CHAPTER 13- SIX FLAGS AND AN ADDITION TO OUR GANG

Well... sorry for taking forever to publish. Got too busy, thanks to the rigorousness of the UC Davis quarter. :( I am going to post the remaining parts of the blog within the next week, so that I can start chronicling and posting my experiences this time, in a new series of posts...

CHAPTER 13- SIX FLAGS AND AN ADDITION TO OUR GANG

Physically and mentally charged, we spent the rest of the holidays mostly in Davis. Christmas was rather quiet, taking into account what we expected, but then there were hardly any people in Davis as UCD was not functioning and Davis minus UCD seemed to leave only a few like us here. As the holidays were coming to an end, we decided we should go somewhere else and we decided we should pay Six Flags a visit.

Six flags is a theme park, with some of the most high-thrill roller-coasters in the world. Dwarak (hence referred to by his popular nickname D-dub) was also interested in coming and we rented a muscular SUV this time and the five of us, D-dub, MS, JD, JB and I started in the morning. We reached in an hour and there was no problem finding the place as we could see its really tall roller-coasters from miles away. We had done our homework and learned there were 4 high thrill rides and we decided we should do all the 4 first before going on the medium thrill ones. We realized how much of a flop our plan would be only after going there.

We went on the Medusa first, the longest rollercoaster there lasting close to 4 minutes and one of the longest in the world too. And it was really fast too, with so many twists and turns and 360s and inversions that at the end of it, I didn’t realize when I was travelling straight and when I was upside-down. At the end of the ride, I was as physically exhausted as a runner would be at the end of a marathon. And that was just one ride. We had three more equally if not more exhilarating rides according to our plan before we took a break. We knew it would not be possible.

We walked dazedly to the next ride. This was the Kong. It was a short-ride and its course was not half as scary as the Medusa. But it was easily the scariest rollercoaster I have ever been on. Purely because of psychological reasons. There was no cart and no track on this one, customary on all roller-coasters. There were individual chairs hanging out from a platform suspended in the air, with a thin wire. We were strapped onto these seats, which looked like wooden armchairs. Then the ride started and the platform on which our seats and consequently our lives were suspended, started moving. As it picked up speed and height, I realized how scary this was going to be the moment I looked down. I could see my legs dangling in mid-air a hundred metres above the ground, with nothing to break the fall if I were to slip out of my seat. On a normal ride, you wouldn’t get such a view of your dangling legs as there would be a floor to the cart you are sitting in. Also there would be plenty of people sitting by you, and if you were to crash and die, it might be a little comforting that you will have some company when you find your way to heaven/hell (personally I do not believe in the concept of heaven/hell, but it’s a useful concept to use in figure of speech…anyway that the topic for another blog post). It got scarier by the moment when my loosely hanging chair started twisting all 360 degrees at an enormous velocity and a great height above the ground. I closed my eyes shut and was actually thankful when the ride came to an end. I wouldn’t want to get on this again, if I can help it.

We were totally exhausted after this ride. We climbed down and couldn’t get ourselves to speak to each other for the next 5 minutes. Once we recovered, we decided that’s all we could do at a stretch and to give it a break and come back later for the other high thrill rides. We had some food and did a lot of the medium thrill rides which seemed totally lame to us after having gone on the Medusa and the Kong. So we never even gave the low thrill rides a second glance.

There were also penguins in the water section of the park. It was really nice to see hundreds of penguins all around us as we walked in the underground passage, where the penguins were housed in large glass enclosures around us. They looked really adorable and I added them to my long list of potential pets.

We then visited the underground aquarium where they had some ferocious sharks.

We then took some pics with Looney toons characters and then played around in the artificial snowland.

We then went to the animals section of the park and took some pics.

Finally when we had recovered enough, we went on the other high thrill ride, Vertical Velocity V2. This was supposed to be among the fastest rollercoasters in the world. It goes from 0-70 mph in 3 seconds, which is one hell of an acceleration when you start a ride. We found it really thrilling but not scary after having been on the Kong but disembarked from this one, totally exhausted. We knew we couldn’t do any more, even if there were any. Fortunately we had been on all the high thrill rides Six flags had to offer so we were satisfied, and so we wound up the day. We drove back and only then realized how much of a beating our bodies had taken. We were on the bed for the whole of the next day.

The end of the break was nearing and this was when there was one more addition to our gang. That was Varun. I had been in touch with this chap, for the last 6 months as he had been getting my opinion on various things once he had decided to come to UC Davis on the Global study program from SRM. He came from a mythical SRM campus at Ramapuram, whose existence most people aren’t aware of. (I still have my doubts, so Varun if you are reading this… is there an SRM University campus in Ramapuram or are you talking abt Easwari … expecting your comments :P). This chap had one scary profile attached to him (a 9.5+ GPA, a 1540+ GRE score etc and consequently admits at a couple of colleges by the time most of us hadn’t even started to apply to universities). His reputation preceded him and most of the others knew his heavy reputation before they knew him. He was also supposed to be one really good guitar player, making him a bit of an all-rounder. I had got to know him pretty well without having met up even once and he was one helluva computer graphics freak like I was, with the only difference that he had already learned most of the stuff I was learning.

I went over to meet him when he arrived in Davis and helped him check into his apartment. To show him around Davis, we took a walk from the apartment and which turned into a marathon as we walked at least 10 miles around Davis, braving the drizzling rain. I discovered that he was one amazing character, who always very instinctive and wouldn’t hesitate to call a spade a spade (As his new roommate and coincidentally our former roommate who moved out due to differences with us, found out). It was good to have such a person around.

He was a totally ironic person, who might act often unconfident, but is one of the most self-confident guys I have ever come across; act confident and that too with confidence even when not confident about something; act indifferent about something that may be very important to him on the inside; act sadistic to something though he may like it dearly; act unconcerned about a person he is very concerned about. He was one of the most complex people I have come across, but nonetheless a great friend who would unconditionally help out the people he cares for. (Note to Varun: The deviation in the last few sentences were just cos u asked me to blog about what I think of you, especially the criticism J). So he gelled in well with all of us. We also found out that he was also one amazing player of the guitar, when he played complex stuff like Hotel California, Sweet child of mine etc with amazing ease.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)