Coop
Flashlight Enthusiast
A great weekend, a chance to use my new Fenix L0P SE, a really nice Jack (nightmare before christmas) zip-hoodie and the day after I got home... I got the flu...
Anyway, as I'm sitting at home being sick and all, I'll just waste your time by posting my 'adventures' of the last few days...
on 11/11/2006, my girlfriend and me had a little something to celebrate. We have been together for 5 years, and still going strong. Each year we plan a little get away for our anniversary, but as this is our 5th anniversary, we wanted to do something a little more special, so we planned a 3 day trip to Disneyland Resort Paris.
We made our preparations on thursday, so that the only thing left to do on friday morning before leaving was eat breakfast and lock the door behind us. The inlaws would take care of the pets so at 6:45 in the morning we got in the car and started our 529 km trip to france. The journey went well and after 2 slight detours and almost a full tank of gas we arrived safely at our hotel just past 12. Not bad, 529 km in under 4.5 hours with less than 30 liters of fuel consumed. Anyway, we chose to stay at Hotel Cheyenne, which was the cheapest, but also had a nice western theme to it.
When making our reservations, we were told that we couldn't get into our room until 15:00 but when we got there, the nice lady at the reception told us that our room was ready, so that was a pleasant surprise. So we went to our room and got unpacked. We had a few sandwiches and went out to the themepark.
Absolutely amazing... It was so quiet in the park that even with popular rides like space mountain: mission 2 waiting times were almost non-existent. We had a great time and tried to get on as many of the rides we really wanted to go on, as waiting times were so short. We had a nice pizza dinner and after a short stop to freshen up at the hotelroom, we went out again to see a fireworks display. It was a nice show, and all the smoke really made me wish I had my greenie on me
But as usual, we were in the wrong place and a lot of ashes and glowing crap landed exactly where we were standing. We were planning on going out for a drink after the fireworks, but as we both got up pretty early we decided to call it a night, and returned to the hotel.
The next day we got up and went to the hotels restaurant for breakfast. Holy crap, where had all these people come from?? It was so quiet the day before. Anyway, breakfast was simple, but it was basically all you can eat, so even with the tiny french rolls I had enough to eat (I take a big breakfast, it's the most important meal of the day) After that we went out to the park again. We had a lot of fun on the rides, but waitingtimes were a bit longer. It didn't matter much, we had fun and wee in no hurry, as we already had gone on most of the rides the day before. We had a nice mexican-ish lunch (if you can call 3 chickenwings, 5 onionrings, 2 cheese-filled jalapenos and a handfull of nachos lunch) But it was nice to have some variety in choice of food in a themepark, here in the netherlands they usually don't get past the burgers and fries and sometimes the occasional pizza slice.
I also knew that there are 3 geocaches located in the park, so we went to look for those too (for more info on geocaching, see www.geocaching.com ). And we found all 3 of them. 2 were virtual caches, to which the solution can be found by keeping your eyes open during your visit, but the 3rd one was a bit harder. The description of the cache mentioned that there was a problem with GPS accuracy, to me that means that the cache is in a place with no GPS reception whatsoever. And I was right, my GPSr showed us to the entrance of a manmade cave. My girlfriend istantly sighed how are we going to find this thing in the dark, and instantly realized what she just said. Out came the L0P SE and 2 minutes later I came walking out of the cave with the cache in my hands. We found a quiet spot to put an entry in the log and then prepared for the hardest part... putting the cache back in its hidingplace without being seen. I went back into the cave prepared for some fancy stealth moves and the SF L4 ready to distract/blind any enem... uhmmm... Kids running around, but there was no one around so I could make a swift drop off and get out of there again
We wandered around the park a bit more and found us a nice spot to watch one of those famous disneyland parades.
After that, we went on one of our favorite rides again (pirates of the caribean) and afterwards we had dinner in the 'blue lagoon' restaurant, which is located inside the pirates of the caribean-ride. We had a simple but very tasty dinner and when we got outside again it was already dark. We had fastpass tickets to another one of our favorite rides, but couldn't reach it, as everything was blocked for the next parade. Well, this parade had floats with about a gazillion lights, so it was very pleasing to the flashaholic eye. Too bad my $100 point-and-shoot digicam doesn't cope too well with this kind of situation, so pretty much all pics of the parade were crap, but I did manage to get a decent pic of cinderellas castle at night. Still a bit blurry as I didn't have a tripod with me, but you'll get the idea.
After the parade was finished, we finally got to go on Buzz lightyears laser blast again (I only scored a level 3 with 50000 and change in points) But we had a lot of fun. After that, the park was about to close, so we went back to the hotel. While walking to the busstop, we did kind of wonder what those men and women in camouflage suits carrying machineguns were doing there, it kind of spoiled the disneyland magic, but IIRC the french police is a part of the army, so it could have been normal police. But machineguns at disneyland? hmmm...
After a good nigh of sleep we went out to the park again, this time because we were offered an arrangement to have breakfast there, while the park wasn't open to the regular public yet. After our breakfast (which was a bit more luxurious than that at the hotel) we had the opportunity to go on a few of the rides with very little waiting time, so we went on the last rides of our 'to do list' and went to visit a show. I never knew Mickey Mouse was such a gifted ice-skater... After that, we had lunch and we started on our journey back home. When we got home we were welcomed by our pet bunnies making a mess of our livingroom. After cleaning up, and the first decent meal in 3 days, we went to bed thinking we should do this again in another 5 years...
The next day, I got sick. At first I thought I ate something bad (that cheese-spread did smell a bit funky), but when I got awful muscle aches (besides crapping & barfing my guts out) I knew it... I got hit with the flu.... Oh well, at least I can read up on what I missed on CPF the past few days. And even though I still have massive muscle-aches in my legs, lower back and abs, the barfing has stopped, so thats a good sign...
Sorry to have tortured you with this story... I really needed to kill some time...
Anyway, as I'm sitting at home being sick and all, I'll just waste your time by posting my 'adventures' of the last few days...
on 11/11/2006, my girlfriend and me had a little something to celebrate. We have been together for 5 years, and still going strong. Each year we plan a little get away for our anniversary, but as this is our 5th anniversary, we wanted to do something a little more special, so we planned a 3 day trip to Disneyland Resort Paris.
We made our preparations on thursday, so that the only thing left to do on friday morning before leaving was eat breakfast and lock the door behind us. The inlaws would take care of the pets so at 6:45 in the morning we got in the car and started our 529 km trip to france. The journey went well and after 2 slight detours and almost a full tank of gas we arrived safely at our hotel just past 12. Not bad, 529 km in under 4.5 hours with less than 30 liters of fuel consumed. Anyway, we chose to stay at Hotel Cheyenne, which was the cheapest, but also had a nice western theme to it.
When making our reservations, we were told that we couldn't get into our room until 15:00 but when we got there, the nice lady at the reception told us that our room was ready, so that was a pleasant surprise. So we went to our room and got unpacked. We had a few sandwiches and went out to the themepark.
Absolutely amazing... It was so quiet in the park that even with popular rides like space mountain: mission 2 waiting times were almost non-existent. We had a great time and tried to get on as many of the rides we really wanted to go on, as waiting times were so short. We had a nice pizza dinner and after a short stop to freshen up at the hotelroom, we went out again to see a fireworks display. It was a nice show, and all the smoke really made me wish I had my greenie on me
But as usual, we were in the wrong place and a lot of ashes and glowing crap landed exactly where we were standing. We were planning on going out for a drink after the fireworks, but as we both got up pretty early we decided to call it a night, and returned to the hotel. The next day we got up and went to the hotels restaurant for breakfast. Holy crap, where had all these people come from?? It was so quiet the day before. Anyway, breakfast was simple, but it was basically all you can eat, so even with the tiny french rolls I had enough to eat (I take a big breakfast, it's the most important meal of the day
) After that we went out to the park again. We had a lot of fun on the rides, but waitingtimes were a bit longer. It didn't matter much, we had fun and wee in no hurry, as we already had gone on most of the rides the day before. We had a nice mexican-ish lunch (if you can call 3 chickenwings, 5 onionrings, 2 cheese-filled jalapenos and a handfull of nachos lunch) But it was nice to have some variety in choice of food in a themepark, here in the netherlands they usually don't get past the burgers and fries and sometimes the occasional pizza slice. I also knew that there are 3 geocaches located in the park, so we went to look for those too (for more info on geocaching, see www.geocaching.com ). And we found all 3 of them. 2 were virtual caches, to which the solution can be found by keeping your eyes open during your visit, but the 3rd one was a bit harder. The description of the cache mentioned that there was a problem with GPS accuracy, to me that means that the cache is in a place with no GPS reception whatsoever. And I was right, my GPSr showed us to the entrance of a manmade cave. My girlfriend istantly sighed how are we going to find this thing in the dark, and instantly realized what she just said. Out came the L0P SE and 2 minutes later I came walking out of the cave with the cache in my hands. We found a quiet spot to put an entry in the log and then prepared for the hardest part... putting the cache back in its hidingplace without being seen. I went back into the cave prepared for some fancy stealth moves and the SF L4 ready to distract/blind any enem... uhmmm... Kids running around, but there was no one around so I could make a swift drop off and get out of there again
We wandered around the park a bit more and found us a nice spot to watch one of those famous disneyland parades.
After that, we went on one of our favorite rides again (pirates of the caribean) and afterwards we had dinner in the 'blue lagoon' restaurant, which is located inside the pirates of the caribean-ride. We had a simple but very tasty dinner and when we got outside again it was already dark. We had fastpass tickets to another one of our favorite rides, but couldn't reach it, as everything was blocked for the next parade. Well, this parade had floats with about a gazillion lights, so it was very pleasing to the flashaholic eye. Too bad my $100 point-and-shoot digicam doesn't cope too well with this kind of situation, so pretty much all pics of the parade were crap, but I did manage to get a decent pic of cinderellas castle at night. Still a bit blurry as I didn't have a tripod with me, but you'll get the idea.
After the parade was finished, we finally got to go on Buzz lightyears laser blast again (I only scored a level 3 with 50000 and change in points) But we had a lot of fun. After that, the park was about to close, so we went back to the hotel. While walking to the busstop, we did kind of wonder what those men and women in camouflage suits carrying machineguns were doing there, it kind of spoiled the disneyland magic, but IIRC the french police is a part of the army, so it could have been normal police. But machineguns at disneyland? hmmm...
After a good nigh of sleep we went out to the park again, this time because we were offered an arrangement to have breakfast there, while the park wasn't open to the regular public yet. After our breakfast (which was a bit more luxurious than that at the hotel) we had the opportunity to go on a few of the rides with very little waiting time, so we went on the last rides of our 'to do list' and went to visit a show. I never knew Mickey Mouse was such a gifted ice-skater... After that, we had lunch and we started on our journey back home. When we got home we were welcomed by our pet bunnies making a mess of our livingroom. After cleaning up, and the first decent meal in 3 days, we went to bed thinking we should do this again in another 5 years...
The next day, I got sick. At first I thought I ate something bad (that cheese-spread did smell a bit funky), but when I got awful muscle aches (besides crapping & barfing my guts out) I knew it... I got hit with the flu.... Oh well, at least I can read up on what I missed on CPF the past few days. And even though I still have massive muscle-aches in my legs, lower back and abs, the barfing has stopped, so thats a good sign...
Sorry to have tortured you with this story... I really needed to kill some time...
:laughing:
