New Year, New Chances

First blog entry of 2013!  

The past almost week I was in Disney World!!  Unfortunately, I'm not anymore.  This was probably the most magical trip to Disney I have had.  It was my third trip and definitely won't be my last.  I completely understand why Evan's parents go multiple times a year.  Included in this trip was my fifth and sixth times flying.  I'm finally becoming more tolerant of taking flight and with that am hoping soon to fly out west.  Here's a brief summary of the trip so I don't forget it before I go to scrapbook:

Day 1:  While waiting at our gate in Columbus, my shirt struck up many conversations with people.  I wore my Star Wars shirt that had the Millenium Falcon on it and people would state they like my shirt, I would say thanks and ask why they were headed to Orlando.  I learned so many stories about people.  One man had been asked to be a grand marshal in a Disney parade, one was doing the 5K for work and was excited to take his daughter to Chef Mickey's that night for her 6th birthday.  Bonding with these people made me less nervous about the flight.  We arrived in Orlando about 25 minutes ahead of schedule (thank you wind!) with a very smooth flight down (Evan's dad still says the worst flight he's ever been on was my first flight).  We hop on the Magical Express bus to our resort, Old Key West.  Let me just say, I want to live at this resort.  It is so relaxing and has the small coastal boating town feel which I adore.  We checked in and then headed off to Hollywood Studios.  I'm really starting to like this park.  It used to be my least favorite but now I think Animal Kingdom is.  First we hopped on Star Tours because of my recent Star Wars obsession I just had to ride it.  I left nauseous but very satisfied.  We then saw MuppetVision 3D (cute) and waited in line for Toy Story Mania (this was the first ride I had been on and Evan hadn't).  Following this we had dinner at 50's Prime Time where our waiter was absolutely amazing as was the food.  We had eaten there last year but our waiter didn't stay in character and I was bummed about that.   Afterward, we went back to the resort, took a boat to Downtown Disney and looked around there for a little bit.  Fabulous ending to the first night of our vacation.

Day 2:  Headed off to the ESPN Wide World of Sports right away to pick up our packets for the races.  We met up with Steph and Matt because we would all be spending that day at Magic Kingdom.  So we rode a ton of stuff, I drove Stephanie around, finally had a crouque monsieur at Be Our Guest, finally became a Galactic Hero on Buzz, finally met Buzz, somehow crammed four people into a teacup and didn't barf or lose a limb, and had a blast during the crazy day.  Unfortunately, it had to end early because 4 of us had to be awake at 3:30 am for the 5K.  No regrets.

Day 3: Completed my 3rd 5K and it was a breeze.  My first 5K that was in Disney last year left me sore for like 2 days but now they are nothing (hooray for getting more active somehow).  After the race, we ate at Earl of Sandwich in DTD then Evan and I headed to Animal Kingdom.  We saw the Festival of the Lion King and went on the safari.  This took about 2 hours.  This was all the time I spent in Animal Kingdom.  Following this we went to Epcot where we headed to Japan right away because we adore the department store there and looked around at a few other countries while nomming egg rolls before dinner.  We had dinner at Coral Reef where I was finally placed right by the tank.  Had an amazing lobster pasta dish, rode a few more rides, and then headed back to the resort to rest up for the next morning.

Day 4:  I completed my first half marathon!  It was grueling, I was a dumbass for only training one day, but I finished and that's what mattered to me.  Now of course I'm determined to make my time better (3.5 hours is just poo but again I suck for not training and I need to get custom tennis shoes) and I think I convinced Evan's dad we need to do the coast to coast challenge eventually which is complete a half marathon in WDW and Disneyland in the same calendar year and you get an awesome medal with Walt Disney on it (hence the flying out west thing).  Following the half my feet were killing me and I never wanted to walk again but I somehow was up until 1am and walked around the parks the rest of the day.  We ate at Olivia's for breakfast which was at our resort, I fell asleep for about an hour, soaked my feet, then slept for maybe 20 minutes before heading to Epcot around 2.  I met up with Evan and Matt to explore so more countries, ate at my favorite restaurant in the world, Le Cellier Steakhouse, explored more countries, rode a boat in Mexico, went swimming at the resort, then left property to finally have some Uno deep dish Chicago style pizza.  While it was amazingly delicious (it was Evan's first time having Chicago style pizza and LOVES IT like I do) I liked Lou Minalti's in Chicago better.  However, I love them both.

Day 5: Last park day. :(  I finally rode Test Track and loved it so we went on twice first thing which worked out really well because the ride had been shut down quite a bit during our trip and we found out an hour after we rode it was down again.  We then ate around the world which was 11 countries in the world showcase.  We ordered a dish from every country and stuffed our faces.  I felt a whole new kind of full by the time we finished.  Again, no regrets.  I had some amazing food I had never had before and discovered that some foods like sauerkraut and hummus are even better when made by people from the country of its origin, which would be a big durr.  I'm pretty sure I burned like 2,000 calories during the half anyway so I was just creating a balance.  Like I said, absolutely no regrets.  After our eating marathon, we headed to Hollywood Studios and caught a few shows before eating again (yeah, we're pigs) at Mama Melrose for dinner.  We then headed off to Magic Kingdom because there were extra magic hours until 11 that night, which was perfect for our last park day.  We rode more stuff, kind of saw fireworks, and just had a blast.

Day 6: Our departure day.  We grabbed breakfast at Wolfgang Puck express in DTD and did last minute shopping.  Soaked our feet in the resort pool until the Magical Express came to pick us up to take us to the airport.  I had my 6th flight which was a very bumpy ride but still not as bad as my first because we weren't randomly dropping, just violent shaking.  After arriving in Columbus all of us Ohioans were talking about how we wish Florida's weather was up here and how we still have the rest of winter to endure.

So, fabulous trip.  Even though I missed my first day of classes ever as an undergrad but I caught up on everything quickly and returned to school yesterday.  Today was an online class day so Megan came over and we did our Wiki project.  I should probably study some for Praxis today but I'm thinking reading "Pride and Prejudiced" and watching "Sleeping Beauty" sound more interesting.