Finally I can truely say what I mean: HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Ok, so last time we chatted I told you that perchance I might attend a co-workers Halloween Party, well I did. After work on Wednesday (10/27/10) I went with Dakotah, Brittany, Chelsea, and Gracie to Mackensi's apartment. We didn't stay very long, but just long enough to say hi to everyone, snap some photos, and have a dance-off with Dakotah. Who the winner was is still yet to be announced, but apparently I won best costume with my Belle dress.

 Mackensi and I

Zack, Gracie, and Me with the dinosaur we found!

 The next day was in fact Thursday (10/28/10) and this day all I did was work. Then Friday (10/29/10) rolled around and Dakotah, Gracie, Edgar, Amanda and I went out for sushi. We went to a little restaurant next to Publix called Tokyo Sushi (what a creative name, its like saying Mexico Tacos). There we had some sweet miso soup and sushi (obviously!).

NOM NOM NOM Sushi

After Friday, came Saturday and all I did was work. I originally had a two hour gap, but it was bridged. Yippie! But, sadly now I have no fun stories to give you for that time. Today is now Sunday (10/31/10) and I can finally say with all honesty, "Happy Halloween,"despite the fact that I have been saying it since early September! Wha wa....

Have a magical day!

Control yourself. Take only what you need from it.

Hello again,

Yes it does seem like these weeks are just speeding by: zoom! Somehow we are almost in November I still cannot believe how fast this program has been going. Wowzers!

Side note before I start, I just want to say thank you to my family because in the past week I got three packages: one from my parents who sent me cheese (I LOVE CHEESE!), one from my godmother who sent my popcorn, and one from my sister who visited the Hershey factory in Pennsylvania, so I got chocolate from her! These packages made my week even more awesome, thank you!!

Anyways, let's see what I've been up to since my last entry of week of being super busy. Friday (10/22/10) all I did was work, come home, and go to sleep. I was just so tired from the excitement that had happened earlier in the week I was wiped. Saturday (10/23/10) I had an awkward gap between my two shifts so Gina, Brittany, and I played at the Magic Kingdom. We went on the Carousel of Progress, the Snow White's Scary Adventures ride, and the Tiki Room. They were the lesser known rides at the park, but since my goal is to ride them all, I had to start somewhere.

The Carousel of Progress

Snow White's Scary Adventures ride

Sunday (10/24/10), I got up and went with Dakotah to Downtown Disney to get our Phoenix tickets, then I went to work. Monday (10/25/10), I was so tired I sat around all day cleaning my apartment and making casserole. I made macaroni and cheese like my mom and grandma makes. It was delicious! NOM NOM NOM. Then, I went over to Dakotah's apartment to get ready to see MGMT over at the Hard Rock Live, which is at Universal Studios. We got ready, and then got to the show. MGMT puts on a trippy show. It was good to see them, but it was definitely a weird show. Personally, I think they sounded better on CD than live, but you go to a concert for the concert experience, so you take whatever comes your way. After the concert, I went home and went to sleep.

Dakotah and I at Hard Rock Live seeing MGMT

MGMT

 Yesterday was Tuesday (10/26/10), and I got up made my Halloween cards. Then I got myself ready for my Entertainment Show Production seminar. I love this seminar. Yesterday, we talked about all the thought and processes that need to happen before an unveiling of a new attraction of what-not at Disney. Basically, it was a class on time-management but it felt like I was learning so much more about life and how the basic principles of a team are needed in whatever job you are working backstage. After class, I got home and went off with Dakotah to go to another concert. Last night's concert was Phoenix over at Downtown Disney's House of Blues. Phoenix was a good concert. They had sweet special effects and some mad lighting instruments working, plus they sounded identical to their CDs! It was an excellent concert. After it, I came home and once again went to sleep.

Me at House of Blues to see Phoenix

Today is now Wednesday and my plans are go to work, then possibly go to a co-workers Halloween party. Whatever I do, I'm sure it will be an adventure!

15 Hour Work Day-Trick or Treat-Manatee-HP Week!

Ok, kids I've done a lot recently, so I'm going to apologize now if I've missed anything.
Alrightio let's go all the way back to last Saturday (10/16/10). I only recall this is the day because it was my day from the underworld. The day I decided to work 52 hours in a week, 15 of those hours were worked on that very Saturday. I got up at 5am to get to the bus by 6am, to be at work by 7am. I worked Park Greeter for 6 hours, welcoming folks to the park. Then I worked PAC for 3 hours, then had a four hour break my next shift. During the break, I went to the Magic Kingdom with some PAC kids who also had a break. We started off by eating some lunch at the Mouseketteria, then went to Frontierland in hopes of going on Splash Mountain, but sadly there was a 50 minute wait, and we simply didn't have the time to wait. Instead, we went to Fantasyland and watched Mickey's PhilarMagic. That's a pretty cool show. Its like "Its Tough to Be a Bug!" over at the Animal Kingdom, except kid friendly and in no way disgusting. After the show, we played around Fantasyland for a while, then the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate Party was happening so Tamiyah and Amanda went off to join in the dance party there, while Dakotah and I got coffee so I could keep going on with my day. The nice thing about this day was I worked Park Greeter, which yes is boring, but its not that hard of work. Then for the 3 o'clock Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade I was parade escort, and later that night I was parade escort again for the 9 and 11 o'clock showings of the Main Street Electrical parade. That, in a wrap, was my Saturday.

Amanda, Tamiyah, and I trying to pull the sword from the stone.

Now then, we're off and running to Sunday (10/17/10). Pretty sure all I did was get up, laze about, go to work for Mickey's Not-So-Scary. After work, I went out to Ale House (its kind of like a Perkins or a TGI Fridays) and we PACattacked. PACattack is when people from PAC go out to eat in our costumes. Its always a lot of fun and we always get stares. One of the people who stared ended up being Todd, who is a performer in the Halloween parade. He's the keytar player for the villain band. It was pretty cool getting to meet him, and after we were done at the restaurant, I went to sleep. My 15 hour day from Saturday was bringing me down.

Me, Brittany, Gracie, Todd, Johannes, and Tamiyah at Ale House.

Next came Monday (10/18/10) and unlike Sunday where I went out after work, I literally just went to work that day. Not that exciting, but it pays the bills for me to do all these exciting things!

After Monday, came....that's right! Tuesday (10/19/10) now this was my first day off since last Wednesday, and boy, oh boy, was I ready for it! I got up late, then I got all pretty looking and went to my Entertainment Show Production seminar. Class was awesome. We got to meet one of the people who designed the meet and greet areas for characters like Lotso now, or before him the Up! characters. Similarly, he worked on many Disney films like Pocahontas, Princess and the Frog, and Lion King. In addition to meeting him, we learned about all the work that goes into making a show possible. All the long hours in production, and how the idea of one Disney helps accelerate the process. Upon arriving home from class, I got my princess dress on for I was off to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party!

Starting off my Mickey's Not-So-Scary experience by playing red light-green light with Nick!

My First Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party!

I got to jam it out with Bullseye from Toy Story 3 for quite a while over at the Diamond Horse Shoe.

That's right! I got to meet all seven of the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White

Happy Halloween. Me in front of Cinderella's Castle.

Seriously, it was a great Halloween party. Plus, it was fun just to go as a guest and not just have to work it all the time!  

 

After I got home from the Halloween party another adventure began. Wednesday (10/20/10) Dakotah, Lexie, and I were going to go snorkeling with manatees. Now our original plan was to make manatee hoodies, similar to that dinosaur hoodie that Alissa made for me last year for Christmas. I called Dakotah thinking we were going to go to Walmart at 12:30am and go get supplies to make the hoodies and then make them. When on the phone I stopped and inquired if we had printed off our tickets yet. Unfortunately, we had not. And so the night became one of where can we find a printer! Since the clubhouse printer closed a midnight and doesn't open until 9am, we were out of luck there. That's when Dakotah came up with a brilliant idea; let's go use the business center at a hotel. Needless to say, we went from hotel to hotel asking to use a printer and telling the businesses that the hotel that we had stopped at before had told us to come to use theirs. We even made a stop at Walmart and asked to use one there, but alas no luck. Finally, around 2:30am we went to what I think was a Sheraton and used their printer and peaced out. The best part about this story is that the next day when we went snorkeling, they didn't even ask to see our tickets!

Now that's I've told you the precursor to the story, I suppose I can tell you about my snorkeling experience with the manatees, rather manatee.  Wednesday morning (10/20/10) I awoke around 7am to get myself ready to be picked up at 7:30am for an exciting day of snorkeling with manatees. We made a few stops along the way. The first was to get some coffee, so we went to Starbucks where we had the rudest customer service ever. From the rudeness of the employees, Lexie talked to the manager and got us all a free drink at Starbucks. Note to self, never make Lexie angry. Additionally, we also stopped for gas. The drive was about 2 hours long, but went pretty speedily.

We got to Pete's Pier Marina around 9:50am for our 10:30 launch off; we wandered around the Marina and gift shop preparing ourselves for our manatee adventure! When it was time to go, we got into a pontoon boat with another couple in their late 40s, who were from Arizona and quite nice. When we got to the manatee they weren't pushy about having us touch the manatee, they kind of stood back and let us enjoy the experience. But, I am getting ahead of myself. We got on the pontoon and got into our wetsuits saying "MANATEE" about every 30 seconds. We were so stoked. Well we went looking and couldn't find any for about the first hour and a half, but then we found one. We were told not to wear flippers cause it would spook the manatee, so we had noodles that we floated on and used our hands to breast stroke us over to it. Manatees are huge, that is why they are called sea cows. They can live up to 62 years, and they have no natural predators. They are like the Canada of mammals, they just are, and for that they are awesome.

I was the first in the water and yes; I did get to touch the manatee. It was kind of soft, it reminded me of a smooth rock underwater that had moss all over it, kind of slippery as well. It truly was one of the most majestic experiences I have ever had.  We were out there for an hour and a half just watching the manatee eat. Somehow I always ended up trying to get right next to him, and would end up being on top of him. So, I guess one would say I rode a manatee, like a true ride warrior! A funny incident that ended up happening was I was floating on top of the manatee, when suddenly I saw he was about to come up for air when bam, he was hitting me with his back and tail and I was still on top. I squealed and everyone got a good chuckle out of it. We kept right on snorkeling until another group came with flippers, making a lot of noise, and splashing in the water muddling it up, and scaring the manatee away. Apparently, swimming with manatees has become a very political thing since groups like the one that spooked our manatee are not really there to be at one with the manatee, they will even chase down one just to say they saw one. Since our group was through National Geographic we did not have a guide that was telling us the wrong things to do like chase it, make noises, etc.

Being a Hipster Manatee while waiting for our pontoon to come get us at Pete's Pier Marina.

Being a sea cow with Dakotah as we get into our wet suits

(WET) SUIT UP!

It was a superb time! I still cannot believe that I got to snorkel with a manatee. When got back to the dock, we left and I went to work for a while, and then passed out I was so tired from such an exciting day.

Lexie, Dakotah, and I doing our best manatee impressions after having snorkeled with our manatee

Now then I am almost all caught up and I am sure many of you have stopped reading this post as it is incredibly long, but this last part is just as exciting as the first adventures. Yesterday (10/21/10) I went to Harry Potter Land, or known to many by its real name as the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Islands of Adventures.

I was pumped to go. Yes, I was whipped out by all the adventures I've been having, but still I was excited! I got up around 7am and got all my shenanigans in order for a day at the park. We (Nicole, Hilary, and I) left the house around 8am, getting to the park by 8:30am. The Harry Potter part of the park didn't open until 9am, but the Marvel Superhero Island part did, so we commenced our day by riding on the Amazing Adventures of Spider Man ride. This ride was fun, and it was in 3D! Fancy, right! After the ride, we cut back to the front of the line just minutes before the clock struck 9, and we literally ran across the entire park to get to the Harry Pottery park. I utterly loathe running, so was hesitant as to how the rest of my day was going to go when it started out so well with running. Seriously, though it was a SUPER FUN day!

I see Universal's been reading my blog: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS!

The Amazing Adventures of Spider Man Ride

First thing we did at Harry Potter Land was ride the ride inside Hogwarts: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. This ride is sooooo cool. The experience includes flying around Hogwarts castle, encountering the Whomping Willow and a horde of Dementors, and being caught in a Quidditch match. Plus since we were some of the first there the wait was like nothing. I will note though if any of you have motion sickness problems don't ride it, but otherwise do this first! After we were done the wait time began 70 minutes. Gross...

Nicole and I entering Hogwarts to get to Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride!

Rando Girl, Hilary, Me, and Nicole on the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride!

After the excitement of that ride, we went to went wait in line for the experience at Ollivander's Wand Shop. This is where about 30 people go into the shop and Ollivander chooses one person to be chosen for their wand. Again what a neat experience. Sadly, none of us were chosen, and we waited about an hour to see it happen, but I'd say its definitely worth it. We jumped in when the line was the longest they claimed that they'd ever seen it. Still, how cool is it that I can say I got to see a wizard get his wand picked out for him.

Hogwarts as seen from the line waiting to get to Ollivander's Wand Shop

Inside for the Ollivander's Wand Shop experience.

After Ollivander's we went to the Dragon's Challenge. The Dragon's Challenge gives you the experience that you are a triwizard contestant preparing for the Dragon part of the competition. This ride goes upside and all over with dueling dragons, because Hilary and Nicole love roller coasters we did both the Hungarian Horn-tail and Chinese Fireball dragon rides.

And when we were done with that, we went to the Flight of the Hippogriff ride. Compared to every other ride we had seen and been on, it was considered the kiddie coaster. I thought it was lots of fun! We ate our sandwiches while we waited in line, and while in line we got to see Buckbeak (Hagrid's pet hippogriff) and Hagrid's house.

Buckbeak at the Flight of the Hippogriff

Hilary and I ate Hagrid's House

From there, we left Harry Potter with the plan to return later. So the next obvious choice was to go to the Jurassic Park part of Islands of Adventure. There we rode on what Hilary claimed to be similar to the Magic Kingdom's Jungle Cruise. In fact, the Jurassic Park River Adventure is more like Splash Mountain. And everyone who told us we wouldn't get that wet lied. We were soaked when we got done. Since we were already wet, we continued on our merry way to the Dudley Doright Ripsaw Falls ride, which as least going into I knew would be a water ride. Again, we got soaked. While over in Toon Lagoon, I met Betty Boop and Olive and Popeye. Then, we went over to Marvel Superhero Island where I met Spiderman. There we rode on Doctor Dooms Fearfall,  The Incredible Hulk Coaster, and the Storm Force Acceletron. One thing I will say is Universal has more adult rides than Disney, but the customer service was simply not up to par to what I am told to provide guests with each and every day. Also, I'm pretty sure Universal looks at what Disney is doing and borrows ideas from them. For instance, the Storm Force Acceletron is basically the Mad Hatter's Tea Cup ride but faster and more jerky.

The aftermath of the Jurassic Park River Adventure

Spiderman

We left Marvel's Superhero Island for Seuss Landing. At Seuss Landing, we went on the Cat in the Hat ride, the One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish ride, the Caro-Seuss-el, and the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride! Plus, while we were there we got to meet the Cat in the Hat. After these rides, we kind of breezed through the Lost Continent and went back to Harry Potter land.

Cat in the Hat

Back in Hogsmeade we got some frozen butterbeer and drank it over at the Three Broomsticks. Butterbeer tastes kind of like a butterscotch cream soda. It was pretty tasty! After our little break, we looked in Honeydukes candy store and admired the tricks over at Zonkos. Finally, it came time to ride the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey again this time single-rider, and again with all three of us. That ride is probably my new favorite thing, I just wanted to keep getting back in line to ride it again and again. Sadly, the park was getting ready to close so we went to the Owl Post and Filch's Emporium of Confiscated Goods and got some merchandise. Just as we were leaving the park we got to make a wish over in the Lost Continent at the wishing well. Overall, it was a magical day where I know can relate to the people who take so many pictures of Cinderella's castle, cause I am now the proud owner of billions of pictures of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I wish my life were life a fairytale. Sigh, but it sure does seem like I'm living with with all these adventures! Until next time...stay awesome!

NOM NOM NOM Butterbeer

Nicole, Janice, and Hilary at Harry Potter Land

PS: If you made it all the way through this post you are AWESOME! Thanks for reading all about my sweet week of adventures!

That's it, I'm running away to the circus!

Kids, today I only have one thing that I want to talk about: Cirque de Soleil's production of La Nouba!

Two nights ago I realized something. I need to start doing all things that I want to do before the holidays arrive and everything is either jam packed full of people, too expensive, I don't have enough time, or its simply sold out. So I came to the stellar conclusion that I need to start having more fun and check off those things on my Orlando To-Do List. Random side-note for everyone, so you may recall that basketball game that I said I was going to go to, funny story went with Amanda to get our tickets, and they have sold out not but 5 minutes before we got there. Sigh. Anywho, so since Amanda's mom was in town, we decided we needed to see Cirque de Soleil because when else am I really going to get the chance to see it. Similarly, when will I ever get to see it again with a discount!

So Wednesday morning (10/13/10), I awoke got dressed for my leadership seminar later that day and met up with Amanda and her mother to purchase our tickets. I ended up getting three: one for me, one for my roommate Hilary, and one for my other roommate Nicole. We ended up getting tickets in the second blue section of seats, and they were amazing seats. To be honest, I don't think there was a bad seat in the entire house. Well after we got the tickets, I went back to my apartment to get ready for seminar. Eventually I made it to seminar. I'm taking an exploration series class about leadership in the Walt Disney World company. We did a group activity where we were split into groups based on our jobs and from there we had to figure out what our managers do each hour of their day. Mostly it was a time management exercise, it was kind of interesting. I have faith that the rest of the classes will be more networking type-things.

After that I went grocery shopping with Dakotah, finally! It had been quite a while that I had been rocking no-groceries, so it was a much needed event to occur. And from there I got myself ready for Cirque. Everyone had told me to read a summary of the show, but I had been too excited, so forgot until I got to the theatre.

The theatre as seen from outside

Let the memories begin! Me and my ticket!

All I can say about the show was it had everything you could have ever wanted in a circus and more. It had clowns, fun ones, not creepy dodgey ones. It had a juggler who could balance a 5 ft pole on his head while juggling, then juggle whatever he was juggling into the holes on the pole. I don't think I could have gotten the balls to get into the holes even if I weren't juggling! There were trapeze artists, who were doing things that made you hold your breath and hope they wouldn't die. There was a tight rope walker who had a woman do a one-handed hand stand on his head, while he was walking the tight rope! There were these cute little girls who were doing tricks with the Chinese yo-yo. There were intense jump ropers, and men on trick bikes jumping over folks and doing all sorts of things.

This is part of the show when the stage opened up to be a trampoline.

The stage converted into a giant trampoline and people were "falling" off buildings onto the trampolines and horizontally walking up the walls. What they were doing looked like something one would see in the Matrix. The stage also dropped down these huge silk-type cloths where gymnasts would climb up the cloth and roll themselves up in it, to simply unroll themselves in it up in the air. They also had a person unicycling and another person doing the German wheel. Plus, there was a live band playing along with two singers doing all the music! All-in-all, this show was EPIC! Words I feel simply do not do it justice.

As a theatre major I tried to figure out how they did it all, but to be honest I had trouble simply just figuring out what was happening on stage. There would be so much happening that I felt like I had ADD looking around the stage all over the place like a child. Seriously, this show was awesome, if you have the time go see it! After the show ended, I was truely stunned. I had a chat with the sound board operator and heard a little bit about how she got the job. And then she told me that Cirque does tech theatre internships, so the minute I got home that's all I could look up. What a great experience to witness these people's talents and what great fun being with friends to enjoy that experience with.

I bought the program of the show because it was soooo good!

Me, Amanda, Hilary, and Nicole after the show.

Checking More and More Things Off That To-Do List!

Well hello there!

Fancy meeting you here on my blog of sorts. Anywho, I figure instead of chatting it up the whole time with greetings I would tell you of my many adventures. I feel a little like Winnie the Pooh whenever I talk about my many adventures, but maybe that's just because I think and am surrounded by Disney all day long.

Now then, where were we? Ah yes, what I've been up to the last few days. Well I worked an awful lot this week. Both Saturday and Sunday were days with two Main Street Electrical Parades, and all I will say is from an operations standpoint, it is a terrible place to be working those nights. But nevertheless, I prevailed just enough to tell you all about it. On a happier note, I accomplished one of the things on my list on Saturday (10/9/10): I went to Blizzard Beach, one of the Disney Water Parks. Hilary and I pretty well went on every ride. It was a lot of fun! Also, we got the infamous shovel pail, aka a giant sand bucket full of vanilla and chocolate ice cream, nuts, strawberry sauce, hot fudge, Oreos, fudge chunks, cookie dough, whipped cream, and cherries. Yummy! Sadly, after a while you begin feeling sick from eating such a treat, but it was awesome while it lasted!

ICE CREAM!

Later that night I went to work, the next day (10/10/10) I also worked. And guess what I got at work for doing a good job? ICE CREAM! That's right ladies and gentlemen I got ice cream for doing a good job at work. It was awesome! We all got those mickey mouse ice cream treats they were so delicious. I felt like a little kid the way I was eating it. NOM NOM NOM. After my ice cream, I had a three hour gap between shifts. Between those shifts I went and played in the park with Tahmyya, Nesa, Nick, and Gina. We went and got our picture taken at the castle, enjoyed the Frontier land Hoedown, got to see the Country Bears, went on the Country Bear Jamboree, ate at Pecos Bills, and saw the show at the Hall of Presidents. After that we all booked it back to work and all was well.

Ice Cream NOM NOMS for doing a good job at work!

Us crazy PAC kids at the castle

Jammin' it out with one of the Country Bears at the Frontierland Hoedown

 The next day was Monday (10/11/10) and I simply went to work. Worked for ten hours, then came home. Oh, yesterday was our apartment inspection. Yes, we have inspections similar to those that the military have, but fortunately we passed, meaning that I get to keep on interning.

And then, we have finally made it to today, Tuesday the 12th. Today I had off, which was nice. It was also the first day of my Entertainment Show Production Professional Development seminar. So far I think its going to be a really cool class. Every week we are going to have a different speaker who works for Disney come and tell us their story of coming to work for the company and tell us about their job and lives. Plus, we get to take a backstage tour of Fantasmic at Hollywood Studios in October, so that should be stellar. I am enthusiastic about getting to start networking and hearing more people's stories about where they worked and their adventures.

The World's Most Favorite Gathering Place: McDonalds

McDonals Fun!

After I got back to my apartment from the seminar, I went off with Dakotah to the World's Largest Entertainment and Play Place McDonalds, which was pretty hilarious. Number 1, its a huge tourist trap. Number 2, it had food I never thought I would see at McDonalds such as Belgian waffles, panini sandwiches, pizza, pasta, and other gourmet foods! Number 3, the toy that came in my Mighty Kids meal was Lemon Meringue (Strawberry Shortcake's friend). And guess what, she smelled like lemons! It was a strange place full of touristy things, and a giant arcade. Upon finishing a delectable meal, we went to Hollywood Studios to see what all the hype was about Fantasmic. Believe the hype, Fantasmic was epic! Its a show about villians trying to defeat Mickey's imagination so that their evil ways can reign, but Mickey's mind wins in the end. They had video projections shown on water fountains, a giant snake from Aladdin, animals from Lion King, Snow White and her Prince, Belle and the Beast, and Ariel and Eric, Pocahontas, and Maleficent as the dragon. The show left me stunned! I am so pumped to see how it all works backstage!

And yeah, there's a little update on my magical life. Stay classy!

Living in Florida Like a Hipster: My Orlando To-Do List!

Hello there kibbles and bits,
So in accordance with my Year of Adventure, I want to do many fun and exciting things. Thus, I have decided to concoct a list of things I want to do, and so here I go!

• Go to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party
• Swim with manatees (I have the ticket, just need to figure out when I'll go)
• See Cirque de Soleil's show La Nouba
• Go to Harry Potter land (aka Universal Studios)
• See some bands (I think I'll probably be seeing MGMT on the 25th and Phoenix on the 26th)
• Make my way to the ocean
• See a NASA space launch (there is one happening November 1st and 8th)
• Go to a Florida sporting game (I'm hoping to go to the Orlando Magic vs Dallas Mavericks game on the 20)
• Visit Jenny in Tallahassee (check, but I would like to do it again)
• Visit Kennedy Space Center (check)
• Eat a turkey leg at Magic Kingdom and gobble for it!
• Eat at all the countries at the Food and Wine Festival
• Go to both water parks (I've already been to Typhoon Lagoon once, but need to go to Blizzard Beach)
• Go to Mickey's Christmas Party
• Do every ride/ show at all the Disney Parks
• Do lunch at the Crystal Palace
• Visit the world's largest McDonald's, which I guess is in Orlando
• Meet as many characters as I can! (so far I've met 50!)
• ummm...

I know I will end up updating this specific post, so if you have any suggestions let me know!

Its a Jolly Holiday with Janice

Ok let's take this from the beginning.

Last week on my day off there were three things that I had wanted to do: sleep in, meet Pinocchio, and watch IllumiNations: Reflections from Earth. Unfortunately, I didn't do any of those things, but yesterday was a different story.

Yesterday was Wednesday (10/6/10), aka my day off for the week and it started off kind of later in the day. Now the night before I had stayed up late watching Donnie Darko with Dakotah and Amanda, so I can justify getting up at 12:30pm the next day. Plus, I was super tired and it was my one day off. Really I don't need to explain why I slept in, I did. It was magical, and it was something I had wanted to do.

After I woke up late, I watched some HIMYM and Glee, then figured maybe I should figure out what I was going to do that day. Everyone I had talked to was either working, doing homework, or had other plans. So I decided to be a loner and go by myself to Disney's Hollywood Studios. I went there because I honestly don't remember much from my last trip there. Now then, what did I do there? I started off my seeing the Block Party Bash. That is Hollywood Studios parade. It was kind of cool, very similar to Magic Kingdom's Move it, Shake it, Celebrate it! in that for part of it, you get to dance with the characters. Then I went to see the Voyage Under the Sea, the Little Mermaid show. Frankly, I had set high expectations for this show after seeing Beauty and the Beast one of the other times I had gone to Hollywood Studios. Sadly, this show let me down. It was simply not good and scared the baby next to me who was then crying during the 17 minute long performance.

Me at Hollywood Studios

 After that show, I went to the American Idol experience. Its apparently the closest thing that you can get to the real thing, besides for being at the real thing. At the end of the day, they have the finale show where all the contestants who won throughout the day compete and whoever wins gets the coveted golden ticket which gets them to front of any real American Idol line. Pretty cool!

I wandered around for a while after that and made my way to the single rider line for the Rockin' Roller Coaster. This is is similar to Space Mountain over at Magic Kingdom in that its mostly dark the entire ride. Plus, the Rockin' Roller Coaster's background music is Aerosmith! Yeah.

Next I went to the Animation Courtyard for some character meet-and-greet. There I got to meet: Geppetto and Pinocchio,  Captain Hook and Smee (from Peter Pan), Pocahontas and Meeko, Frozo and Mr. Incredible (from the Incredibles), Sorcerer Mickey (from Fantasia), and a Green Army Man (from Toy Story).

Geppetto and Pinocchio

 After my meet-and-greet I went off to Patterson Court for Oktoberfest. Sadly this was the one day that the buses decided to run on time so I got to wait my myself on a bench for about twenty minutes waiting for Hilary to arrive. At Oktoberfest, I got to eat German food, color Duffy (the new Epcot bear), and meet German Mickey Mouse, German Daisy Duck, and Germany Goofy. From there I finally got to do the last thing on my list, I saw IllumiNations: Reflections from Earth. That's the fireworks display at Epcot, it was pretty rad! I was happy that I finally got to see it. Yippie!

Oktoberfest with Mickey, Daisy, and Goofy

NOM NOM NOM

Well hello there!

Now then, let's see where I've been since I last chatted with you all. Friday (10/1/10) was another Not-So-Scary Halloween Party and I don't really remember anything exciting happening that would be worth mentioning, so let's just skip ahead to yesterday.

Yesterday was Saturday (10/2/10) and before I went to work at 6pm I wanted to do something fun. I asked around and some of my coworkers wanted to go to Epcot's Food and Wine Festival, and since I didn't want to sit around the apartment all day I said, "let's do this" and we were off!

We got to Epcot around 11am and Brittany and I first noticed that there was a cheese demonstration from 10:30am to 11:45am, so we left the group and booked it over to the Festival's Welcome Center. Much to our dismay, the demonstration cost a whole lot of money, mostly due to the fact that they had wine pairing to go with the cheese.  Since we were already at the welcome center we figured it would make the most sense to get gift cards at wear on our wrists that way we would have a limited amount of funds that we would spend and we would know how much we've spent. And from there, we went to enjoy our food tasting day!

Things we did:

• Amanda and Gina made masks, so stopped at every KidCot in all the countries to get the different stamps and shape that they gave out.
• I ate "flavors of South Africa" and Brittany got some South African beef.
• We walked around all the countries
• Played in the Innoventions building, where I learned about weather and all the safety procedures companies go through.
• Went on the Grand Fiesta ride in Mexico.
• Admired all the glorious food the world has to offer.
• And, eventually, we ate in Mexico, but a different one than I ate in last time!

Epcot World Showcase at the Festival's Welcome Center

Flavors of South Africa

Yummy Mexico!

And BAM, from there I went to work. Actually, there is a funny story in my getting to work experience.  We left Epcot around 4:50 on the monorail, and by the time we got to the TTC (the ticket and transportation center) we saw the A Bus pulling away at 5:00, opposed to the 5:05pm time it was supposed to leave. Now the reason as to why this was such a dilemma had to due with the fact that it rained on Tuesday. Now you may be asking yourself, Janice what does that have to do with anything? Well, being a smarty, I had kept that wet costume in a plastic bag since Tuesday and made the executive decision that it would be that now-moldy costume I would return in order to check out a not mildewy one. But since the bus was running late, I was in quite the time crunch. So let me break it down for you: Gina and I change our socks and shoes while waiting for the bus. The bus stops ahead of the other bus, mind you not where it was supposed to stop and we run off it to costuming. I return my costumes, while Gina picks me up a new one. We check out and run to the connecting bus to the Magic Kingdom. We are the last ones on the bus, and while on it we change our shirts, put on our vests, and name tags. Bus stops at Magic Kingdom tunnel, we run to the closest bathroom, change our pants. Run through the utilidoor to work and manage to clock in 10 minutes early. SUCCESS!