I am not an amuse­ment, theme park kind of gal. They dont do more for me than a fancy mall does — ooh, lovely..thats cute…that costs what?…I think we saw that already…lets go home, aka. com­mer­cial sheep in a pan sur­rounded by greedy wolves. Or like the scene in Finding Nemo where the deep water fish is swing­ing its adorned with light tail to bring the heroes close enough to eat them. But most of all in a world full of  count­less vari­ety of authen­tic expe­ri­ences, spend­ing my time in a fake pro­mo­tional world and giv­ing my money to giant cor­po­ra­tions is not on my list of things I pre­fer doing.

And yet, when my „shoe crit­i­ciz­ing” Host was adamant I had to go to Universal Studios, I just had to, I so had to he was pre­pared to pay for it him­self, I buck­led and agreed to give it a go.

We entered through the Citywalk. A pre­tend city within a city.

This is where don­key ended up:

Its bet­ter than the swamp, I guess…or not.

First we went to the Studio Tour.

You jump on a lit­tle cart wagon with open sides and then starts the tour through the studio.

This was shortly after the fires there and here is a shot of the dam­age down bellow:

We passed some well known vehi­cles.
I some­how doubt that this is an orig­i­nal, but just call me a skep­tic and move on.

Some spe­cial effects with incom­ing cars.

Dr Seuss anybody?

Desperate Housewives were not accessible.

Sets. This was some­thing from some movie, but I can­not remem­ber what.
Anybody?

This was a tiny set we passed though.
I found this inter­est­ing as it really showed some of the ways you can do quite impres­sive spe­cial effects.
The ship was about the length

of my arm.

My favorite were the wild west sets.

Here is one of the spe­cial things you can see while on tour:

Looks all fun and dandy…

And then its not anymore.

Again, one year later I can­not remem­ber the com­men­tary,
but they did say that this set has been used for a few famous flood­ing scenes

There was a plas­tic shark flung at us, in honor of Jaws.
There was an explod­ing truck in an „under­ground” sub­way.
And a few other things.

Then after some walk­ing around we waited a bit to see the Waterworld attraction.

It was a quick per­for­mance with impres­sive jumps, explo­sions and spe­cial effects.

Like the crash­ing in airplane:

But I had a feel­ing some­thing else was cap­tur­ing the atten­tion of pro­por­tion of the public.

Something much less technical.

The orga­niz­ers knew it too, hence the almost non exis­tent skirt and hug­ging top.

We went into the Backdraft pyrotech­nics bonanza.
Following the doors and rails we went through a few pre­sen­ta­tions,
cul­mi­nat­ing in the last hall where we wit­nessed the big fire and wob­bly floor.

We didnt go on any rides, as they were not suit­able for preg­nant spec­i­mens like me, or so it said.

The Jurassic Park didnt exclude me offi­cially, so we lined up.

Just before we got on the ride, a woman comes to me and informs me
that its not a good idea to go on as there is a 25m (84foot) drop at the end of the line.
I look at the cart, look at the padded metal secu­rity straps (which can go above my belly)
and thank her for her con­cern, but I will be fine. She moves away.

Then another per­son comes to warn me, maybe because they are not sure I am com­pre­hend­ing or some­thing.
I assure them that I under­stand what they are say­ing, but I will be fine.

The ride is not that excit­ing at all…until the end.
I was pre­pared, belly under­neath, arms and feet braced…

SWOOOSH, a big olé drop, where your gut hits the inside of your throat! Hahaha.
And you end up in the water.

That WAS fun. And get­ting wet in the sunny hot day was even better.

And no, dont do that at home fel­low preg­nant women

And that was that.
Back up the esca­la­tor and into the world.

Did I hate it?

No.

Would I do it again?

No.

I am still not an amuse­ment, theme park kind of gal.

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