I had another dream last night. Thankfully, this one wasn’t quite as much of an acid trip as some of my previous ones, but it was still a bit weird…
My family and I were driving along a motorway in Italy (we've never been on a family holiday to Italy…), and for some reason, my mum was driving (it’s usually my dad who drives when it’s all 4 of us, particularly if we’re abroad). We drove past a road sign that said “Gardaland: 10 miles”. I go “Ooh, there’s a road sign going towards Gardaland, the biggest theme park in Italy!”. My family initially reacted in the usual way they react whenever we see a theme park road sign in the UK on the way to somewhere else; they went “Oh, fun!”, shrugged and continued on with our journey. However, this is where it began to get weird… we travelled up the motorway for a few more miles, but things then took an unexpected turn, and this experience turned from a leisurely drive into something befitting of a James Bond film…
My mum, completely unprovoked, suddenly did the most spectacular u-turn you’ve ever seen in the middle of this busy motorway, put her foot down like mad, and started driving in the direction of the Gardaland road signs. My dad and older sister, for completely inexplicable reasons, suddenly flew out of the car through some sort of ejector seat mechanism. I looked at my mum, concerned that my dad and older sibling had randomly disappeared from the car, but she didn’t look fazed at all; she said “F*** ‘em; we’ll come back for them later”. At this point, she suddenly started driving like a rally driver; the speedometer was at well over 100mph, she was weaving in and out of traffic, weaving between lanes, she was jumping over cars… this was some insane driving, particularly given that my mum is a very safe driver in real life! I asked her why she had suddenly changed tack and started driving crazily, and she said “Son, you and I need to go to Gardaland together!”. We then continued to speed down the road together in what was by far the most insane piece of driving I’ve ever experienced… it was spectacular, but insane!
We eventually arrived at Gardaland and got out of the car… but not before she sped into the car park and did a load of donuts around it, still travelling solidly over 100mph. She then stopped rapidly with a perfectly executed handbrake turn, and we got out of the car right outside the entrance. None of the Gardaland staff even batted an eyelid at the fact my mum had just sped into the car park, drove at an insane speed round it or had parked somewhere that definitely wasn’t a parking space, so we had a speedy and efficient entry process.
Once we were inside Gardaland, it was strange… because even though I was talking about correct Gardaland ride names, like Raptor and Oblivion The Black Hole, the park did not look like any photos or videos I’ve ever seen of Gardaland. It was instead a blend of Drayton Manor and Warwick Castle; for the most part, the park was a spitting image of Drayton Manor (but with all the signs and ride names in Italian), but had Warwick Castle itself randomly plonked in the middle of it, along with the Horrible Histories maze from Warwick Castle and the show where the performer shows off and demonstrates old weapons (he was shouting “This… is a BIG AXE!” as we walked by… that’s an actual line from this Warwick Castle show that I remember. I can’t remember what the show was called, but it definitely used to run at Warwick when I was a child, and that line was definitely part of the spiel). This all seemed perfectly normal to me in my dream, however…
Now when we entered the park, we didn’t actually go on any rides… my mum needed the toilet as soon as we entered. But she wasn’t content with any old toilet, oh no… there was this “special toilet” that she was intent on using. The ones right by the park entrance weren’t good enough… she went to great lengths to find this “special toilet”, and we spent about an hour staring at the park map and walking around trying to find it. Eventually, we found the special toilet… it was in this Tudor house, and we had to walk up a tiny ladder and crawl through these tiny spaces to use it. She used it and walked out saying “10/10; totally lived up to the hype! I’m happy we came to this park just for that!”. Then I went in… and it was like one of those Medieval toilets you see in old castles, where it basically consists of a hole that drops directly into a river.
Sadly, I then woke up before we could go on any rides… that was a strange one, and a lot longer than I’d expected it to be when I started writing!