The Surprise

                             Friday, twenty-sixth day of May, another day of the camp. As every day, breakfast was to be served at eight o'clock. However, the five of us could not bothered by that – yet again we overslept “a little bit” and slept in a little bit longer. At ten to eight, one of us looked at his phone and, slightly surprised, began to wake us up. We got ourselves together, probably because nobody wanted to explain themselves and do squats (ten for every minute of being late). We knew what would happen if we were late because it has already happened once. Although we only had ten minutes, we did not run in pyjamas or with messy hair. We got there – we barely managed to make it but at least we were not the last ones. During breakfast, we learned that a surprise awaited us. However, we would find out what it was only after our classes. The classes were over, and we were supposed to pack. To take our green chokers and backpacks for snacks prepared by the cooks, that is a couple of sandwiches, a candy bar and some water. We went all excited to the bus; in the meantime, we learned that we were going to the TwinPigs, a wild west-themed amusement park. You should have seen our faces, when we learned about the attractions there: roller coasters, the space booster and the haunted house. We only hoped that it would not be the attractions for young children, that the roller coasters would not be short and slow without any sharp turns. We were not disappointed; we immediately saw a great reproduction of the town: the map, shops, a saloon, a theatre and prison are just some of the places to visit. We were very lucky when we arrived as there was to be a show at the market square very soon. After an introduction speech by the instructor, we rushed to the roller coasters and the space booster, delighted with the town. Walking through the town, we finally came to the attractions. First, we were going to visit the haunted house which was the girls’ nightmare. We mixed up with the girls and split into two groups. Of course, the girls were screaming and squeaking as we were walking through the haunted house. Being the first of the group, I kept saying, like the other guys, that it was not that terrible, but I got slightly scared. When we were already in the middle of the corridor, the wall suddenly began to move, I was a bit scared but I did not show it. However, the best reactions of everyone could be seen at the very end. You could already see the light, you wanted to run to your friends and boast about your experience when suddenly the skeleton moved. The girls’ screaming – just priceless. Later, we went to the spinning tables with a couch... in wine barrels! A great attraction! You could make the carousels move even faster by turning the round table with your hands. This helped you move quite fast and made you nauseous as well. The space booster, or the “hammer” as it is called in Polish, was next – it was one of the best, if not THE best attraction of all. I, for one, used it three times; the biggest fans from our group spent much more time there. The space booster can be compared to a hammer that we use to hammer a nail. When we hit the nail, the force is exerted on the nail and the nail exerts the force back to us. This rule is confirmed by Newton’s third law, amongst others. So, back to the topic, imagine we sit in the space booster, the entire thing makes a half-circle and it spins after each hit and at the beginning of the swing. All that was happening quite high above the ground; combined with the hammer force, it was a bit too much for some people. We decided to get some lunch in between visiting the attractions. After we ate, we went to a show at the market square which was our starting point. The way there was not too long and we memorised it well. However, there were bird’s-eye view maps showing the entire park for those who were less perceptive. There were a lot of things during the show; mainly it was a Wild West gun and lasso show. One of the girls from our camp could experience it first-hand when she had to run away from a skilful cowboy. After an interesting and funny show, we decided to buy some souvenirs and continue exploring the attractions at the park. And so we went to the Ferris wheel. In Polish, it is called the “devil’s wheel” but it was not as scary as the name would imply. It was slow, we had a chance to talk and look around the neighbourhood. This is when we saw the movie theater many people told us about, so when we got off, we decided to go there. We did not regret it; to be honest, this was probably one of the attractions I visited most frequently (apart from the space booster). The lines were the only drawback but they weren’t long all the time. A couple of times, we came in at the right moment. There were two movie theatres in the amusement park that played different movies. One of the movies was about exploring a mine while sitting in a mine cart that was moving on the tracks. Boring? Not at all! Because it was not your ordinary movie theatre – the chairs were moving and the loudspeakers and lights were positioned in such a way that we could feel as if we were actually sitting in that mine cart. There were sharp turns and great special effects. Snakes were the main ones. At the end, a huuuuge snake devoured the entire mine cart and us – my ears hurt from people’s screams. During the next show that we saw in the other movie theater, we were sitting in a car with our friends (pigs) and racing with another car. I found that movie more boring than the first one; however, I was totally flabbergasted by the special effects. For example, as we were driving through a wheat field we felt every single spike of wheat; when we drove through the water, we felt water splash on our faces. It felt incredible! There was also a playground there with something similar to a zip line – in my opinion, this was the best place in the entire playground. The slide was quite long and the speed was not bad either, although I prefer faster rides. There was also a petting zoo, Indians who taught people how to shoot a bow, many games and plays for teams as well as some for individual players. After we had visited practically the entire park, we realised that we had completely forgotten about the roller coaster. Even though we agreed at the beginning that it would be the very first attraction we would visit. Time was flying so fast that we didn’t even think about it. The rollercoaster was nice but it was clear that it was addressed mainly to younger kids and they were the main clients. As we were walking towards the meeting place, we couldn’t believe that so much time had passed. We went back to our rooms with big smiles on our faces and a lot of memories; we took some rest and were ready to enjoy the remaining part of this great camp!