Oh. My. God. Really, those are the only three words that can adequately express today. As I mentioned, I had promised the kids that we'd go to Isla Magica & Aqua Park, a combo amusement and aqua park. Why you ask, would I promise such a thing? Because the kids are always telling me they "never get to go" to cool amusement parks. That's sort of true. We've been to Disneyland once when Ava was probably 4, and Lucia might have been a bit older than 2. The younger kids have never been. We did go to a park in Germany a couple of years ago, and that felt less crazy than Disneyland and I felt like it gave me a pass for at least a couple of years to NOT do any amusement parks. What I didn't realize is that John would be going to San Diego without me before we left for Spain, and that he would take the kids to Lego Land. If I had known that, I would never had cemented the water park promise into a written itinerary book. Dumb me. Hard to back out when it's actually in print. It really is my least favorite thing to do.
So to do this experience justice, I have to explain first that it's hot outside, over 90 degrees, and we don't get started until 11:30 a.m. or so, and by then the "cool morning" has worn off. The place is a MADhouse. Literally. The amusement park portion had lines for rides that had to be an hour long. Can you imagine waiting in the heat for a ride...FOR AN HOUR? No, you can't, it's insane. It didn't take the kids long to realize that they weren't down with it either. We shifted from the amusement park side to the water park side, which had less lines surprisingly. Who are those people waiting in a line for an hour? I don't get it.
But here's what I'll say. NEVER in all my life have I been somewhere with that many teens. It was like they rounded up all the middle schoolers and high schoolers within a 50 mile radius and dumped them into this man made island. I'm not even exaggerating one little bit. There were no adults, and I'm not joking. The only "adults' were the super young people taking tickets and selling chips. It was literally a man made island, of only kids--it was Lord of the Flies, total experiment of what kids will do when totally unsupervised. I could walk a solid 5 minutes in a throng of kids and not see one adult, security guard or otherwise. If they revolted and decided to claim the island for themselves, I'd be toast. As it was, I was largely invisible, as adults are in a sea of teens.
So how did I survive you ask? Well, I basically sat for hours, protecting everyone's crap heaped at my feet, and I read my book "An American Marriage", and I took a mental Xanax (because I physically didn't have any). I slowed myself down, forced myself to go all "chill" and zen, despite the crazy mayhem I was sitting in. I got real Yoda, real fast. I had to dig deep. I had to lean in. I'm still amazed I survived truthfully.
Eventually the kids got tired of the water slides (and I include John when I say "kids") and we finally got to leave. It was like being let out of jail. I would have been jubilant except it took awhile to get my mental Xanax out of my system....the kids kept asking if I was "ok".
We made it home and had Italian for dinner (Romeo's choice) and since it's our last night in Spain until we end up in northern Spain in 10 days (San Sebastian) I had Paella. I was too tired and traumatized from the day to care too much, but it wasn't horrible, that much I know. The walk there was beautiful (that's all the pretty pictures) and the light was magical. Tomorrow we pack up again and head to Cascais, Portugal. It feels like we just packed up a minute ago. Maybe we could have used longer stays, it just flies by so quickly. I'm a little nervous because Ava is complaining she feels like throwing up....she's dramatic though, and she did eat a huge plate of rich pasta carbonara. That probably would make anyone feel sick. Fingers crossed she's all good tomorrow.
Signed, ME {lv}
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