The Griffon

What is it that makes us deliberately and willfully stand in a queue for an hour in order to strap ourselves into a plastic and metal contraption that we know is going to be travelling faster than the human body was designed to go, is being controlled by a pimple-faced college drop-out with a bad sense of humour, and inevitably brings us back to where we started about 2 minutes later? Probably sheer stupidity and the desire to see our ashen faces on a 8" by 11" television monitor, screaming like girls.

This particular roller coaster ride is located in an amusement park called Busch Gardens - Europe in a town called Williamsburg, VA. It is hailed as the world's tallest, floorless, dive coaster. The ride is called The Griffon as it is supposed to swoop down and rise victoriously as an actual griffon may have done. While I am not going to argue the mythological accuracy of naming the ride as they did, I will tell you that it involves being suspended for about 6-7 seconds over a 90 degree drop, subsequently being released to drop down the 90 degree drop for about 75 meters, reaching a speed of 120 km/h and apparently allowing you to experience 4G's of gravitational pull.

Having said that though, it is an incredibly smooth ride and I did not need to change my underwear afterwards. Not everything is bigger and better in America, but they sure do know how to put an amusement park together.

The other personal highlight of my day was the haunted castle ride. Curse of DarKastle is a ride requiring 3-D glasses and nerves of steel. If you have ever been made to feel like a twit, and not for how ridiculous you look wearing 3-D glasses, but for ducking away from computer generated arrows and flying rubble from a castle wall being ripped open by who-knows-what kind of ear-piercingly loud, nerve-wreckingly scary monster, then you know what I am talking about.

And yes, I did scream like a girl, again!