Groteslurf

Last week, not even a week had passed since I returned from our 14 days Usa coastertrip, they asked me at work whether I was prepared to attend a meeting somewhere near Moscow. As all flights for returning on Wednesday were full, I would only return on Thursday meaning I would have a full day to explore Moscow. So I said yes and my visa was arranged by speed procedure, hotels were booked and flights were booked. Below my Moscow story. Picture point. Part 2 to follow Paris ? Kings Island ? Kings Dominion ? No Gorky park. Kiddie fly flat ride. Kiddie train BEER ! Midway Sbno Break dance. Very popular to watch aswell. Full ride. Next attraction. Russians love coasters. This was the first line I saw in the park I have a request to Mr Coasterfanatics : can you please add the Gorky Park coasters on your site ? I want those credits on my account badly My first credit of the day. A themed restaurant. Russians must love to shoot, as there were about 7 or 8 shooting attractions. Isn't that the strangest thing you've ever seen ? Another simulator. No rule bumpcars. Gorky Park midway. Karting track. Bumpboats. It looks old. Probably because it is old. More theming. Food and drinkstalls. Swinging flatride with palmtree theming. Ferriswheel. Isn't that nice ? At the other side of the park, you have a view on the Moskva river. Time to forget the toilets. The toilets in the park. Unfortunately I had to do nr 1 and I had a close encounter with the dirtiest toilet I've ever seen, by FAR ! For nr 2, you could get some old newspaper sheets from the toilet lady. Yes really ! The lady was nice enough to offer me a wet paper to clean my hands but I had icky hands the rest of the afternoon. Also sbno. As said it's a nice place to be. The train was still on the track though. Another Sbno coaster. You had to pay per attraction in the park so I didn't do all rides. No idea what this attraction was but it didn't really look inviting. Sbno ? No way, they were still in operation. Simulator attraction. Doesn't that look nice ? BEER !! (hey Hans ) Wheelchairs need to go on tracks like that on all stairs in Moscow. It's quite a nice park. First attraction : electric cars. Souvenir shop. Entrance to Gorky Park costed 80 Rub, being approx 3 usd. Entrance to Gorky Park. Quick shot of a statue I noticed to the left. But the coaster next to it was running Ah, a looping coaster, Sbno it turned out later. Yes !!! My first mission was Gorky Park. It was a 30 minutes walk before I arrived at this bridge. Behind this bridge, I should find back Gorky Park. At 2 pm I was on my own again and finally had time to explore Moscow. But first a word about the traffic lights. While light is still red, drivers start proceeding already on the crossroad. Don't ask me why because once the light pops to green, they are not able to see the green light anymore and they slow down everything. Anyway, this is common use in Moscow and can be seen at every traffic light. Where in the world don't they have Heineken. Six Flags, euh I mean Ikea. Next morning we concluded the meeting and contract with the client so it was time to head back to Moscow. As you can see, highways only have a line in between with the opposite traffic. And this at +100 mph speeds. Crazy, just crazy. Nearly dark. When I saw this one, I knew it wouldn't be a good idea to propose a Blair Witch project night walk to my colleagues. Soccer on tv and stuffed animals. The resort used to be visited by the russian presidents in the past when they went hunting. In the lounge of the restaurant you could find back some of the animals they've shot. (at the wall. The 2 in the front are my Russian colleagues) Thanks to my racepilot colleague, we arrived at the agreed time for the meeting. Meeting passed on well but would be continued on Wednesday morning. So we stayed in a beautiful hotel nearby. This was the view on the Volga river from my roomterrace. Another McDonaldski. One of the better house along the road. My colleague turned out to be a racechampion 20 years ago (no joke) and as we got delayed by getting out of Moscow, he speeded up once out of the city to be in time for the meeting. Here he was just going to race through those 2 trucks. He went on zigzagging through traffic at speeds of approx 100 mph and more, while speedlimit was at points only 40 mph. We also 'took' some trucks by driving over the shoulder of the road. Crazy ? For sure but most of the drivers in Russia seem to have been racepilots in a previous life. Really, everybody was driving this way. McDonaldski. A lot of cars look like this. Also, approx 10 % of the cars still has their spike tyres on from last winter. Clear again. Yes, donkeys ! A lot is being built in Moscow. Next morning it was time to go to the client with 2 russian colleagues of mine. As the meeting was some 100 miles north of Moscow, I had time to shoot some pics from the car. We were not even driving 2 minutes before I saw this car parked on the right lane of the road. It was no exception at all. I saw hundreds of those. I was tired so decided to eat in the hotel at the panorama bar on the 23th floor. Similar views as from my room. Clear. No problem The ministry of foreign affairs is in this building next to where my hotel was. Very convenient I thought to orientate myself to find back my way to the hotel. Later I found out that Stalin has built 7 of those more or less identical buildings in Moscow. The traffic in front of the hotel. This went on day and night. Moscow has by far the craziest drivers I've ever seen. But much more about that later. My room was on the 19th floor, so the view was pretty nice. Enough stuff to shower 8 times. The bathroom. There was an additional toilet + bathroom and hall of which I didn't take pics. The sleeping room. Only at 5 pm I arrived at my hotel in the centre of Moscow. They've put me in a junior suite so I had more than space enough in my room. Here the living room. I love to be in those lounges : free food, drinks, internet, newspapers in a relaxed atmosphere. Monday morning I was already early at Brussels airport. Since I had business class tickets, I had access to the lounge.

Virginia Plain - Roxy Music

Kashmir - Led Zep

Message in a bottle - the Police

Rush Hour 3 : 7/10 Entertaining but not really my cup of tea.

Don't worry, it isn't weird at all. I would be surprised if anybody will notice you don't have any kids with you.

Of all the coasters I rode during our trip in the USA, I find Superman at SFA the most disappointing ride.

Summary : We drove 2364 miles & visited 13 different parks. I got 110 new credits including my 200th credit (Chang) and 300th credit (Griffon). We only rerode the coasters we really liked so we ended up at 151 coasterrides in total, 221 inversions, 88 miles of track and about 16500 seconds of coasterriding.

5/30 : Six Flags America Last park of our tour. We only had a few hours in this park as our flight was scheduled at 5 pm. Crowds were very light so we didn't even have to get a flash pass. Shaky, pointless helixes, no airtime on the first hills. Unfortunately it was a disappointment. We expected a lot of this. Batwing : I liked this one better than the one at KI. A lot of steel. Joker's Jinx : best ride in the park. I heard gp's say that it's an excellent ride. I don't agree. Roar : an impressive woodie. Wild One : good woodie except at the point where the track gets straight again after the turn around. Two Face : closed Entrance

5/29 Busch Gardens Europe I expected a lot of this park and BGE was great. Final shot. Sinking ? Apollo's Chariot : the flat part near the water after the second hill is awesome. Some more Griffon ^ Interlocking goodness. It's great on front row because of the 'hanging'. But it's GREAT on backrow. This gimmick is SO great although you don't notice it on the ride. This was btw my 300th credit. Griffon : my favorite ride at BGE ^ ^ Great B&M invert. Alpengeist : the long first drop is great. Wow ! Darkastle. I didn't know they had a 'Spiderman' attraction at BGE. I adore that type of attraction although I must say I preferred Spiderman over Darkastle. Big Bad Wolf : another Arrow I love. I wonder what the forces would be if that last drop would not be trimmed. I loved this Arrow. Those interlocking loops are looking great. Inside it gets hot though. This a an amazing waterride.

HP resort guests can enter the park 1 hour earlier. Also if you arrive the day before, you can enter HP for free as from 3 hours before closing time if you buy your ticket for the next day at the booth. This is intesting as HP empties out quickly during the last operating hours. No such things at BGE and as said here above, some parts of the park are not open as from the beginning.

Having visited both parks only recently, I can say I loved both. HP has more rides including Great Bear, Stormrunner & Fahrenheit of which we did not manage to ride the last one on opening day BGE has 'only' 5 coasters but they are all 5 excellent ones. Also the landscaping at BGE is really amazing so I tend to say, go for BGE.

Girlfriend in a coma - The Smiths

All I need - Radiohead

Yes, actually it's better weather (20°C and mostly sunny) over there right now then here at home (rain and 15°C). Rcdb is no real help for finding the exact location of the parks.

Well, exactly 1 week ago I was still flying home from our 14 days of coasters in the Usa. Yesterday my boss surpised me by asking whether I wanted to attend a meeting next week in Moscow. I don't know why, but I said yes. So Monday morning I'll be flying to Moscow. The meeting is finished Wednesday at noon but as all returnflights were fully booked for Wednesday, I'm only flying back on Thursday late afternoon, so I'll have a good 24 hours to explore Moscow. My hotel is at walking distance of the Kremlin and the Red Square. I've looked on rcdb.com and google earth and found out that there are some credits to get over there aswell. But it all not very clear to me. I think Gorky Park is quite near to were I stay but it is all not really clear. Google Earth shows Gorky Park and Luna Park next to each other while on rcdb there is about 5 miles in between. Also Sokolniki Park is mentioned on rcbd but can't find that back on google earth. Also I can't find back the websites of the parks. Anybody has any info about all this ? Btw, is anybody interested in a TR when I'm back ?

Everytime you go away - Paul Young

Rain, rain, rain, ...

If it happens again - UB40

Since I got back, it has been kind of hectic so I didn't have time yet to post my pics and comments of the last 2 parks. I will have time though during the weekend most probably. For the moment, I just want to say the following : I'm glad that I'm back with my wife and daughters but .... DAMN, I miss the daily coasterrides, the food and drinks (where the hell can I buy Mountain Dew Diet out here ?) and what I miss the most, the cruise control driving in the US. It was my intention to use the cruise control on my car more here on the local roads but since I'm back I haven't been able to use it for one second.

You win again - Hot Chocolate

Take a bow - Muse

Thanks for the report. We visited KD exactly 1 week ago. Avalanche was also running only 1 train that day and in fact only opened at approx 2 pm. Further, at the trim section mid course, the trained was trimmed to a complete stop When returning into the station I looked around to see how many additional trains they have but I didn't see any additional trains. Do they indeed only have 1 train for Avalanche ? Also strange was that they were closing the waterpark at 3 pm already. Just when the weather was getting nice.

You can find a few in our TR (first page). Unfortunately, all from the same angle.

A tip on the waiting rows : we experienced that while the park was really packed during the day, the park empties out as from 2 hours before closing time. During the last hour we were able to get rides on Great Bear, Stormrunner (3 rides) and the Boomerang.