Futuroscope

Guess I should finally post this blog, since I spent all that time loading the pictures before the stupid website deleted everything I had typed up. For those who don't know the futuroscope is a french theme park... it's not like american ones, aka there's a few rides but it's mostly about having cool looking buildings and simulators. By simulators I mean there's a lot of IMAX shows and if you get lucky once in awhile your chair moves around a lot and you get water squirted in your eye. For people like me who get motion sick to shakey cam movies, it's not the best choice of a theme park. But as pictures of it have been in all of my textbooks I decided that I would be a bad french teacher if I didn't go. I'll put the captions above the pictures (Kailey).

Upon arrival to the Futuroscope you are greeted by two giant metal structures that move and dance to latin music. Yes all of the music is latin throughout the theme park. It's rather bizarre. My assumption is that french people probably don't hear latin music as often as we do in the States... so to them it must sound futuristic or something... I'm totally making this up as I go.

Welcome to the Futuroscope!

My reaction? "OMG it's that building I've seen in all my textbooks. I can't believe I'm here!!!"

Walking into the Futuroscope.

Haha... landslide!!!

Kiddie land!

More kiddie land, with giant shroom...

The flowers of the future, when humans have killed off all the plants... (this will probably have been my mother's doing).

Lawn chairs... oh french humor... (for those of you who still haven't gotten the joke... both the chairs and the slide are made out of grass/lawn).

Cool looking buildilng!

The building from my textbook, in a picture that makes it look WAY better than my textbook ever could. Love this picture.

See the water shooting out of the bridge, it's actually holding it up! How cool is that!? Now that's what I call futuristic!

How many of you were dumb enough to fall for that? They turn off the water in the winter people...

Cool building that reminded me of Oz. It looks great from the outside, inside it's filled with two giant IMAX screens, one in front of you, and one beneath you. You must all be thinking " But if it's beneath you how can you see it?".... well that's the scary part. The floor is located super high up above the IMAX that is beneath you, and it's made out of glass.. so the entire time your sitting there watching whales, and birds, and flying around god knows where, and your thinking "please don't let the floor break... please don't let the floor break".

Best birds ever... they dont squawk, fly, or try to steal your french hot dog buns (also known as baguette...) they just sit there and look cool. (Aka they're not real).

I was super excited to go into this building because it was titled something along the lines of "a trip to the moon". Because the whole theme park is full of simulators I thought for sure it would be an awesome trip to the moon. We got in, and it was a 3D movie about 3 flies that decide to sneak into the helmet's of the astronauts that go to the moon, and their fly moms and families are all freaking out... cute... but not what I wanted.

Yes... the building from my textbook again.. there wasn't anything super exciting in it actually... just an IMAX theater that played this show about Hurricane Katrina and the damage it did to the wild life there. Leave it to France to mix edcuation and theme parks.

The cool pond where the light show would take place later! See those hundreds of things sticking out of the water? They're all used later to create this really cool show.

View of the park from the ride that takes you up super high, turns you slowly in a circle and sets you gently back down again.

Looks like they're building more..

This ride was interesting... we walked in and watched this cool show that was made with water that fell in different shapes and lights that shown on the water to make all these cool images. We thought the show was over after that, but then we were led into another room. This time we got lucky and had moving seats. The french are so weird sometimes. There was a giant screen that played a movie about some dude that wakes up on a train and realizes he's slept through his stop... and of course he's getting married that day. He decideds to jump of the train (at which point your seats throw you forward and shoot a bunch of air in your face). He then runs into a forest and manages to find a magical tree that turns into this crazy looking tree dude that sneezes all over you (at which point they spray water all over your face). Somehow tree dude sends the groom on a river, and then into the middle of a race car race... where he races off the track (your seats are going crazy at this point) drives through the town and manages to crash just in front of the church where he is getting married. Fun ride.. but only the french would come up with something so bizare.

Dance with the Robots.. I still get sick when I think of this ride. It's the closest thing they have to a roller coaster in the park (or at least that I got to see). Essentially they strap you in to this machine, and some lady comes over and says " Level 3?" At that point you know level 3 must be bad.. so you start to tell her you'd really prefer level 2 or maybe level 1. Of course at this point in the conversation my friend Krissy starts saying " NO LEVEL 3 WE WANT LEVEL 3 GIVE US LEVEL 3". We ended up with level three.. The ride essentially whips you around up and down, side to side, right side up and upside down... however it wants for about a minute.

The little prince!

Me hitching a ride on the little prince's fox.

The inside of the little prince ride, where they make people wait in line. My camera didn't seem to like this room.. probably cuz it was too cool for my camera.

The light show at the end of the day happens after the rest of the park is closed, so everyone get's to see. It's actually REALLY cool. The entire show is done with water and light. Here are some images I manged to capture with my camera, but if I were you I'd check out this youtube link to get a better idea of the show we watched. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSmo8sCUL9U&feature=related There's probably a better youtube clip... I found one when I originally went to post this entry...

That was pretty much my day at the Futuroscope in Poitiers. Hope you all enjoyed.