Parc Astérix

Parc Astérix

Baby X's birthday was spent at this super fun and very French amusement park.

Welcome to GAUL! 

(note: there are an ungodly amount of pictures in this post... but I felt they all were worth seeing and hearing about otherwise I would have done a better job editing some out)

We had to get our bearings...

what to see?

what to do?

where to begin?

 My kids know all about Astérix and his exploits... all the characters and most of the stories.
I know nothing.
All explanations in this post are derived from my children's extensive study of all things
"Astérix"...

 First up... the mellow boat ride. It was similar to the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland, but there was no 'guide' with a hokey spiel...
we had to provide that ourselves ;-)

 We were pictorially reminded to keep our arms and legs inside the boat
and to not lean out.

It was demanded that I photograph these owls. I thought they must figure prominently in one of the many stories. No, I was told. The owls were just cute. No real importance to any storyline.

 I think the laundry pile was to show that these guys weren't too concerned with cleaning up after themselves. I took the picture because it reminded me of OUR laundry situation :)

The kids enjoyed it very much!

Then we moved on...

BUMPER CARS!

in the middle ages.

The birthday girl chose Obélix... Astérix's really large friend.

Miss C enjoyed the signs of spring. The park had lovely flowers planted everywhere!

There are no pictures of the fracas that occurred next while we were in the line waiting for our first roller coaster ride. Several teenage-ish girls kept slamming into us. A bit of vigorous jostling is to be expected, but continuous slamming... sorry... not really okay in my book. When it finally actually hurt my body, I turned around and said "faîtes attention... s'il vous plaît." The ringleader looked at me and said, "Nooooooooooon!" I tried to be polite yet firm in my crappy French. They started mocking me, of course. So I pulled the ol'... "do you understand 'f*** you'?" I'll tell ya... that got their attention. They started saying over and over and really loudly... which finally got the attention of their group chaperone... lol... who understood the rest of my English. She acknowledged being in charge (whatever that meant to her anyway) and agreed that their behavior was too much. She was, however, completely ineffective in getting the girls in line. When they started hassling Baby X, my mamma bear totally took over. They were grabbing her hair and face... my baby :(  I yelled at them, "ne touche pas!" really loudly. That chaperone chick came over instantly and from then on stood between the harrassettes and us... finally. And the ride wasn't even worth it.

Then we hit up some of the shows...

This was a hilarious, slapstick show about the Roman Legionnaires hiring new recruits...

they seemed to pick people out of the audience, but it became apparent quite quickly that they were 'plants'.

The routines were very complex.

 And when they started the bungee/skydiving portion, we KNEW they weren't just random strangers out of the audience!

The show ended pretty much right after they all crashed to the ground...

unhurt, of course!

Then on to the 

CAROUSEL!

This figure of Obélix is supposed to look like you are getting a spinning piggy-back ride...

but we all thought it looked more like he was making you go in his butt-crack.
This, of course, made the kids laugh uproariously.

Miss C was most entertained by walking along the tops of retaining walls.

What follows are some scenes from Astérix stories...

Supposedly these are Obélix's gigantic shoes in his little house next to his bed...

and Big G is wearing them.

Apparently, this shield carried by the two Gaul guys is the very shield that the village chieftain is carried around on...

Baby X makes a great leader, and our friend makes an excellent bodyguard!

Miss C is not so sure how into the village chieftain she is... maybe if his fingers weren't so fat and nylon-y...

Here's Q-Man with THE man... Astérix himself.

The two of them bantered and shadow-boxed for quite a while... it was super cute!

Even the grown-ups had to get in on the action!

(left to right:  Obélix, my husband, me, our hostess, Astérix)

Astérix was enchanted by Miss C :)

I don't think the feelings were mutual.

The druids making the potion magique that gives Astérix and Obélix their strength.

Moving on...

While the guys were being punished for something...

Baby X and I rode on the best roller coaster in the whole entire world...

La Tonnere de Zeus!

click on that link to see a video of what it's like :)

It really is the best one I have ever been on in my whole entire life!

The birthday girl had one true wish...

Cotton Candy...

which she shared and they devoured!

We are about to get on the ditzy-est ride ever... sort of the anti-tonnere de Zeus.

We look tired because we are... my hair looks stringy and greasy because it is ;-)

These little bubble boat things just float way too gently down the way too lazy river, through pastoral Greek-ish scenes...

See?  There's a pegasus hatching.
Big G was really peeved... pegasi don't hatch... and there really is only ONE Pegasus anyway... so pterippi don't hatch... duh.

The chocolate ice cream was really all she needed...

We really didn't need to go to an amusement park for that!

If you are interested in reading the rest of our Paris adventures and have missed the other postings, they are collected in the tabbed page at the top left that is titled "Paris '11".