the one about the founain of youth
tuesday, january 2, 2001
hi you kooky kids! its tuesday! so here's your weekly peek into my head.
this weekend i had the pleasure of sight-seeing the united states' oldest living city, st. augustine, FL. i only got to stay for one day so it was a bit of a rushed 'vacation'. however, the stories that have come home with me are endless. and so here i will share a story with you.
no. no i won't. its not a story so much as a warning.
we, laura "i feel cheated" bentley, lorna "i drank what?" buchanan, liz "just liz", and i, went to find the fountain of youth. for those of you who do not know the legend of the fountain of youth it goes something like this.
juan ponce de leon, a spanish conquistador (the spanish call
their pirates,"conquistadors". whereas the british call
their pirates, "sea dogs". just a little fyi.), sailed
about and landed in florida which he named, florida. it means
land of flowers, or something, who cares?
anyhoo, he meets some indians, er, native americans and bladdy
bladdy bladdy fountain of youth!
so, we find this archway that says Fountain of Youth Two More Blocks This Way. and so we drive under the archway and onward. the strange part was its in the middle of this 'hood. and i had to recheck the sign to make sure it didn't say, "Vinnie's Fountain of Youth" or something like that. and so we park the van and pay our $5.50 to go see the fountain of youth.
incidentally, every sight-seeing, touristy tour thing in st.
augustine will cost you $5.50.
i'm serious.
so we're in the "park". and its then that we notice
that the sign calls it an "archaeological park". and i
think what that means is, "this won't be fun".
the first thing we see are some peacocks. which is pretty
standard i think, except one of the peacocks was albino and
usually people are kinda impressed by albino things only for a
peacock its gotta suck to be albino.
after oo-ing and ah-ing over the peacocks we were immediately shuffled into this building where they were going to present a "show" about the fountain of youth. it was basically a laser show with a big globe. and by "laser show" i mean the tour guide pointed to different regions of the globe with one of those red laser pointer thingies. it would have been laughable if it hadn't been so insulting. at the end the narrator said, in a very serious and dramatic voice, something like, "you have just witnessed the history and colonization of st. augustine." to which my outraged brain was thinking, "no way dude, i just witnessed you pointing at a map."
ok, so NOW we're off to see the fountain of youth. no, wait.
another tour. THEN they crammed us all into another building to
see another "show". this time it was a planetarium. and
you'd think that a planetarium would be totally cool and all but
then you gotta think to yourself, "why is there a
planetaruim at the fountain of youth?"
so now there we all are (about 50 of us) and we're just dying to
get this planetarium thing over with because by god, we came to
see the fountian of youth! and the "show" starts. and
let's see if i can re-create this for you folks at home. ok,
first grab a flashlight. then turn off all the lights in the room
you are in. now, point the flashlight at the ceiling. the
planetarium was only slightly better than that. at the end of
that particular moment of suck the narrator crows, "and
we'll leave you now in the tradition of all planetariums and say,
'goodmorning'!" which is by far one of the weirdest things
i've ever heard. and i think the reason they say that is because
they know that there's 50 or so really pissed off people just
waiting to bumrush the tour guide.
by the way, our tour guide had a sling around her arm which was probably from a previous tour.
ok so now everyone is really antsy and pretty sick of
redundant historical hobnob and for crying out loud just show us
the fountain of youth! the tour guide says we can go see the
fountain of youth. yay! "right through those doors."
what?! the fountain of youth is inside?
so we all traipse into this horrible little building with a "lifesize" diorama and a highly laughable fountain. the only good part was that it had a roaring fire in a fire place (it was frickin freezing mr bigglesworth, sure we were in florida but its the atlantic coast, its cold!) and so we warmed up by the fire and then it hit us. the smell. gads, the smell was really bad. bah. and there's some guy handing out cups of fountain of youth water and by the smell alone i know that i'm not putting that stuff in my mouth. lorna was the only one who tasted the water, she lived. apparentley they (the florida water works) have to clean the water up a bit for human consumption however, it still smells and tastes like a sulphur cocktail.
you'd think that'd be the end of the "tour", but no.
now this other tour guide gets up and explains the diorama (whcih
by the way was so lame that it wasn't even to scale), like we
couldn't tell which one was ponce de leon, hmmm maybe the guy
wearing the spanish togs and not the one in the loin cloth! geezy
peezy.
i mean, this guide was awful, i don't think that even HE believed
any of the "historical" filth that he was spewing.
there was a cross of stones on the ground that supposedly ponce
himself put there to mark the year and the fountain and i looked
at liz and she looked at me and i think we nearly burst into
maniacal laughter because my friends, those stones were obviously
bought in the garden section of lowe's or home depot.
so he's looking a bit nervous because he could see all of our very unhappy faces and he concluded the tour by telling us that we were free to roam the park now. whatever that meant.
we grumbled our way out of there, and we're mostly shocked by how incredibly awful and cheesy this whole experience was. it was so bad. and we walk along a path and there's a sign that says This Way To Burial Grounds. and we're thinking "alright! something cool! maybe we'll get to see some bones!" and now the tour is looking up!
we walk into the burial grounds and you know what it is? its a big pit of sand and a horrible mural of some naked indians that had to have either been painted by the st. augustine high school remedial art class, a blind person, or someone who had never seen an indian or had never painted a picture in their entire life. of course, if a blind person had painted that mural i would be very impressed.
anyway, we leave the "burial grounds" and walk some more paths and they're flanked by random cement foundation looking things which i guess were supposed to look like an old fort had once been somewhere near the place. and there's a couple of rusted canons and an anchor which i'd bet my left arm didn't come from one of ponce de leon's ships. everything about that place was fake. FAKE!
now, to exit the "park" you have to walk thru the museum/tacky,cheap souvenir emporium. we had to kick a peacock out of the way just to get in. the "museum" was one single display case that had some rusted metal bits and nothing in it and the rest of the place was filled with cheap florida t-shirt plastic kite jewelry hat shark teeth crab muck. that whole place had no class. none. not that we expected any.
with that we left the "museum", walked to the van, gave the fountain of youth the good ol' one finger salute, shook the dust off our shoes and quickly drove away feeling angry and a bit violated.
so kids, remember this. st. augustine is beautiful. its also very expensive and its beaches are windy and rocky. there's a pretty cool lighthouse. the atlantic ocean is a forceful beast that churns and bubbles and yields to no man. and there ain't no $^#*! fountain of youth. so don't spend your $5.50 there.
jaimie "vinnie's fountain of youth, this way" pickle
good ol' college buddy megs had a few words to say about this one.