This was my last trip with Oakville choir. To be honest, I was a little anxious about going to Virginia. No offense, but the state of Virginia doesn’t make you want to leap out of your seat or widen your eyes with excitement. Last year’s trip was to New York, and I didn’t think anything could top it. I was wrong, though. Virginia was just as spectacular as New York. I think the reason behind this was because New York was amazing because it was New York. The city glamorized in all of the movies, the city of big dreams and bright lights. Virginia was special in its own way, because everyone made it that way. We made the most out of Virginia, and that made it uniquely spectacular.

We slept overnight Wednesday on a bus. This is normal for choir trips, and everyone kind of just deals with it. The first thing we did Thursday was go to the beach. We didn’t shower, didn’t sleep in a bed. We went straight to the beach. And it was awesome. The weather was great and there were a ton of little shops along the street that had some pretty cheap Virginia Beach merchandise. There was even a small little carnival area, complete with a ferris wheel and one of those slingshot rides. It looked kind of sketchy and creepy, and if it were nighttime it would be the perfect place to film a scene from Criminal Minds. But it was fun.

Thursday night we arrived to our hotel. I explored the hotel that night with some friends during what free time we had. By the end of the night, we were so tired I think I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow. When I woke up Friday morning for competition, we left all of the lights off so we could adjust as smoothly as possible. I managed to zombie walk my way to the vanity, and when I turned on that light and saw myself in the mirror, I was amazed. I looked like death. The dark circles under my eyes looked like bruises. Nonetheless, we all prepared for performance and when the time came, we did just fine. Even though a lot of us felt like complete crap and were dazed in a haze of dehydration and fatigue. It’s alright, we still got gold.

The best part if this trip was Saturday. We went to Colonial Williamsburg for only like two hours, and I was wildly cranky during the whole experience. I just wanted coffee. Ask Sarah Sax, she wanted to beat me up for complaining the whole time. Sorry, Sarah. But after that, we went to Busch Gardens. In the rain. Now it sounds like it would be terrible, but it was actually probably one of the best days of my life. I think the rain made the experience of the rollercoasters so much more epic. And besides, who doesn’t love a good rain poncho? Those are some pretty flattering articles of clothing. I generally hate amusement parks, but this time was the best. I was with Sarah for the most part, and we had some pretty great experiences on some of these rides. We rode front row on all of them, and it felt like we were getting shot in the face by raindrops. We were making fun of each other the whole time, as usual. Especially when Sarah sat front edge on a ride called the Alpengeist. All of the rainwater would run off the edge and hit the person sitting on the side, and Sarah ended up drenched. We kept talking about how awesome the ride was, and then Sarah would complain that she couldn’t see it. She actually called it the Glacier ride, because it was ‘so cold’ and ‘felt like a glacier’. I love you, Sarah. Don’t hate me for publishing this.

The second half of Busch Gardens I was with some other people. Noah Antle, Austin Lininger, Lea Wheeler, Ben Deru and I hit up the rest of the park after dinner. It was virtually empty now due to both the weather and the time. It was great. There were no lines and we went on as many rides as we wanted. I eventually got what was coming for me and ironically sat front edge on Alpengeist, and ended up probably more drenched than Sarah. My rain poncho had ripped open earlier and was just collecting rainwater at this point, and Ben kept yelling at me to “close the poncho!” during our ascent on the ride. Thankfully we got it closed, but I just soaked up the rainwater at that point. I think Noah said that was the funniest part of the ride or something like that. It probably was, I can only imagine what it looked like from their perspective. The five of us went on a rollercoaster called the Griffin twice in a row after that one. We decided on our second time around we would take a picture, and we would all smile at the camera. Turned out pretty well. I’ll see if I can attach it somehow. That captured the experience nicely. We finished by getting on my personal favorite ride. I have no idea what it was called. Everyone called it the Mine Train, because that’s the ride it reminded us of. It looked like it would be a kids ride, but it had this wow factor that made it the best. I won’t go into detail. You’d have to find it and ride it.

By the end of the night, I was really happy with this trip. If you can’t tell. I mean, after all, I wrote this big huge article on it. I highly doubt anyone will read it. That’s okay with me, I don’t really know what I’m doing anyway. I went to get quotes Monday in the choir anp, and Austin told me his favorite part of trip was “riding all the rides with you, Ben, Lea, and Noah in the rain” or something like that. Ben’s favorite part was him “freezing my face off on all the rides”. It really was fun. And for me to have genuine fun at an amusement park, it’s the real deal. This whole trip was the real deal, as lame as it sounds. I kind of wish it wasn’t over now, and that I could go back. I had a lot of fun with everyone. We made the best out of Virginia. I can’t think of a better place to spend my last choir trip, or better people to spend it with.