entering the land of chocolate

One thing that's wonderful about my mother is that while other parents may be excessively paranoid about talking to strangers online, she approves of it. Probably because she met one of her best friends through Korean drama forums.

About three years ago, a correspondence started up between my mom and this woman named Angela. Eventually they started calling each other nearly everyday and talking on the phone for hours on end. Fast forward a couple months and the two families are meeting each other. Fast forward another year and we're visiting each other and sometimes even taking vacations together. It's really fantastic that my mother doesn't bat an eyelash when I mention Ari from Boston or Trish from Belgium or Nik from Sweden or even when I say I met them online. She realizes that in this day and age when the everything is so interconnected it's getting to be pretty normal for friends to be made on the Internet as well.

Last weekend, Angela and her family met us Pennsylvania because none of the kids had ever been to Hershey Park. We went to this cavern beforehand though. It's this place called Indian Echo Caves. I think most people have been to somewhere like it before. One of those dark, cool caves with these strange rock formations, stalactites and stalagmites all over. The steady sound of water dripping all around you. And sometimes, underground lakes with the clearest water you've ever seen in your life.

The cavern place had farm animals by the gift shop, including a hutch of adorable bunnies.

The caves have this strange sort of beauty that makes you feel like you're intruding on something ancient and wonderful, which you actually are. It takes hundreds of years to form an inch worth of stalactite.

Butterflies were all over outside.

Angela on the left and my mother on the right.

We took advantage of this "preview" thing that Hershey offered where you can get into the park the night before and get a head start on the park. My dad took Andre (Angela's oldest son) and Timmy, my little brother, on the bigger coasters while the rest of us went on whatever Alec and I wanted to so. Alec is Angela's baby, this chubby fifth grader who we all adore. Me and him stuck together for most of the trip doing kiddie rides because I'm scared of dropping so I don't do bigger coasters. But I have a penchant for spinning rides. I think it's because I don't get dizzy and that I'm impervious to motion sickness. I went on pretty much every spinning ride in the park and dragged my mom and Alec with me. I had a blast. :D

Oh and by the way, I was lied to. Hershey does not smell of chocolate. >:(

IT'S A MINION. I wish Andre won one for me. Turns out the kid isn't as good at carnival games as he claims.

I have this obsession with water. Expect a lot to show up in upcoming blog posts.

On the Tilt-A-Whirl. They just screamed first date. So cute.

Andre tried this game where you have to try to get rings on the bottle. He kinda failed at it.

THIS RIDE. You go in one of those bird things and it spins around on two axises and rises up like four stories in the air, stops at the top, and comes back down. Pretty frightening once you get all the way to the top. But still a lot of fun.

I love this ride too. (Notice the spinning pattern.) That's Andre in the blue. He's in 8th, I think?

This man who was making kettle corn. Would've been perfect if I got it when his face wasn't so awkward.