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Here’s to the next 10 years, and thank you for being a part of it!
Simba
Statistics: Posted by Simba — Fri May 14, 2021 5:47 am
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Once we were in the park, I got to fan-boy over seeing a lifesize Lego Tardis at 10:15, if you know me in real life you will know that I have built my own lifesize Dalek, and I always like to see Doctor Who proudly on display.
We then walked to the Knights Kingdom, and joined the queue for The Dragon, we waited about forty five minutes to an hour, and during that time it broke down three times, on the third and final time they had to evacuate the train and the queue line.
At this point, as we didn’t feel particularly happy with the crowd level, we opted for an early lunch in Pizza Pasta to avoid the lunch rush hour. This was a very good choice just over £36 later for the three of us, and a bit of a Pokémon Go gym war with the lighthouse gym which we won, we left for our first ride of the day.
We started to queue for Mia’s Riding Adventure, where after waiting for about 25 minutes, we had another shutdown and queue evac, thankfully this time we were told to say the hosts name, and explain the shutdown situation to use the reserve and ride system to fast track ourselves onto a couple of rides, and were finally able to get onto the first ride of the day which was the iconic Legoland Express, this season running with no water jets, which makes me really happy as I don’t enjoy getting wet on any ride.
By the time we got off the Legoland Express, Mia’s Riding Adventure had finished testing, and had reopened, I was able to get two rides almost back to back on it. It is a very good and solid addition, and probably one of the more thrilling rides at the park since I last went, still sour over the removal of the Jungle Coaster in 2009.
We then headed back to Knights Kingdom, were this time I was successfully able to get onto The Dragon twice, once via the reserve and ride and once by the main queue line. Overall operations for the Dragon were fairly decent, but I am wondering how much longer the park can keep running it with the increasing reliability issues, that it seems to be plagued with. Today on both of my rides I was lucky to have got double back row, before today I had never had a back row ride on it, so to get it twice was very fun and I really enjoyed being pulled over the two main drops.
After having a Blue Raspberry Slush, and my parents having a hot drink, we headed round to the Duplo Dino Coaster, to get the new cred. At this point my parents went round Miniland, while I waited for 45 minutes for brand new for 2020 rollercoaster, this was by far the most awkward part of the day, waiting for the kiddie coaster completely on my own.
After 45 minutes, it was now time for the experience of a lifetime, my first ride on the world’s first Duplo Dino Coaster
, I was very lucky to get a back row ride for my first ride on this iconic new coaster to open in 2020. The ride starts with a curved tyre driven lifthill, and then you enter this rides main drop. I was actually surprised at the speed that the Dino Coaster reached, after this point you hit the banked turn round, around a unique piece of Duplo Dinosaur theming, do a slightly banked* s-bend back into the Station, and then around for a second lap.Duplo Dino Coaster is a much needed part of the line up, for Legoland. It is the perfect coaster to build up nervous younglings, to the next step coaster of the Dragon’s Apprentice and then onto the Dragon. As an adult, I personally would not wait longer than about 5 to 15 minutes if I was to re-ride it, and feel like I would like to experience it when I have a family of my own.
After this, my parents had decided that they were finished with the day, so we then headed back to the car, and headed home.
Final thoughts; overall it was a very good day at Legoland, social distancing on the rides were very good, but the park did feel like it have some bottlenecks of overcrowding, and people not respecting the stay to the left hand side of the pathways.
Statistics: Posted by Simba — Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:51 pm
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Morning was spent with yet more tours of the research departments within the uni. I opted for the Catalytic Chemistry and something about wine (Can’t remember name of actual department and forgot to note it down).
Catalytic Chemistry department was very interesting as involved a researcher going about her daily lab activities, just as if she didn’t have us watching over her. For the chemists amongst us, she was working on a redox reaction producing an NHC catalyst that day which I got to watch being produced.
The wine talk that followed wasn’t as interesting and involved the lead researcher just talking about their numerous gas chromatography machines without really showing us anything. Would have happily stayed in the catalytic department for longer, rather than this section.
Over lunch, I spotted another wild lizard and actually got a photo this time! (Is very well camouflaged to the paving slabs)
After lunch was the official closing ceremony of the ISWZ week. This involved numerous Thank You speeches off the organisers and the giving out of attendance certificates to everyone:
(Feel this is a good place to leave the official website of ISWZ. Feel free to have a look for any additional details I may have missed: https://eventos.unizar.es/19400/detail/ ... agoza.html)
Since the closing ceremony was relatively brief, we were left with most of the afternoon free. I joined the group heading back to the city centre towards the Basilica de Nuestra Senora del Pilar. Although we visited the cathedral itself on the city centre walking tour, we didn’t have time to go up the tower so took our chance now:
Afterwards, we all headed back to the residence in order to pack for leaving the next day. I took my chance for a final swim in the pool. Unsure if have previously posted photos of the pool here but shall post these ones I took that evening anyway:
Up next: Roman remains and more creds! (aka the whole reason you guys read these reports…)
Statistics: Posted by Thekingin64 — Sun Feb 10, 2019 6:05 pm
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WARNING – Photo Heavy
Had early start to this day as had long coach journey to the Pyrenees to enjoy. As the coach approached the Pyrenees, we passed through some fantastic scenery which only got better as the journey went on.
Once in Canfranc, the coach dropped us off outside the railway station and we walked the short distance to the offices of the Laboratorio Subterraneo Canfranc (LSC). This is an underground laboratory based in an old railway tunnel linking Spain and France and focuses on detection and analysis of cosmic rays.
(Canfranc railway station, shall come back to this later as it has quite the history)
After a short briefing in the LSC offices, it was back to the coach to enter the lab. Health and safety meant we had to wear high vis jackets for this section.
Walking back to the coach, I got some more photos of the station. For those of you wondering why it is such a huge building for a tiny town in the middle of the Pyrenees, the station was built as a massive cross-border transport hub between France and Spain. Due to the different track gauges used by France and Spain, all trains passing through Canfranc had to be transhipped between rolling stock. This caused the need to have a massive station here in order to deal with the logistics involved. Unfortunately, the station never saw the intended passenger levels and didn’t survive that long with the link to France severed after a bridge on the French side collapsed and was never rebuilt. I believe the station has seen more visitors now as a semi-derelict tourist attraction than it ever did as an operating railway station! (All this explained in more detail here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canfranc_ ... ay_station) The closure of the railway tunnel which this French line would have passed through is now where the LSC is located!
The main vehicular and visitor entrance to the LSC was through the adjacent cross-border road tunnel. This meant leaving the coach while still inside the tunnel, unique experience for me as have never had to get out into a road tunnel!
To avoid pollution from entering the clean environment within the LSC, we had to enter via a massive sci-fi style airlock: (Photos not great quality for a while due to phone not liking the underground lighting)
(group photo taken within airlock)
(within the old railway tunnel, looking towards France)
(within the old railway tunnel, looking towards Spain)
(photo of me taking a photo!)
(group photo entering the lab itself)
(Map of lab in relation to adjacent road and rail tunnels)
The lab itself. Can’t remember what most of the equipment does though.
(Van parked in area between road and rail tunnels)
Various group photos were taken within the lab itself:
Overall, it was a very interesting place and am glad I was able to visit. As what they were doing there was more Physics than anything, the topics of research didn’t particularly interest me but the location did.
On leaving, the coach had to leave via the French portal so had a very brief visit to France!
Lunch was had in a restaurant in central Canfranc so took the opportunity to take more shots of the station and surrounding areas. Since that day I was wearing my Icon jumper, I’m fairly sure a photo exists of me leaning against the station railings, clearly showing the Icon logo on my back. Wish I had saved a copy of it as now can’t find it.
(attempt at selfie with station building)
After lunch, it was back on the coach to head further into the Pyrenees. This ended at a site around 800m directly above the LSC for a Geology talk. This meant we were right on the actual French border and the coach actually parked in France!
(Bad attempt of selfie with France border sign)
(Group photo with France border sign)
(old border crossing buildings)
(better attempt at selfie with Spain border sign)
(Group photo of Geology talk)
Geology talk was initially interesting but was long so I got bored and wandered off to take more photos. Did see a wild lizard during the talk but was unable to get a photo.
(the piece of rock the talk was about)
(The “interesting” cliff face again)
Only when we were getting back on the coach did anyone notice there had been a branch stuck to the roof of the coach all day!
The drive back to Zaragoza involved stops at numerous beauty spots so many more photos were taken!
This next rock formation was again supposedly geologically interesting and apparently very popular with rock climbers. Looks nice but I missed most of the talk on it as was bursting for the loo since there wasn’t any public loos all afternoon and the heat meant I was drinking a lot of water. Luckily, found a small cave tucked away from the group and the road. Leaving that cave was probably the most relieved I’ve ever felt! Could actually enjoy the rest of the trip home!
(Map explaining the geological sites of interest nearby. Believe this rock face is the bottom most one (Murillo de Gallego))
After this stop, the coach headed straight back to Zaragoza, allowing most of the group to prepare for the “elaborate bar crawl” that is the €2 tapas + beer offers that most Zaragoza city centre bars put on of a Thursday Evening. All bars were packed but was worth it for the authentic experience of Spanish Tapas and culture. The evening showed the informal nature of the whole ISWZ week as not only did one of the organisers join us for the evening, he even bought rounds for us and we bought him rounds! Was only the local lager (Ambar) as part of the €2 offer but was enjoyable enough to drink, especially for someone like me who doesn’t usually like lager.
This ended up being a late night and I broke from the group soon around 1am to get a taxi back to the residence.
Day 10 and the end of ISWZ coming soon!
Statistics: Posted by Thekingin64 — Thu Feb 07, 2019 10:38 pm
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Day started with a tour of the Catalytic Chemistry section of the university which involved a short interactive quiz on some chemistry basics. Being a Chemistry student at a uni specialising in Catalytic Chemistry, this quiz was easy for me and I guided my team to an easy victory! On the way out, I spied a research wall poster had referenced one of my lecturers!
This was followed up by a tour of the Environmental Chemistry department. While certain areas of Environmental Chemistrry can be interesting to me, this was literally just a Geology talk about various rocks found in the local area. While enthusiastic, the woman giving the talk wasn’t exactly interesting and I tuned out to most of the talk. Still took some photos of some of the rocks on show though:
Lunch break followed and I joined the group breaking off from the main group in order to get an ice cream from a local café. Can’t remember the flavour or name of the ice cream parlour we went to, I just remember it being lovely.
(Entrance into university campus)
After lunch, there was a highly interesting talk from someone who had been on a research trip to Antarctica. This involved details into the Neutrino-based science performed as well as details of daily life on Antarctica. All very interesting and makes me want to go!
This talk took up the whole afternoon so there were no timetabled activities afterwards so me and most of the group travelled out to the out-of-town shopping centre. Usually, I wouldn’t be interested in a shopping trip of this style but prior research led me to know that a cred existed there! This shopping centre was all mostly outdoors centred around a man-made lake. Was all very nice and much nicer than any shopping centre I’ve been to in the UK.
(Group photo around unicorn thing)
As everyone had different plans and different shops they wanted to visit, the group split up the arrangements to meet up again after an hour or so. This meant I took my chance to go cred running! The coaster was located with an indoor FEC within the leisure/food court area of the centre and took me a while to find. Once in, the place was dead and I had to ask a member of staff to open the coaster for me. Didn’t take any photos myself so RCDB photos will suffice here:
https://rcdb.com/11037.htm
Coaster was very average as anticipated but was worth riding, especially since my tall stature made it especially interesting with how close the ride gets to the roof! Also, I had to congratulate the staff member who opened the ride for me since she tried her best to tell me the health and safety instructions in English but apologised for her bad English. In my opinion, her English was fantastic, I understood everything and was miles better than my Spanish ever will be!
After cred running, I had a look around the rest of the centre and found there was a family of ducklings living in the lake! I also discovered (at the time) Toys R Us was still open after all British stores had shut. Of course, this meant I went in and had a look around.
(New Jumanji film playing on some of the instore TVs in one of the shops, even now still haven’t seen that film)
(Spanish Children’s version of the Ticket to Ride board game! Love the standard version and didn’t realise till then a children’s version existed! Have since seen a similar Childrens version for sale in UK with American map rather than the European map here)
After the group met back up, 9 of us decided to head back into the city centre for food. This led to over an hour and a half of faff as we tried to find a restaurant that would fit all 9 of us and everyone liked! It was gone 9pm once we found somewhere, by which point half the group had left to head back to the residence themselves! Although at the time I was only happy to finally get food, the restaurant was lovely.
This unplanned faff did allow for some more photos of city centre to be taken though:
(This café is relatively famous for being the central location for a film based in and films around Zaragoza. Film is Our Lovers and is available on Netflix if anyone is interested (all in Spanish but subtitled)
After food, I headed straight back to the residence and got an early night for a long day the next day.
(Although I didn’t realise at the time, it was that evening a very good friend of mine got engaged and decided on me as best man! Did get a call but I’d missed it and didn’t want to call back in case of any roaming charges. Was told first thing when I next saw him in person though! (Wedding not till this upcoming August))
Next up: Pyrenees excursion!
Statistics: Posted by Thekingin64 — Thu Feb 07, 2019 8:57 pm
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Statistics: Posted by Eclipse — Tue Jan 08, 2019 12:26 pm
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Statistics: Posted by Dalek Sec — Thu Jan 03, 2019 10:49 pm
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My travel exploits last year have left me with a good selection to choose from this year!
Statistics: Posted by Thekingin64 — Thu Jan 03, 2019 10:44 pm
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I nominate: Wicker Man (Alton Towers) and Icon (Blackpool Pleasure Beach)
The winner and runner-up from the last Coaster Of The Year tournement which was held in 2016 have been automatically re-entered: The Smiler (Alton Towers) - COTY2016 Winner and Steel Dragon 2000 (Nagashima Spa Land) - COTY2016 Runner up.
Statistics: Posted by Simba — Thu Jan 03, 2019 10:39 pm
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(Disclaimer: This trip was almost 6 months ago now. Any “facts” I state from here on in will be worth double checking elsewhere before quoting to anyone)
Day started with visit to Aljaferia Palace in Zaragoza city centre. Can’t remember any exact dates but place was initially built when this are of Spain was under Muslim occupation and has been extended numerous times over the years.
(group photo outside the front)
Almost had a potential issue on entrance to the palace. As I was planning to finish the picnic food from the night before that evening, I borrowed a butter knife from the breakfast bar just so I had something to spread butter with that evening. This meant I had an actual knife on me walking through metal detectors….. Luckily they didn’t pick it up and day continued normally. (Knife stayed in bag all day and was returned to breakfast bar without any issues. With all the knife crime issues around, although it was only a butter knife, it still felt wrong to have this knife in my bag all day…)
The organisers of ISWZ had organised a guided tour of the palace which started in the Muslim-built section. Was all very nicely built with the same architecture stylings expected from Muslim-built buildings of the era with a lot of marble in arches and flooring.
(Wooden floor section used to be a swimming pool. Covered over permanently for health and safety reasons)
(Girl in Ed Sheeran shirt is Irish and goes to uni in Galway. Quite lucky I don’t know the lyrics to that certain song…)
(Small Mosque area within palace)
(Well within palace. Path shown was secret pathway but can’t remember significance)
Built above the Muslim section of the palace is the Christian-Built section, built after Muslim rule ended. Was purposely built on top of Muslim section in show of power over old Muslim rulers. Architecture now very similar to the manor houses in the UK with some very intricate ceilings.
(Picture of picture of design on ceilings beams in previous photo, did try for a zoomed in shot of roof but came out terribly)
Back downstairs, there was a small museum area full of parts of the building they were unable to restore in situ.
(View back across courtyard to the swimming pool/mosque area shown earlier, quite clearly showing more modern Christian palace directly above Muslim palace)
Only half the palace is open to the public usually as the building is still used as the local seat of government and holds the parliament chamber for the Aragon area of Spain. This means there are quite a few government buildings towards the back of the palace closed off to the public and the high security mentioned earlier. We were allowed into the parliament chamber briefly though:
Next up was a guided walking tour of the city centre. Tour started a short walk away from Aljaferia palace so took some photos on route:
Tour started outside this tower.
(Can’t remember significance but think it was part of original city walls. Possibly dates from Muslim occupation of area)
(Statue of Julius Ceasar. Initial foundations for Zaragoza date from Roman times and wall in left of photo is one of few remnants of original roman city walls. On right is central market of Zaragoza, under renovation at time of visit)
(Better photo of central market)
(Group photo! I’m stood behind Tour guide in Ipswich shirt, quite a few group shots were taken that day)
(One of many churches in Zaragoza (Chuch of Saint Isabel of Portugal according to Google Maps. Believe this one is significant as some sort of miracle supposedly happened here, is the end of an Easter parade celebrating this miracle. Think it was something to do with Mary appearing to someone but unsure)
(Local dog jumped into nearby fountain. Wouldn’t have minded joining it in the Spanish heat that day…)
Tour moved on through the city centre to the main cathedral in the city (Basilica de Nuestra Senora del Pilar). This place was huge and had some fantastic detailing inside. Highly recommend a visit to anyone in the area. Unfortunately, there were no photos allowed inside so only got outside shots:
(Another group photo)
Tour moved on towards the other cathedral in the city. Believe Zaragoza is the only city with 2 Catholic Cathedrals consecrated by the Pope!
(Nearby clock tower, in direction of other cathedral)
(another church style building in opposite direction, not sure what it actually was)
(City Hall)
(Goya statue (Famous artist who lived and worked in Zaragoza))
(Clock tower again)
(Can’t remember name of this building but all around the top of it are various small statues representative of all people and trades living and working in Zaragoza at the time. This doesn’t show in the photo but all statues are facing forward out from the building except one. This statue is said to the local prostitute at the time....)
(Can’t remember when during the tour this group photo was taken so inserting it here. I wonder where I am in this photo, not exactly clear
)Just around the corner from the statue building was this horse statue. Built in honour of a photographer who apparently worked this spot every day for ~70 years. Apparently, he was known for using a horse model to keep the attention of the children in the photo, hence the horse statue:
(Group photo around the statue)
Tour continued round to the 2nd Cathedral. Like Aljaferia, believe this has had a complex history of religions with both Muslims and Christians building and using this building as a place of worship. This means a lot of architectural influences from both cultures are evident on the building. Think this time it was initially Christian then Muslim before back to Christian but unsure. Unfortunately couldn’t go in due to time constraints and refurbishment work:
(close up of clock tower shown earlier)
(Some of the Muslim design influences on the building)
(Transition between both architectural styles on this tower)
This was the official end of the guided tour but on way back through the city centre, we passed this fountain. There is additional significance to it but is designed to look like South America.
(Basilica de Nuestra Senora del Pilar again from a different angle)
Took a tram over to the 2nd campus of the uni for lunch and an afternoon tour of the research facilities there. Interestingly (for the train geeks on here), the trams here run off both overhead wires and batteries. Wires on the outskirts of the city and runs off the batteries in the city centre. Certainly saves any planning permission issues with the wires running through the historic city centre.
The research lab tours involved viewing the Transmission Electron Microscopes (TEM) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) facilities on site. Both machines are used to help image molecules to view their molecular properties. Being a chemist interested in Spectroscopy and Microscopy techniques, this was interesting to me but did get tiring and had a bit of information overload, especially after the 2 guided tours that morning!
(The outside of the TEM)
(Inside the TEM with the researcher head in the way)
(SEM)
Once tours were over for the day, I headed back to the residence and took my chance for a brief swim in the pool. As mentioned earlier, I finished the picnic food I had for an evening meal and successfully returned the knife without any issues.
Day 8 and more uni tours coming soon (+ a cred!)
(In case I never get round to finishing writing this, I have uploaded and organised all the photos from this trip to Imgur. Link is below, let me know if it doesn’t work: https://thekingin64.imgur.com/)
Statistics: Posted by Thekingin64 — Sun Dec 30, 2018 6:56 pm
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