Okay, so I just had the most awesome training session ever, you guys.

First of all, I'd like to explain a few things. I haven't been posting for a while, you see. I've begun training at Fort Edmonton Historical Park ([link]). I'll be working in the 1920s Midway/carnival type thing (in 1920s costume).

I'm certified to run carousels now, you guys! So anyone who lives in the Edmonton area, please come and visit me and ride the carousel. It's beautiful and hand carved and stuff. You'd have to pay (it's like 2$), but I'll give you a super happy funtime carousel tour!

But that's not what I wanted to post about. l just had the most awesome training session EVAR. No competition. In the morning, we went over health and safety regulations (like the mornings on previous days - what to do in case of aggressive and angry guests, what to do in the event of fire, etc.,etc.). In the afternoon, we sat down to another boring session - or so we thought.

It began innocuously enough. THE Kevin Spaance (he's always known as THE Kevin Spaance), who's kind of the head supervisor at the park, began by saying that "The City of Edmonton has identified two new health and safety threats" - the first one was Swine Flu, and he detailed the City of Edmonton protocols, for how they're going to protect us, etc.

(Apparently, because we work for the city in a tourist-dense area, we are first in line for vaccinations, when one comes out! Cool! )

Then, we got to the second threat: Zombie invasion. Yes. The protocols were very similar to that of Swine Flu, except that the city was "pursuing a policy of every man for himself."

Then, we played a game. Essentially, we all got in groups of five, according to a coloured card. Our team was Blue - we called ourselves Blue Monday. The other teams were like, Green Arrow and Red Fire and stuff. We all got a strip of black garbadge bag to tie to our belts (or string). We had to run around the streets of this historical park, trying to find theh site supervisors and answer questions (about stuff we'd learned in training, or historical points) for points... while avoiding zombies. We were considered "infected" if a zombie stole our strip of garbadge bag.

After the first half hour (and after "Patient Zero" infected like half a dozen people, and they all infected half a dozen people...) the zombies were no longer "zoombies" and couldn't run any more. But we humans could. My group managed to stay intact until about forty-five minutes in, then the eldest of us (a 50 year old) fell to the undead hoard.

I was the only other one who got caught in my group - like five minutes before the final whistle. I think that I twisted my ankle, so I was limping around for like half an hour, so many zombies avoided me, thinking me one of their own - many were affecting limps anyway, and were groaning. A few realized that I was still "human" (I still had my garbadge bag pieces), but several (all men, women still being vicious) were like "oh, you're actually hurt" and chased the men on my team.

P.S.: it wasn't just tag. We could defend ourselves. We had rolled up socks (some guys used "sock wips") - if you hit a zombie in the chest with one, they had to stop where they were and sing "God Save the King/Queen" (depending on which street and thus era they were on), our old national anthem. They couldn't move until they'd finished singing, so we had time to escape.

I ended up getting caught in the Fort. I hadn't heard that the Clerk's Quarters were zombie territory - zombies couldn't enter Fort buildings... except this one. So I jumped from one (safe) building to that one that held the zombie hoard... and got caught, not realizing that they weren't human anymore. The whistle rang like five minutes later. D:

Plus, it was raining/sleeting for half of this "training exercise". But it was still amazingly fun.

I think that the point of it was to build teamwork, to test our knowledge, and to work on emergency procedures. But those are just excuses.

Man, I love Fort Edmonton. I'm so happy to be working there this summer.