28th May 2011.
Today started off well enough. We had gone downstairs for breakfast by about 8 am and had bacon and scrambled eggs, which was quite good. Only a little thing or two had happened before. Nikhil managed to break the shower. After asking me how the hell to turn it on and all, and me saying “Lift the knob above the tap and keep it lifted. Then open the water flow...” and what-not, he ended up not being able to “keep it lifted”. Also, after the bath, he asks, “So, you guys know any way to drain the tub 'automatically'?” and we're like, “Well, you just lift the lid of the drain and let it drain. Don't tell me you were holding the lid up throughout the time it was draining!!” Also, Rudy thought he'd just charge his batteries since they were discharged in the morning, and while we went to his room to get the connector (since the plugpoints in the US arent compatible with the Indian appliances' plugs), Nikhil disappeared. We searched for him a bit, and then decided to just carry on to breakfast and that we'd probably find him there. All the while from Rudy's room, I took a video of the entire room plus lobby with carpeting etc.
Post breakfast with sir and ANYDream, we had a little trouble finding the point from which we'd be taken to Seaworld – a water based theme park on International Drive, near our hotel. Rudy and me had worn shorts underneath our jeans, just in case we went swimming. It later turned out that we didn't get wet, but ya. After managing to ask around a bit and find our way, we were given these blue bands to tie around our wrist for entry to the place.
We reached there at about 10, and till 11 or 1130, we were put through this long boring presentation about IBM's century of inventions and everything. From punch cards, to online real-time airline bookings, to Deep Blue beating Kasparov, these two guys took us through an hour or more of boring IBM-campaigning. This was however where we first got to see Petr. Also, the UIUC Indians (Arindam Saha, Indian IOI 07 team) and Rohan Sharma (Nadeem said he was IOITC 09) joined in with Nadeem and all. I noticed that Rohan looked familiar, and my initial instinct was that he was Arindam since I told myself I must've seen pictures of Arindam and all. However, it then struck me: Rohan Sharma was my junior in NPS! I later told Nadeem, “You told me he was IOITC 09 – couldn't you tell me he was from my school ?!!”
Then, after the boring talk, we had a dolphin show. Brilliant dolphin tricks where the trainers were like conducting them in a dance and feeding them and all. It was brilliant, hilarious and it also touched a cord with us: Dolphins really are most amazing creatures. Man's best water-friend indeed.
I managed to take like three videos because I didn't want to miss the sound and the entire conducting-response thing of the dolphins, while Rudy managed to get some stills of them jumping in the air. One of the videos has come to 1.08 GB even. It turns out that the show there is quite a crowd-puller, as when we exited the stadium, there was this looong queue that had built up.
The organizers had given us these 'Seaworld-dollars' – 20 a head, and told us that it'll manage our lunch and a little. The first ride we went to after the dolphin show, was this tower show, costing $4. Its basically this rotating saucer which has windows around so that you get the view of the whole place as it keeps ascending to a height of 300 feet.
We visited a number of exhibits, from sharks, to penguins, to aquariums. We saw birds and heard seals, some feeding and some flying, kids pointing and kids crying. One set of birds, were standing so still, that Rudy thought they were just dummies, statues placed there for some scenic beauty, until he noticed one of them blinking their eyes. The pictures would really tell a better story of the entire journey (http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150653686680721.680718.758800720 i think). There was another point wherein this one girl was just staring at this octopus.
Our lot reached it, clicked it, and she was still staring at it. It was half as if she was thinking, “Oh these people! Coming and disturbing the poor sleeping creatures.” Just as we were about to leave, the octopus spread its legs out and started swimming toward the window, straight at her. It opened its mouth, and posed for her, and only then did she bring out her own camera and click it. All I was left with is a blurred side-view of the scene, but it was an interesting incident of supposed communication between the girl and the octopus.
After (nearly) all the visits of the exhibits, we decided we'd go on the Kraken roller-coaster. Supposedly one of the longer coasters you'd find, our interest was piqued and 5 of us (Nadeem opted out) moved on to the Kraken. It was tough. The corkscrews particularly screwed me, while the long fall down, had Nikhil scared away. After the first fall, my legs went snapped straight (due to either gravity or centrifugal/centripetal forces), and after that, I could not tell which way was up, which was down, and whether my legs should be straight or bent. Once or twice, I felt like they were gonna snap at the knees and fly off on a projectile through the air, landing on someone's head, or in some deep ditch never to be found. Another time I thought my leg got stuck in something of the coaster, but on the whole it went off alright. In fact, it ended a bit too quickly for my expectation, and the whole lot of us decided we'd go for a second round. Later on in the photos, we found that Yash had his eyes tight shut (in fact, he was the only was that wasn't even visible in the photos). The second time was smooth. We (me, Rudy, and Nikhil) got the second row this time, and I concentrated on looking at the rails 5 metres ahead of the first row so that I could get an idea of what was to come before it actually did. The corkscrews still screwed me though.
After having the wind knocked out of us, Nikhil suggested Beer, to which I readily agreed. When Nadeem asked Nikhil, “Are you breathing?” after the second round, he aptly replied, “I am still not breathing.” We went to the counter to get ourselves two beers, and happily didn't notice that there was a queue. Nikhil had this weird idea that in India, queues are made 'horizontally' (i.e. People stand sideways and move through the queue), whereas abroad its 'vertical'. In any case, when we reached the counter for our order, I asked for “Two Beer” and the lady at the counter was like, “What kind?” and I didn't know anything said, “Any kind” (this deserves an enactment, because the exact voice modulation involved is rather different from what is being portrayed in text). She had to point at the options, before Nikhil was like, “Bud!” The Budweisers there were chilled. Really really chilled, and really good. It atleast tasted like we were drinking beer, not some drink or something.
Immediately after beer we went for lunch, which turned out to be cheaper than we expected. We went for a combo of four 6 inch pizzas, 4 cold drinks, and one large fries for $26.99 and since we thought four small pizzas couldn't fill three people, we added a salad to it. It later turned out that even that was quite too much. We ended up wasting about a quarter of a pizza atleast in the end. We spoke about our prospects in the tournament, about Rudy's inspiration from Bhargav in 1st year IMOTC, and how we have been in (or out) of form recently.
After getting up from lunch, me and Nadeem still had a few Seaworld-dollars on us: I had ten, and he had five, and we needed to get rid of them and all. I had forgotten to take my bag from where we were sitting but luckily the girl who was nearby to help clean up the place and all, she returned it while we were leaving itself, so I was lucky.
In the end, I went and got a stuffed dolphin and managed to use up the remaining $15 of the coupons. After that, we finally went to the stingray exhibit where we got to touch their fins and all before leaving back for the hotel at 430 pm. After reaching back, me and Nikhil crashed.
With much difficulty and prodding from Rudy, we finally managed to get up just ten minutes before the end of dinner. Most of the icecream was gone, but we managed to get ourselves a slice of pizza each.
After the dinner, Nikhil went up to sleep while Rudy and I went to the IBM Chill Zone. People there were playing foozball, giant chess, badminton, or just hanging around sitting on round air-filled ball-seats. Petr was on a table-of-three playing this “Age of Storms” game. Rudy kept regretting not getting his camera with him for that perfect opportunity to click Petr. The two of us did get to play a few games of Foosball. It was Rudy's first time on it, but all in all, it didn't go off too bad. I was attacking and he was defending, through all the games that we played. We also met two guys from the Univ of Maryland team. One Indian guy and a Scott chap. After watching two games of chess etc, we finally decided to get back.
On the way back, the piano was free, and I couldn't resist having a go on it. However, I couldn't get the right control of the volume (it was this K Kawai piano, so for piano-enthusiasts who can tell the difference, well yeah...), and that bit was kinda frustrating. I played Moonlight Sonata, Fur Elise, Amelie, lil Dance of Death, lil Fade to Black, lil Canon, lil Free Bird, lil Sound of Silence, got photographed a bit, had some guys watch, and also Vallath Nandakumar (the Amritapuri Regional Director) came over when I was playing 'Puff! The Magic Dragon' to ask which song cuz it was familiar and all. Incidentally, when Petr was passing by, I was playing a combination of Twinkle Twinkle and Mary had a Little Lamb and Row Row Row Your Boat :P.
So far, thats it.
Gotta go sleep now.
Been typing this for the past more-than-an-hour I think.
Edit: Not dolphins, Killer Whales.
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