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! 

I can tots fit into this gown!

 Hey, hey, hey.

So I just wrote out a super long post about how things are going, then my computer spazzed out and deleted it. Sigh, I will try again, only this time I am typing it up on Word, then will just copy and paste it to the blog because I do not have enough time to tell you everything I want if its just going to keep deleting my posts on me. Here we go again…

Ok, so I know it’s been a while since my last post it’s just been work, work, work. Since my last post, we have had three Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween parties, and guess what? There’s another one tonight! At least tonight’s I can kind of understand, you it only being a month before the holiday and all that jazz. When I wasn’t working, I was getting ready for work or sleeping. But I did manage to snag a day off on Wednesday, so I’ll tell you kids about that adventure.

Wednesday (9/29/10) I was supposed to meet up with Amanda from work. Our plan was to call each other when we woke up and from there decide where we were going to go. Unfortunately our phones had a little tiff and decided they weren’t going to let either one receive messages from the other, so our day didn’t get started until 1pm. When we met up we made the grand choice to venture forth to the Kingdom of Animals. Just want to let everyone know that I thought it was going to rain as it had rained been raining for the two days prior to this event, hence the sweet red rain boots!

Welcome to the Animal Kingdom!

 There we did some meet-and-greets with the characters. Some of those characters included: Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger, Koda (from Brother Bear), Terk (from Tarzan), Pocahontas, Goofy, the boss man (Mickey Mouse), and his lovely lady, Minnie Mouse. 

Look at how cute Donald Duck and I are!

 We also went on the show/ ride “It’s Tough To Be A Bug!” which is a 4D event inside the Tree of Life. Things I will say about this ride, its gross and I will probably never go on it again. For starters, it had spiders fall from the ceiling, the audience got “stung” in the back by a hornet, a dung beetle let one loose, and some sort of insect spit “acid” on us. Not an enjoyable experience. The most offensive part of it was the end when they were telling us to leave the theatre, and you felt “bugs” under your seat rushing toward the exit, gross.  

Eww...what a gross show!

 
We left just in time to watch the Animal Kingdom parade “Mickey’s Jammin’ Jungle Expedition.” Now that I work parades over at the Magic Kingdom nothing really compares to them. There is a nice order to them and the floats are awesome. Unfortunately, since Animal Kingdom is all about conservation most of the floats were man powered eco-friendly floats. Also, the people who were working the parades were just random cast members from locations along the parade route who set up and broke down the parade route. It was odd to say the least, but it made me glad that I work at the best of the parks.  

As you can see, this man is moving that bird. That bird is considered a "float" at the Animal Kingdom.

Since most of the animals are all tuckered out by 4pm, the park closes at 5pm and with its closing we left to return to Vista. To then leave again in search of finding a movie to see at Downtown Disney. We chose “Easy A” because it looked funny and neither of us had seen it yet. Also, we were waiting for some of our fellow co-workers to meet up with us when they got done with work, but they decided not to come. So I did what it seems like I do every time I have off, I went to the Ghiradelli Chocolate store and got ice cream. Not just any kind of ice cream, I got a peanut butter sundae, but after leaving the store and making it to the bus stop that is when I realized my peanut butter sundae was completely lacking in the peanut butter department. Sad day!  

Hey, where's the peanut butter?

 The next day was Thursday (9/30/10) and yesterday. Since I didn’t work until 5:45pm and had heard rumors of free food at the Cast Member Preview for Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival, Hilary and I went onwards. Similarly, Catharine (who I work with) was also going to be there with her roommate and we were all going to meet up. And that’s exactly what we did. We rode Test Track, and then went in search of food at the World Showcase. First we went and tried some different pops from all over the world. Some were good, while others left a foul after-taste. Unfortunately, there was no free food. But I was swayed by Ireland to get a cheese platter, while the others met Pooh and some of his friends. Then the group split up when Kristen showed up and they wanted to go meet characters we had already met. After the split, we met Belle and the Beast, and Marie (from the Aristocats). Again, I was swayed by the Belgium stand to get a waffle. I am so excited to meet some real Belgians and get to know their true foods, not just the ones Epcot displays. Anyways, after that stop, nachos in Mexico stopped me again. Yummy! For my last thing at Epcot we went to the Innovations area and played the Waste Management game to realize how much I waste and how I can reduce my carbon footprint and what Waste Management is doing to reduce it as well.

Epcot's 15th Food and Wine Festival

NOM NOM NOM Irish Cheese

NOM NOM NOM Belgian Waffles

Then it was time for me to find myself over at the Magic Kingdom, but I gave myself way more time than needed. In that free time, I got my winter coat since apparently the ones in my department run out quickly. Similarly, even though I am from Minnesota and can deal with the cold, I work outside so would like one when the weather goes down. Then again, it is October 1^st and in the high 80s…

After picking up my coat I went to Cast Connections, where they sell damaged Disney goods at ridiculously low prices. There I got some postcards and a child-sized medium Belle gown. Don’t ask me about the dress I thought it was a good idea and will elaborate more as the night progresses.

From there it was work, another Halloween party, then home. At home I made a silly choice. I thought it would be a good decision to try on the Belle gown. Yeah, I am in no way a child medium. Probably when I was that size, I wasn’t really even that size, but oh well. So I got it on, but then the dilemma became getting it off. That thing was on me and it was on me good. I tried to cut myself out, but that didn’t really work. I just had to wait until my roommates got back from the party and they had to cut me out, not without a good laugh. And there you go; my life is a joke!

Me stuck in the Belle gown!

 

 

Well kids,
Its been a while since I've updated this blog site of mine, so its probably in my best interest to tell you kids what I've been up to. Hmm...work and work and then some more work.

SO I just wrote out a really long post and it deleted it all, so I will try again.