First, the bad part (since that was what happened first.) Had to get up at 6:30 in the morning and rush to eat half of a microwaved Italian sub from Subway for breakfast, finding that they are much better freshly toasted than they are never-toasted and then microwaved. Wasn't bad or anything, just nothing compared to an actually-toasted one when it's still warm and the cheese has melted really well. But anyway, got that done and rushed out to find... that I was pretty much early and they hadn't even started to fill up the vans yet. And it was raining, so I had to rush back to my room and get my umbrella. Ended up getting stuck on a van with very few people I knew (and none I really know very well), so for the most part the drive over there was pretty miserable. Once I got there I found that at least it wasn't raining anymore... until it suddenly started raining. After I had left my umbrella in the van, and had walked far enough off from it that going back would've been annoying (even ignoring the fact that I wouldn't have been able to unlock the van to get in anyway.) So I bought a random blue poncho from the first gift shop I found, after sitting in line miserable for a while, and then got started wandering around by myself since (as always) everyone else rushed off and formed little groups that left me behind.
It actually wasn't bad after that point, even though I was pretty much on my own the whole time. I wandered around for a bit not really being too interested by anything until eventually I stumbled across an Eurasian eagle owl that was hanging out on a girl's hand (with a special claw-proof glove, of course.) Apparently seeing huge birds is a good way to improve a day, because standing there watching this bird look around, turn her head around 180 degrees, and flap her wings a little (making huge blasts of wind, more than the fan that was behind her) turned my mood around pretty well and I ended up staying there for a while. I found out that these owls have about 3 inches of feathers all over them; you can actually stick a finger into them and it will be almost completely covered in feathers. They also only weigh about 6 pounds. So basically, owls are all fluff.
After that, I also saw some lemurs (which were just sitting on a ledge to stay out of the rain, not really moving around a lot), a macaw (who no speaka English--the only thing she says clearly was "hello," and she didn't even want to say that while I was there... though one of the smaller green birds a short distance away did), and a very large and cuddly iguana. Several times she licked the face of the girl who was holding her, and she didn't seem to mind being petted at all (even on her shedding patches, which were flaking off in big chunks of lizard dandruff when I was there.) After that I did a lot of wandering around, and eventually ended up riding the Rhine River Cruise (a boat ride down a semi-artificial river they've built into the park), during which I found out that during the grand opening of one of the roller coasters (Apollo's Chariot, I think) Fabio got hit in the face by a goose. Also ate a churro (which were being sold in... New France aka Canada, of all places) for the first time ever (it was really good, I'll probably eat more the next time I can find some) and won a giant Jamaican banana by breaking a couple of plates with baseballs.
Unfortunately, that meant I had to carry that giant banana around with me all day... but it turned out pretty good regardless (though my arms did get a bit tired.) Since it was raining, I even gave him his own poncho made of trash bags. After getting the banana, I also rode one of the sky-lines (little cabs on wires that carry people from one side of the park to the other) between the Germany and England areas, and then walked around some more.
Around that time I noticed I was getting pretty hungry, so I went off to go get lunch. Ended up eating at an Italian restaurant (in the Italy area of the park, for obvious reasons), where I got a sandwich (with salami, ham, turkey, some veggies and cheese on foccacia bread), cheese sticks, and a Coke. The sandwich came with some sort of pasta salad stuff, which was actually pretty good--I'll have to try pasta salad again sometime if I can find some that isn't saturated with disgusting mayonnaise. This stuff seemed to have oil and vinegar on it instead, and had rotini pasta, onions, peppers, celery, some carrots, cucumbers (which, oddly enough, actually didn't taste bad--they may have been a different kind of cucumber or something... or maybe they were actually zucchini?), and a few black olives. Despite being cold pasta (which generally seems like a weird idea to me) it was actually really good, and I ended up scarfing down all of it. Of course, the sandwich and cheese sticks were also good, though the cheese sticks' cheese wasn't melty enough in the middle. Oh well, they still tasted good.
After eating and some more wandering, I rode the Flying Machine (which was a ride that spins around and goes up in the air a lot; pictured above. I got a bit freaked-out when it got going fast enough.) Bumped into a few people; first, one of the chaperone-type guys and one of his kids, who I found was only about as tall as my Jamaican banana (...that's a big banana, it's as tall as or taller than people's kids!) Sometime after that, I ended up meeting a couple of girls I knew who had also come on the trip, and I watched their stuff for them while they went on one of the roller coasters; they didn't want to pay a dollar just to keep their stuff in a locker for just the time it took to ride something once, so they needed somebody to make sure nothing got stolen. Between me and the Jamaican banana watching over the stuff from the tree behind it, nobody dared to grab anyone's stuff, and after a while they came back for a bit before leaving (because the people they rode there with--they didn't get on the big shuttle vans the school had provided--were heading back to school soon.) Around that time, the rain finally stopped, and I wandered around a little more. Found that my 3DS had gotten a street pass from some random person during the day at Busch Gardens, which turned out to be a guy who had made his Mii look like Link (complete with hat.) Rode the spinning teacup ride, during which a couple of girls were randomly singing "I'm a little teapot" and freaked out when they saw the giant Jamaican banana. After that point I stopped wearing my poncho, since it wasn't raining anymore; bumped into some more people from the school (a handful of them were riding the Mach Tower, which spins you upward slowly and then drops you down really fast for a few seconds before slowing down again) and did more random wandering before buying an ice cream cone which came with hot fudge, several whole brownies, a bunch of peanuts and walnuts, and whipped cream. Needless to say, that was really good, though a bit messy as the hot fudge was all along the inside of the cone and so some of the ice cream kept melting out from the sides as I ate away the cone's edges. All throughout the day random people commented on the Jamaican banana I was carrying; I heard a lot of people say something about a big/giant banana, and a few others mention that it was Jamaican or Rastafarian (yep, it had the hat and dreadlocks and everything.) One guy called it "Bob Marley Banana," and one time I walked right past a black guy who actually had dreadlocks (who just did a double-take as I passed by him and then laughed.) Later, after I had bumped into a few more girls from school and rode the carousel, the lady running that ride suggested that I make a video of the banana singing a reggae song and upload it to Youtube. XD
After a bit more wandering, and playing a soccer goal-kicking game which won me a stuffed duck, I just happened to bump into the same two girls from the teacup ride again. They immediately recognized me... or at least the banana; I was just walking by one of the shelter-ish areas when one of them yelled out "JAMAICAN BANANA!" We ended up talking for a little bit and... one of the two girls randomly asked me for my number, like almost immediately after I came over there. There was more talking, goofing off with the banana (one of the girls would not let go of the thing; at one point she even looked like she was about to fall asleep on it), and eventually I ended up walking back out toward the exit with them (still talking.) The girl who had grabbed the banana and didn't seem to want to give it up finally did when carrying it made it hard for her to walk very well (she had a hurt foot, so that was hard even without carrying that huge thing), and then we walked through about half of the park to get back to the entrance, talking about all sorts of random stuff along the way. Apparently one of the two girls had just recently moved out here to Virginia (from Texas, if I remember right?) and was living in the Hampton area, and the reason she had randomly asked for my number was because she doesn't know many people out here yet. She's also apparently bipolar to some degree and taking meds for it. It's kind of funny how I know so many people on medication of one kind or another, it's like people who have to take pills just sort of gravitate toward me or something. But yeah, I'm glad I bumped into them, since I really needed someone to talk to and the walk out of the park ended up being a lot more fun than I thought leaving a place would be (lots of banana-related silliness, including people being hit by that huge thing... heh.) The drive back in the vans wasn't nearly as awful as the drive to the place was, and the trip even seemed shorter when heading back home--probably because I wasn't miserable, and instead was joking about the adventures of the banana (I may actually end up using the giant Jamaican banana in a game or something later, though I don't think I'll have any way of slipping it into my currently-started games) and just talking to people the whole way back. I was actually kind of surprised when I found we were only 45-50 minutes away from home--it didn't seem like it had already been more than two hours since we left Busch Gardens at all.
Overall, I'd have to say it was a really good trip, and I am actually glad I went after all.
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