures to the owner of the cafe. She’s been collecting and displaying them for years, which I thought was so amazing! SHOULD I SEND HER A PICTURE OF US??? THIS ONE^^^, MAYBE??

Here’s the main entrance, which we didn’t get to see until we left, since we entered through the resort entrance.

Windmill.

Driving over a bridge in the windstorm (I’m so glad that I was taking shitty video from the bus window because I like that you can hear the people on the bus talking, sigh):

After we got on the bus, Tim came upstairs and asked if anyone needed a pillow, because he was going to try to stop at an Ikea. I think most of us raised our hands, so we actually stopped at an Ikea and Tim, bless his heart, bought all of us a black-and-white accent pillow that I of course kept as souvenirs – they’re on the couch in the attic game room as I write this!

Ikea was fine. I was really starting to stress out over my tampon situation so didn’t really have much of an appetite, but then felt like I needed to eat something anyway, and it was just chaos inside my head. It was funny though, 70 Americans (plus one Brit and Australian I think??) walking into Ikea moments before the cafeteria was closing. People were looking on in horror!

Chooch and I got vegan meatballs and they had to be TAKEN OUT OF A FREEZER and cooked from scratch basically, so we were the only people still standing there even after the cafeteria closed. I was so antsy because I didn’t know how long we were going to be here and what if we ended up holding up the bus???

We didn’t. It was fine. There were plenty of people who got to back to the bus well after we did!

I did run to the bathroom though before we left to check my sitch. I was still doing fine but I was hoping that there would have been a tampon dispenser in the Ikea bathroom at least. NO. NONE.

It didn’t occur to me to check the Ikea marketplace but I don’t think I would have found any there?!

I will end by saying that WE DID NOT STOP AT LIDL so I had to wait until we reached the bus driver switch-off point in Copenghagen, around 11:00PM, to fucking SPRINT across the parking lot of wherever the hell we were and snatch a FULL-SIZED BOX of tampons from the bottom shelf of a gas station – I almost didn’t even see them and thought, “This is it. This is where I become known as the broad who stained her bus seat red.” Then I flew down the steps with the box under my arm like I was a fucking quarterback for the Blood Stains and literally let out the BIGGEST exhale of my life as I shut the stall door behind me. Dude, I had *just* made it. Like, JUST MADE IT. All I can say is thank god for the absorbancy of that pad, if you KNOW WHAT I MEAN. Henry knows what I mean because I spare no detail about these things when it comes to him, and he loves me so much for that. #GIRLTALK

Anyway, I was able to sleep after this. The next post will be NORWAY!

View from the back patio of our hotel.

Somehow, this is only DAY FOUR?!

We woke up this morning (Tuesday, August 8th) after a crazy night with seriously gnarly wind whipping at our windows with little reprieve. I honestly was kind of wondering if the park was even going to open at all. It was honestly THAT WINDY.

We had another delicious breakfast buffet because Denmark be feeding us proper-like. I had to laugh because this one guy in our group was always asking people, “Do you want to know who I would cast as [x] in my movie about [z]??” and it was always something so totally random, like he actually spent time contemplating writing an imaginary dream movie about these coaster podcaster/YouTubers called In the Loop.

Anyway, on his way back to the table after getting a juice refill, Chooch said he overheard him saying about how was eating carbs and his mom would be happy or something. So, in full-on character, Chooch says to us excitedly, “Guess who I would cast as a Carbohydrate in my movie about Nutrition??”

This is something that I think about daily. It seriously made me laugh so hard, my stomach hurt!

Chooch purposely wouldn’t let me stand next to the squirrel. :(

And yes, Chooch was still wearing shorts and t-shirts. And no, he wouldn’t let us buy him a hoodie or sweatshirt in the gift shop (but he DID go for a blanket which he used on the bus and plane for the rest of the trip like the little bitch baby that he is).

PAM!

Oh! This was around the time Pam found out that Chooch and I were trying to start a rumor that she didn’t like Henry, LOL. She said, “Oh, you guys! Poor Henry!”

When I say I miss Pam…

The back of our hotel! I imagine the front must look similar but it was dark when we arrived the night before and everyone was trying to hustle inside before what felt like a tornado swept us away.

Somehow, someway, the park was open. 4 of the 7 coasters were running. Unfortunately for us, the three that WEREN’T running were really good ones that we were all stoked for, especially Fonix. But…you can’t control the weather and we all seemed to still be in good spirits! I mean, looking back on this day, I can’t even remember fighting with Henry and/or Chooch the whole time, so I guess Farup was pumping positive energy into us.

I can’t believe this was running! There were moments where the wind was so forceful that it felt like the train wasn’t going to make the full rotation. I’m sure this was a fun coaster (we’ve ridden the clone at Dollywood) but all I remember is THE WIND.

But this park though! Even on a dreary day, it still had summer camp charm. I think this is the second time at least that I have referenced summer camp in relation to this vacation when I have never been to summer camp. In fact, the most camp-y thing I have ever done was Girl Scouts day camp which lasted for a week five minutes from my house but I still hated every single minute of it. What did we even do?? Play fucking hand jives?!

Actually, that sounds accurate.

OMG this wild mouse was so insane! First of all, the maintenance guys had to keep coming out to push some of the cars up onto the lift hill because they weren’t catching or something?! The more knowledgeable men on trip knew what was going on and were giddily filming it but I was just like, “OK that’s cool but I hope we get to ride this before they decide this is too much work and shut ‘er down.”

FUCK MALTER!! WHAT AN HONEST TO GOD COCK KNOW, AMIRITE.

Part of Saven, the family boomerang – it was fun and family-ish!

Look – I was happy because as dreary as it looked, it didn’t rain more than the occasional drizzle all day, and it was somehow less cold than the day before. I mean, yeah I was still chilly, but I had THREE LAYERS on this time and thicker socks too I think. I was golden. Just happy to be in Denmark!

Hundebar! YOU GUYS, A DOG BAR!! Obviously, there were no dogs there that night because aside from our group….there wasn’t really anyone else there now that I think about it, lol. Maybe like 20 or 30 non-Coaster Crew people, tops?? And I imagine those were hotel guests and not people who went out of their way to be there in GALE FORCE WINDS. I think this was my first time experiencing this level of air viciousness and it was really something else.

I miss Denmark bathrooms so much! And I miss grassy rooftops!

I’ve seen videos of Farup when the weather is better and this is actually a free perk and not an upcharge! In America, you would be paying extra for sure. There isn’t even an attendant, you just handle your own canoeing shit like a grown-ass capable human, and everyone moves on with their day.

Denmark moss! I can’t wait for Alyson to see this. We have an inside joke about Henry and his FURY FOR MOSS that has lasted nearly 20 years! Actually, it’s not really that much of an inside joke because I had written in my livejournal one time that Henry was absolutely savage one day at the cemetery about how MOSS IS BAD, LEAVE IT AT THAT.

Wow, someone got some moss up his ass while serving the U.S.A. it sounds like.

DOES THIS LOOK LIKE AN AMUSEMENT PARK?! It was so beautiful even on this overcast day. Just imagine it with blue skies and sunshine. Jesus.

HENRY NEVER SMILES WHEN IT’S HIS TURN TO TAKE THE #CAROUSELFIE

Lol, he was sitting on this little motorcycle thing.

Again with the woodland theming and the adorable little forest critters! Did I tell you that I didn’t see one single squirrel in Denmark?? Henry said he actually saw one here in Farup but by the time he tried to show me, the squirrel had already disappeared into a mass of trees.

Basically you guys, we got our 4 coaster creds within an hour. In addition to the ones I mentioned, there was also a kiddie coaster which sent us around three times and I majorly jammed up my shoulder on two of those laps and then tried to tell some girl about it when we exited, you know, just a “hey heads up, watch yourself when it goes around that bend over there” and she was like, “MMmm.” Don’t even get me started. Chooch loved how much she hated me though. And then were some mine train coaster that the ride op was like, “DO YOU WANT TO AGAIN” and Henry said NO at the same Chooch and I said, “Yeah sure, wooo!”

Then it was lunch time! We were like 2 minutes early but I could see people moving around inside, and for some reason we thought the doors to the pizza buffet were just “normal closed” but after we pried them open and walked in, we quickly realized that the doors were actually “we’re not ready for patrons closed” and the people I saw inside were actually employees, one of whom came jogging over and (politely) shooed us out, lol. OOPS.

As we walked back outside, the girl that I tried to befriend at the park the day before approached. I started to tell her that they actually weren’t ready for us yet and wanted to tell her about how we fucked around and found out, but she FUCKING SWERVED ON ME. You guys, I have NEVER had someone actually that blatantly desperate to not talk to me that they actually physically SWERVED and walked away in another direction. Wow. That was. Wow.

But it was fine, because then another group from Coaster Crew came over to wait with us and it was actually my first time talking to them and they were very very very nice. (Future Erin, because your memory is probably rotting by now: It was Aly and Brandon.)

Lunch with the group was a pizza buffet and holy shit, remember how when I was writing about Tivoli Friheden I mentioned that the pizza had some kind of thinly-sliced parsnip or turnip, some sort of NIP!? Well, this pizza had it too! So, I took a picture this time in order to never forget how much I loved that mystery nip.

We’re over 1500 words now so we’ll leave off here and continue on with post-lunch things in the next update. This is 50% me wanting to drag this out forever because the very last post means I have to accept that the vacation is over (I mean, I’ve been home for over a month now, so…) and 50% me being tired by the time I have some free time at night to write. I play tennis nearly every night after work, you guys. It’s my new lifestyle. *blows on nails*

Here’s Airtime Thrills’ vlog from that day! You can see Chooch and me on the kiddie coaster (he was filming for what felt like the entire cycle and it was excruciating since we were in the front seat!) and all three of us on the mine train).

We left Djurs Sommerland around 8:00PM and set off for Farup Sommerland in….Dommerborg? Looking at a map, and um, OK I guess we’ll go with that. You’d think by now I could accurately decode a map like a regular adult but no. I’m always gonna be true to myself.

The park we were leaving is to the right of Randers so that should give a general sense of the drive. I’m going to guess it was about a two hour drive.

First though, I had to take blurry building pictures like I’m in 5th grade on a tour bus all over again, and then fucking scream into the crook of my arm and we passed THIS AWFUL, DISTURBING, DISGUSTING THING:

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UGH FUCK YOU!!

Anyway, this was also the bus ride where we found out that all ferry service was suspended due to this area of Scandinavia basically being hit by the biggest storm they’ve seen in over 20 years. It was called STORM HANS, I believe, and while the weather at Djurs was not ideal, it honestly didn’t seem like it was THAT intense. Well, we’d have a very different experience the next day…

I think I always updated about this from the bus the next day, but what happened was Tim, in a position I truly did not envy, was tasked with giving us our options:

Skip Norway, which was supposed to happen via ferry after departing the next day’s park, or drive all the way back down through Denmark, switch bus drivers in Copenhagen, drive across the bridge to Sweden, and basically drive UP through Sweden to Norway. This was a very contentious moment on the bus, and I was worried that the votes would be split, or lean more towards skipping Norway. I did not want to miss out on Norway! Either way, ferry or by bus, we would not really get to see much of Norway outside of the park anyway, so in my eyes, it was still worth going just for the park. I wanted to be in Norway, you guys! I wanted that country cred!

Chooch was like furiously shaking his head NO to overnight bus ride, but I was like YES, WE ARE VOTING YES AS A FAMILY. Even Henry was like, “We’re doing it. We’re going to Norway. Suck it up.”

There was MAJOR debating going on behind us amongst all the younger guys that I desperately wanted to be friends with. They were suggesting things like booking flights on Ryan Air but then someone pointed out that nearly everyone on the bus had checked bags with them so that wouldn’t work.

“All I know is that if we do this, everyone better take a mandatory shower tomorrow morning. At gun point.”

And this started a whole tense exchange with another passenger, culminating in an actual moment of collective “OOOOOOOHHHHHH”ing. It was….stressful.

First, Tim shook a show of hands and it seemed like most people raised theirs in favor of the busride. But then he came back, after conferring with his right hand man, Austin, and had everyone type out their vote on their phone so that he could just walk around and get an anonymous tally.

I confidently typed out OVERNIGHT on my phone and then pointed to Henry and Chooch, and said, “This vote is for ALL OF US” and Chooch just glowered at me. Dude, you’re 17, you can handle this. Get a grip, pal.

Later, Tim came back and said that the vote for the overnight bus ride was overwhelming, so WE WON. NORWAY’S A GO.

I mean, no, this wasn’t ideal but the fact that Tim worked to slap together an option for us, working with the current bus driver (amazing guy btw), and just overall putting himself in a really shitty position – it really meant a lot and it showed for the millionth time of this trip so far how good his character is. Honestly, I get teary just thinking about Tim and how well he took care of us. He was like, and hear me out because I’ve never actually done this as a kid, the best camp counselor ever. The kind that makes a huge impact on your life in your formative years, you know? I mean, I’ve watched coming of age camp-related movies and TV shows, so I’m basically experienced in this area.

When we arrived at the Farup Hotel that night, it was suddenly clear that this storm was no joke. The wind was INTENSE as we were trying to claim our luggage (note Henry and his Hero Complex up there assisting the bus driver – such a suck-up, it’s unreal sometimes) and I was lowkey starting to get a bit scared. Looking at the map I posted up there, I’m not sure I realized how far north we actually were.

Everyone had to congregate in the lobby while Tim called a family meeting. I thought it was going to be a CAMPFIRE TALK about being nice to one another in these tense times, but really it was just that some of the singles were going to be put in rooms for four because this was a family hotel, meaning that there were two beds for adults and then the cutest BUNK BED NOOK for kids but also large enough to accommodate adults of a certain size. I think it was mostly the younger guys that got lumped together. I know some of the older singles like Pam paid extra to get their own single supplement without having to be paired up with a roommate. This also brought back memories of the family Euro trips of the past, where there would be older women usually that ended up as roommates and sometimes they became friends, sometimes they….did not.

Chooch was STOKED for the bunk beds but he was also a fucking pistol that night and went to bed hungry; we went and got snacks but he refused to come out of his bed and indulge and then fell asleep angry and hungry – good job, brat!

Dude, these rooms though. So fucking presh. We had a little balcony but every time we opened the door, the wind was so strong that it felt like it was going to rip the door off the hinges. Just hearing the wind blasting through the woods outside our room was ominous and gave me big chills. I was really wondering if our day at the park was even going to happen the next morning.

Snacks for non-bitches. I miss Kims!! These snacks were so good.

LOOK AT THAT BITCH BABY!

Ahhhh, one of the park’s mascots is A SQUIRREL.

OK, that brings us to DAY FIVE, which we will talk about tomorrow or sometime this week, I swear.

Good morning. It’s 10:04am and we just left Super H-Mart. I wanted to get a head start on alcohol for the Xmas party that I decided to have because it’s not actually a Xmas party but possibly A HOLIDAY THAT I INVENTED??!!

It’s hard to get good soju flavors in Pgh and makgeolli is non-existent.

Anyway!! Riot Fest was…surreal. It definitely didn’t give me as many feels overall as it has in the past so I guess I am firmly rooted in K-Town at this point. Obviously the bands still did it for me but as far as Riot Fest itself goes, eh. I was content with just doing the one day as opposed to all three that’s for sure. My body hates me enough for just the one day.

Aside from the Cure though, the best part of yesterday was seeing VICKI from our Chicago office!!! She’s part of my old group in the department and I have only gotten to see her once when she and another lady from Chicago came to our Pgh office for a few days. I LOVED hanging out with her then so I was determined to see her this weekend. I’m so happy she made time for us!!

We took the train in from where we were staying outside of the city. Henry the PubTrans expert was like WE NEED TO TRANSFER TO THE PINK LINE and when I told Vicki of these alleged plans, she said NO. DO THIS INSTEAD and told us to transfer to the ORANGE line and then she picked us up at whatever stop she told us to get off on and it was so easy – thanks Vicki! This is why we come to her at work with the hard questions haha.

Anyway, she took us to this breakfast place called STAX and poor Henry just sat there shoveling food into his mouth while Vicki and I chatted like long lost army friends. Actually this was preferable to Henry haha.

I changed my mind four times but then I saw LEMON LAVENDER pancakes and was like “gimme those NOW.”

As soon as we sat though, I took off my jacket and said VERY SERIOUSLY, “Vicki I have to tell you something that no one knows at work.”

I could sense Henry rolling his eyes because he knew what it was going to be, but Vicki was on HIGH ALERT and said, “oh my god what is it, Erin?”

Like I’m about to announce to her my pending resignation, but instead it was, “I think I may have invented a new holiday.”

“Oh Erin!” she said, letting out a deep breath and I’m over here like, what? This is a big deal worthy of a suspenseful announcement.

Anyway, she seemed skeptical but I will still invite her to the party because it will probably be worth traveling for.

(Future Henry reading this: *frowning, head shake*)

The only downside is that now that Vicki met Henry, she said she feels like she is going to side with Glenn more in group chat!!!!

Then she was kind enough to drop us off at Riot Fest afterward! What a great start to the day. It was definitely go downhill from there for a bit but then the Great Start made a comeback.

We’ll discuss separately.

It’s 10:58am and we’re in Indiana now if you were wondering.

1:33pm (the time went ahead an hour at some point here in Indiana): just ate a lunch of Kimbap and gyeongdan from Hmart in the parking lot of 7-11. I need to go back to Korea ASAP.

Now let’s look at some pictures from our Saturday ‘date’ night in Chicago (I guess it was like a date??? We held hands for like a minute):

I was wearing my Parker’s Maple Barn tshirt and it made me miss Alyson so much!

Anyway, after we ate at Chicago Diner (see previous post!) we went to Millennium Park – apparently Mexican Independence was being celebrated and the excitement was contagious!! A continuous parade of cars waving giant Mexican flags were cruising around in controlled chaos. I loved it. As someone who doesn’t really have a heritage, I’m always so interested in seeing other people celebrate their culture and history.

2:21pm: we were just a rest stop in Indiana. When I came out of the bathroom, I found Henry in line at 7-11 waiting to pay for an energy bar. Then he gets out of line, right, and comes over to me like some fucking Kevin Costner hero type and asks, “did you want something?”

Ok first of all, don’t act like a GALLANT GENTLEMAN when you were already in line to check out in the first place without a second thought about me! It was only because he saw me walk in and remembered that I existed!!!

More Chicago pictures:

I truly enjoyed walking around by the water! I think the ONE BEER I had at dinner was tampering my mood swings and making me an agreeable cutie sweetie.

I just typed that without thinking so I guess my subconscious assessment of myself is pretty generous.

There was a pretty decent public restroom along the River walk. Pittsburgh would never.

We stopped at a bar along the River walk and got another drink. I got a cider. I need you to know that this was two hours after I had a beer at dinner, and I was maybe a few more sips away from coming home with a public intoxication souvenir on my record. I was really trying to join a flash mob or facilitate a coups of some sort by the time we got up to continue walking.

I wanted Henry to take a picture of my nails but he took this in such a way that I look like I’m sniffing my fingertips?! So I made him take another but I wanted to try and cross my eyes in it:

“Were my eyes crossed??!!” I cried after he took this.

“Um, no,” Henry said, turning his phone to me so I could see.

“Oh shit OK HEAR ME OUT that’s because I was looking to the side to see if I could see myself crossing my eyes,” I said and Henry was like, “omg.”

I was definitely cut off after that. I just don’t drink very often so when I do, I’m an disaster waiting to happen. We were walking way too close to the river, if you know what I mean.

Then we walked to Firecakes, a donut place we’ve been to before while visiting Chicago. What a concept: a donut shop that’s opened until 11pm. Another thing that Pgh would never. Here you’re lucky if any bakery is opened until 2 and even then god speed if you there hoping for a full selection lol.

Anyway, it’s a very small storefront and I was trying to get a picture when some douchebag walked in along with his brigade of dick-friends and sucked all the air out of the space with their aggressive brand of toxic masculinity. As we were about to leave, the caboose of the cocktrain opened the door, which I stupidly thought was a gesture of chivalry, but instead he leaned out the door and called out to his BUDDY, “Hey Rob you want a donut??” Rob said no and then the asshole LET THE DOOR CLOSE ON ME.

“WOW! What a DOUCHEBAG!” I cried. “He totally let the door close on me! I should have stepped on his fucking Peter Pan shoes.”

He was always inside Firecakes but ROB WAS STILL STANDING THERE so I made sure he heard. Report back to your little buddy, brosef!

“Peter Pan shoes?” Henry repeated.

Yeah, you know. Those dicky leather dress shoes that are elongated and come to a point?! That’s what he was wearing. What a yuppie.

Henry got a chocolate covered banana cake donut which was basically just a donut with thin chocolate banana slices on top. I was like, “ugh you chose poorly” but then I tasted it and it was wettest-in-the-best-way donut I have ever had. So moist and delicious! I couldn’t believe it. Mine was just ok in comparison – a pistachio old fashioned which I had the last night but there was nothing else that stood out to me.

Anyway, I liked Henry’s idiot donut so much that I was just talking about it again this morning. You know what it tasted like??? Those hostess powered donuts without the powder and if they were made with better ingredients and you got to eat them that day.

But yeah, Firecakes. Try it sometime but don’t be a Peter Pan-Dick and shut the door on people, ok?

5:12pm: Holy shit this drive is boring. 1:49 left.

I’m still really giddy about this new holiday. Should I trademark it??!! I don’t want to say too much about it yet because ONE OF YOU PEOPLE MIGHT STEAL IT.

I wish I had counted how many times Henry has called me a dick this weekend. I’m starting to get a complex.

Lol @ “starting.”

I’m posting this now. Maybe I’ll be back later to say more. Who can be sure.