"S" is for Shamu

Well, this was the first REAL week of summer, since I wasn’t dragged to school with my parents. On Tuesday, we went to Sea world. First we went on Steel Eel, which was a large yellow roller coaster made of a course of ups and downs, moving like an eel, as you can probably guess from the name. Then, we proceeded to the penguin exhibit, which was refreshingly cool… but smelly. It was a slow walkway with a vast odiferous view of penguins swimming, diving, sleeping, and just chilling out on the ice.

Next up was THE GREAT WHITE! I was practically hysterical at the thought of being upside down and was NOT comforted by my parents suppressing giggles, with unmistakable smirks on their faces. HMPH! They probably wouldn’t have been laughing when they were handing over gigantic checks for my therapy. I was still hyperventilating as the attendant came to check my seatbelt. She asked, ‘’ Are you sure you want to do this?’’ I was crying as I nodded my head. I was determined to do it. I had seen a churro stand with-OH!-WARM churros, and I thought, Hey, if this ride doesn’t kill me, I can have THOSE! But when the ride began to move, my last wish was to have my feet on the ground where they belonged. As the ride began to speed up and threaten the first upside down part, I buried my head in my shirt, gripped the hand rails so tight my fingers turned red, and closed my eyes. We turned, and I screamed so loudly I was sure people in Australia were cocking their heads and saying, “Huh, what’s that faint screaming sound?” Unbelievably, my parents were right, but once I began to think, This is actually pretty fun, and I began to ponder what in the world I was screaming about, because I couldn’t even tell when we were upside down, the ride was over.

Then we had to rush over to see Shamu do his show. He opened with a big flip and then went into a show of dancing, leaping, splashing, and flapped his tail at us, getting us soaked. Luckily, I had finished my foot-long churro.

After Shamu and his friends waved goodbye, we went on to Journey to Atlantis. We were boarded into a large boat, and after being strapped in, the boat progressed up a slow large climb. We were turned around backwards by a large circle, and went on a small bump. Then, we were flipped forwards and surveyed a spectacular view of the park, as well as a large drop that would carry us into a large lake. The boat lurched forwards, and we came to the bottom with a magnificent splash, which actually felt good in the scorching weather.

We scurried away to the beluga show, where an acrobat was splashing us with his stuffed dolphin and in turn, was getting splashed by large machines. Then 2 women in wetsuits came out, riding belugas, and the show began. The beluga gave kisses to people, and others showed amazing breath-holding skill. The man with the dolphin- let’s calls him John- managed several times to look like a klutz while splashing into water and not die. A woman dressed as a parrot came on- once on a hoop and another time on a cord, complete with parrots flying in circles and 2 dolphins doing tricks made the show complete.

Next we ran over to see the sea lion show, and we saw a baby sea lion. The sea lion show was a play about who was stealing the fish in the cannery. A detective sea lion and his helper were teamed up with a cook and his sea lion. A little otter was running around everywhere, and then the walrus came in. He was the culprit, and he was arguably the best character. When told, ‘’You should be ashamed of yourself!’’ He put a flipper on his

 head. Next, he blew a kiss, and then, when asked, ‘’What are you going to do to get off all the extra pounds you got from eating all those fish?’’ He put his flippers behind his head and started doing sit-ups! At the end

, the walrus blew another kiss, the sea lions waved and started dancing, and the little otter was so cute by waving wildly. After watching all these other animals be nice and cool, we went to the water park. We did the Castaway Cruise, where you just float around a course, my dad and I went to the water slides. We did them all, and then did Castaway Cruise one more time.

Then we headed over to the dolphins. We bought a tray of smelly fish and fed them. Next we saw the sharks and fish. Soon, it was time to leave. :,(.

By the way, have you ever wondered what it’s like to see the Nazca lines from a plane, but had to rely on my words to picture it? Or to watch baby turtles make efforts to get to the ocean and had to refer to pictures? Well, for those of you who still have the patience to listen to me; my blog is going on the big screen! Or, more accurately, the SMALL screen. My parents have set up a YouTube account, so if you click the link on the side, you can see a walrus blow a kiss or watch an orca flip over.