(no subject)
Hello! I haven’t written in quite a while because I’d decided to wait until I had something good to report, job wise. But it seems that I’ve vastly underestimated how long that would take, so here I am, breaking down and writing again to record my trip to Disney World:
Sunday Sep 20th
After an uneventful flight, we landed in Florida and hopped on a bus bound for Disney World. Alyssa says that Disney buses are supposed to play a DVD as they approach that’s timed to act as a tour guide. Ours didn’t, but Alyssa was guide enough; her family has been so many times that she’s like a Disney Sherpa.
Besides, the first thing I like to do when I go somewhere new is figure out what weird plants and animals the people there take for granted. Most everywhere I’ve ever lived, it’s been ducks and squirrels, but in Florida, they have ibises, herons, and egrets instead of ducks! But they have ducks too, though they’re bigger, and less shy of humans. At least, the one I met was; I fed her key lime pie! But I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is, I had my eyes peeled for alligators*. I didn’t see any, but I did see Spanish moss!
We arrived at our hotel, The Bay Lake Towers, which is attached via skywalk to another hotel, The Contemporary, which, I’m not even kidding, has a monorail going right through it! I LOVE the monorail! (I’ll get to why soon) Our room, nay, our suite, was still being cleaned when we checked in, so we hung out at the pool for a little bit before getting settled in.
Then we had dinner at a restaurant on the top floor of The Contemporary. From the window, I could see an island that was literally covered in birds. I had ostrich (which, it turns out, tastes pretty much just like lean beef) with mashed potatoes, baby carrots, and wild mushrooms, in a fig and port reduction.**
We watched the fireworks that they shoot off over Cinderella’s castle from the restaurant’s terrace. One thing I learned about Disney World is that they love to set things to music, even things that don’t necessarily need to be set to music. And they work narrative into just about everything, even a fireworks display. Bitch’n fireworks though.
After that, I got Alyssa to ride around on the monorail with me. Disney World is made up of four different parks; Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. We happened to be passing by Epcot as they where doing their fireworks show!!!! It has long been a dream of mine, you see, to watch fireworks while riding in some manner of sky tram (FFVII) and the monorail was close enough that I was able to cross it off the bucket list.
Then we took a ferry boat back. I asked Alyssa about the island with all the birds and she said it was probably Discovery Island, which is where they kept the animals before Animal Kingdom opened up, including some Galapagos tortoises which she may or may not have ridden around on as a child (it may have only been some beautiful dream). We got into a conversation about the island with a cast member*** and he told us that he had gone there recently to repair something but that it’s all overgrown now, like a jungle. Probably there are velociraptors there too. And that was the first day!
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*Which is what they have instead of squirrels.
** I’m a food tourist, which means that I don’t really consider a trip successful unless I eat a food, or, ideally, and animal, that I’ve never eaten before.
***Which is what they call all employees at the park, to imply that they are all participants in a great, ongoing pageant of magic and wonder, and to get around hiring regulations.
The weekend after next (Oct 8-11) I’ll be going to Philadelphia for Jane Austen Con 09.
If anyone feels like putzing around Philadelphia for a few day (seeing the liberty bell and what not; sorry, but JA’Con is all sold out) let me know. It will be a rather less extravagant sort of trip, but; but I’ll let you stay at the EconoLodge for free!
Sunday Sep 20th
After an uneventful flight, we landed in Florida and hopped on a bus bound for Disney World. Alyssa says that Disney buses are supposed to play a DVD as they approach that’s timed to act as a tour guide. Ours didn’t, but Alyssa was guide enough; her family has been so many times that she’s like a Disney Sherpa.
Besides, the first thing I like to do when I go somewhere new is figure out what weird plants and animals the people there take for granted. Most everywhere I’ve ever lived, it’s been ducks and squirrels, but in Florida, they have ibises, herons, and egrets instead of ducks! But they have ducks too, though they’re bigger, and less shy of humans. At least, the one I met was; I fed her key lime pie! But I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is, I had my eyes peeled for alligators*. I didn’t see any, but I did see Spanish moss!
We arrived at our hotel, The Bay Lake Towers, which is attached via skywalk to another hotel, The Contemporary, which, I’m not even kidding, has a monorail going right through it! I LOVE the monorail! (I’ll get to why soon) Our room, nay, our suite, was still being cleaned when we checked in, so we hung out at the pool for a little bit before getting settled in.
Then we had dinner at a restaurant on the top floor of The Contemporary. From the window, I could see an island that was literally covered in birds. I had ostrich (which, it turns out, tastes pretty much just like lean beef) with mashed potatoes, baby carrots, and wild mushrooms, in a fig and port reduction.**
We watched the fireworks that they shoot off over Cinderella’s castle from the restaurant’s terrace. One thing I learned about Disney World is that they love to set things to music, even things that don’t necessarily need to be set to music. And they work narrative into just about everything, even a fireworks display. Bitch’n fireworks though.
After that, I got Alyssa to ride around on the monorail with me. Disney World is made up of four different parks; Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. We happened to be passing by Epcot as they where doing their fireworks show!!!! It has long been a dream of mine, you see, to watch fireworks while riding in some manner of sky tram (FFVII) and the monorail was close enough that I was able to cross it off the bucket list.
Then we took a ferry boat back. I asked Alyssa about the island with all the birds and she said it was probably Discovery Island, which is where they kept the animals before Animal Kingdom opened up, including some Galapagos tortoises which she may or may not have ridden around on as a child (it may have only been some beautiful dream). We got into a conversation about the island with a cast member*** and he told us that he had gone there recently to repair something but that it’s all overgrown now, like a jungle. Probably there are velociraptors there too. And that was the first day!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
*Which is what they have instead of squirrels.
** I’m a food tourist, which means that I don’t really consider a trip successful unless I eat a food, or, ideally, and animal, that I’ve never eaten before.
***Which is what they call all employees at the park, to imply that they are all participants in a great, ongoing pageant of magic and wonder, and to get around hiring regulations.
The weekend after next (Oct 8-11) I’ll be going to Philadelphia for Jane Austen Con 09.
If anyone feels like putzing around Philadelphia for a few day (seeing the liberty bell and what not; sorry, but JA’Con is all sold out) let me know. It will be a rather less extravagant sort of trip, but; but I’ll let you stay at the EconoLodge for free!