Disney 2011, Day 10

Exciting Things That Happened In Between the Last Report And Now
I realized that I could look at the receipt and figure out what we ate at the San Angel Inn.

Nick Hammer & The San Angel Inn Receipt

Tell me a book with that title wouldn't fly off the shelves. It would only have to be a page and a half long, too. Turns out that, ahem, I got the tiacoyo chilori, which I think is spelled wrong because nothing turns up when I google it, and Katie got the tostadas tinga. Tell us more, "Lil's Mommy" from Yahoo! answers, the least trustworthy source on the Internet:

Tinga is a basically a stewed pork dish, cooked with a chipotle sauce and most commonly served on tostadas--most common form of tinga. It's a meat dish that is slowly cooked in a spicy chile sauce and then served in a traditional food wrap such as a tostada, a tortilla or a taco shell. Typical ingredients include cubed pork shoulder or loin, chorizo sausage, tomatoes, chipotle chiles, onions, and garlic.

Okay - wake up, that part's over. Today we went back to the Magic Kingdom, as we had another lunch reservation at the Liberty Tree Tavern. But first, we rode It's A Small World again. Why did we ride it's a small world again? I don't know. However, I did find out that Katie knows all the words to the song - and it turns out there is an actual verse and not just an endless chorus. Take it away, Katie (just imagine a pink-skinned blonde muppet singing this):

It's a world of laughter
a world of tears
It's a world of hopes
and a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware

(repeat chorus for 45 minutes)

And, you know, I hate to belabor this point, but is there nothing else stereotypically French they could have the dolls doing but showing you their underwear in a huge kick line? How about a guy in one of those striped shirts and a beret making a baguette or something? Or taking some of his six weeks of paid vacation? (Come to think of it, where's America? Huh.)

After that it was time for lunch.

An exhaustive report on our lunch at the Liberty Tree Tavern

It was good.

I got the same salad again, and it turns out the mystery dressing is balsamic strawberry (???) which was tasty, but I'm not sure if it's what we had the last time. Since I liked it and ate all my salad, Katie developed a theory that I "stealth like strawberries," which I'm sure means I'm going to have to try lots of strawberry-flavored stuff and continue to get in trouble for making faces and comments like "Ew," and "Yuck," and "Barf," and "Ew yuckbarf".

Then we went on the haunted mansion, which was still neat. At one point the ride got stuck for a few minutes. Did it get stuck because they were hauling off the guy taking a flash photograph every 15 seconds and dragging him into a side room where they beat him with billy clubs? I hope so.

Dear guy taking flash photographs every 15 seconds

Do you really think any of those pictures are going to come out??

Then I almost got The Game of Life Haunted Mansion Edition, but nobody wants to play Life with me because I always win. (As opposed to Monopoly, where I'm accused of "cheating" because I offer deals like I'll give you the one land you need for your monopoly if I never have to pay rent. I am the 1%! Deal with it, looters!)
Next we went on the country bear jamboree. Yes, really. What can I even say about the country bear jamboree? Well, none of the animatronics have been updated in what seems like 50 years, so if you want a bunch of hick stereotype drunk overweight rapist bears in ill-fitting overalls singing country music to you, you're in luck! I don't want to be mean, but this seems like the ride you go on after you get kicked out of the Hall of Presidents for yelling SHOW US THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE at robot Obama. (He doesn't have one; He's a robot.)
Next up we went on Pirates of the Caribbean. I know I said last time that this ride is pretty PG, but to the girl who was too afraid to ride it, if she's reading this: You look like you're about 15, I think you can handle it. Those skeletons and stuff aren't real. And if they are real, they can't get you. On second thought, scratch that; They are real, and they're hiding in your resort room right now aaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Last we stopped at the Enchanted Tiki Room, which would take home weirdest thing of the whole trip in a landslide if we hadn't just had anamatronic hick stereotype bears bleating 50 year old country music at us. But we did, so it's a close second. I do want to ask, though, why do the two talking toucans who introduce the ride to you have a southern and a British accent, respectively? On second thought, never mind; If we start wondering why the tropical birds inside the tiki room have stereotypical Mexican, French, German, and Irish voices, we're going to be here all day. Anyway, the tiki room is a big theater you sit in, and then a bunch of ethic anamatronic birds sing to you from the rafters. Then a bunch of plants, including the ones on the wall, sing. Then the totem poles start chanting, except they're so old only half of them have functioning mouths. If it sounds weird, I promise you, it's even weirder in person.
Then we took the boat back to the resort. That's it for our trip; Tonight we'll pack - I'm going to see if I can talk Katie into bringing home all the mini-shampoos and shower gels we've accumulated - and tomorrow it's back to Albany (yay, hooray, yay).

Tomorrow: Katie embraces her destiny as "She-Ra, Princess of Power" and sets off to do battle with the evil Hordak. Probably.

Next Vacation: Probably in 2013. We'll probably stay at the Wilderness Lodge. I'll bring along our book full of Disney pins so we can keep track of which ones we already have. (Disney's pin trading/collecting world is a dark place you may enter but never leave; I've avoided writing about it since we didn't go too crazy, but it may be covered next time.) We'll visit Harry Potter Land at Universal, if only so I don't get punched in the face by certain Harry Potter fans. Everyone will ride jet bikes and be clip art faces on top of stick figure heads. I'll have thought up a clever ending for my last trip report.

Credits

Writer:
Nick Hammer

Director:
Nick Hammer

Executive Producer:
Nick Hammer

Associate Producer:
Katie Hammer

Key grip:
The Sun

Wardrobe provided by Katie's Mom of Delmar

Special thanks:
Katie, because she demanded that she go first
My dad, for driving us to the airport, and also hopefully remembering to pick us up tomorrow
Southwest Airlines, the only airline out there with a sense of humor
"Phineas & Ferb" & "The Rachel Maddow Show", for being just about the only watchable things on TV
Our maid, for cleaning up our filthy messes and making cute towel sculptures
Everyone at work, who hopefully won't be too mad I took 2 weeks off at the launch of new learning management system, which is a coincidence, I promise
Whoever invented air conditioning, which I'm too lazy to look up
Everyone who actually read these trip reports (that means you!)

Filmed on location at Walt Disney World, Florida, the United States, Earth, Orion-Cygnus arm of the Milky Way, Local Galactic Group, Virgo Supercluster

Ownership of this motion picture is protected by copyright and other
applicable laws and any unauthorized duplication, distribution, or
exhibition of this motion picture could result in criminal prosecution
as well as civil liability.



Nick Hammer will return in

OUR NEXT VACATION
Whenever that is.

Disney 2011, Day 9

Exciting Things That Happened In Between the Last Report And Now
We ate the gingerbread shingle. I liked it; Gingerbread is normally pretty nasty, but this was about as good as gingerbread gets. And it had chocolate on the back, which is probably cheating.

Katie Hammer & The Residual Muscle Ache

Katie was still achin', so we decided to take it easy today and just go to Epcot for lunch. And maybe another ride on Spaceship Earth. This time we picked the options where our clip art faces were pasted on stick figures that had passive-aggressive doctors who called on wrist-mounted videophones to tell us to eat salads. Then we did the conga.
One weird thing I noticed about Spaceship Earth is that when you get to the top of the dome (18 stories!), there's a big Earth as Judi Dench is like "Look, it's Earth," except if you look in the right spot (far, far, far to the left, or to your right after the vehicle has spun around), there's a second full-sized Earth. I assume this has nothing to do with the 1994 series "Earth 2", and is probably just a backup Earth in case the one we're on right now gets blown up or something.

Then it was lunch time.

An important correction

Earlier trip reports referred to the huge stepped structure the Mexican world showcase is in as a pyramid; It is actually a ziggurat, or stepped pyramid. We ate inside this, which was really nice. Inside it's done up like a marketplace at night, complete with stars and lanterns, and right outside the plaza where we ate is the river you can ride the boat down if you go on the boat ride. There's also a smaller ziggurat in here for ambiance. It's a great atmosphere, and the only downside is that gringo tourists keep coming by to take photographs of it and you while you're eating.

Dad Eat Food

So what did we have at the San Angel? I almost got the tortilla soup, but it has cheese in it, so instead I got the Not Appearing On Any Online Menu I Can Find, which was I think a corn cake with pulled chicken on it? Whatever it it was, it was very tasty. Katie got... hmm.

Nick Hammer & The Curse of the Inaccurate Online Menus

Normally I can look up what we ate, but for some reason all the online versions of the San Angel Inn don't match up with what we actually had. Well, this is going to be interesting. Um, Katie had a uh, rolled-up pulled chicken thing, which was OK. For the entree we both got the chicken enchiladas. These were a little spicy - that's because I'm a spice wimp, not because they were over-spiced - and frankly I liked the appetizer better. This is a common problem I have; I'll want, say, a triple order of an appetizer I really like instead of an entree. Just look at the grilled chicken wonton tacos at Applebee's. Actually, don't - I'm gonna eat those.

For desert Katie got ginger ice cream, and I got Bavarian cream (I didn't ask why Bavarian cream is being served in Mexico). It's good - very, um, creamy. There was another flavor in there I couldn't identify (probably Bavaria), but I ate it all. Katie's caramel ice cream, however, has to take home the prize, as it's probably without hyperbole the best ice cream I've ever had. It kind of seemed like some kind of crazy creme brulee ice cream what with the caramel deposits inside. Here, I'm going to let Katie explain, in the recap version of pushing your wife up to the microphone:

There is Creme Brulee ice cream...Ben and Jerry's makes it.  The caramel ice cream had veins of caramel drizzly stuff in it.  I would remind more but Rachel Maddow is charming me away.

Caramel drizzly stuff, there you have it. Katie's muscle ache was acting up, so we headed back to the hotel. Hopefully, tomorrow she'll be up to a full day at one of the parks.

Tomorrow: General Zod escapes the Phantom Zone and comes to Earth, gaining the same powers as the son of Jor-El from the yellow rays of our sun.

Disney 2011, Day 8

Exciting Things That Happened In Between the Last Report And Now
I slept great. Katie got a big annoying muscle ache in her neck.

Nick Hammer and the Prisoner of Annoying Muscle Aches (Except the Prisoner of Annoying Muscle Aches doesn't fall through a curtain and die [spoiler alert])

Since Katie has a big muscle ache, we canceled out plan to eat in the Mexican pyramid (we've all been there, right?). Instead we had lunch at Kona Cafe. Katie got the steak salad, which looked pretty good, although it's loaded with vermicelli, which I don't get. It doesn't taste like anything, people; You don't need to put it on there! I got the beef bowl, which is massive; I could have cut my head off and put it in the bowl they bring it out in and it would only be slightly more to eat. I mean, you'd have to chew my skull for a while. Still. It's a ton of broth, noodles, beef, mushrooms, peppers, peas, cucumbers, different kinds of noodles, you name it.

Then we took a ride on the mononorail off to the Grand Floridian (or as it's always called, The Grand Floridian Resort & Spa (TM)).This is pretty nice. The lobby is massive, like five stories high and over half a football field long. Since it's a Resort & Spa (TM), it has a hair salon on the second floor, and a store where you can get a shampoo bar. Really. It's like a bar of soap, but it's shampoo. What the hell.
On the first floor there's a huge gingerbread house - so big, in fact, that there's room for two women to stand inside and sell gingerbread. Now it's slightly cheating because parts of it are made out of wood (mostly the railings), but the majority of it is gingerbread held together with icing, so it's pretty impressive. And you can buy gingerbread shingles. Normally I find gingerbread to be pretty nasty, but I'm sure this will be pretty good. (Also, we forgot to eat it yet.)
After that it was just a quick trip on the monorail back to our resort. For dinner we worked on using up some of the 36 counter service meals we have left on our mealplan by going to Captain Cook's, a restaurant at the resort I like because you don't have to talk to anyone to order your food. Instead, there's a touch screen, and you just touch what you want, and then it prints out a receipt you give to the cashier, and when your beeper goes off, you get your food and flee. Well, I mean, you don't have to flee like Kermit from the Muppets, but I don't see why not.

Tomorrow we're back at Epcot for the final time, and we'll try to go on Test Track, and Katie will have to decide if she wants to marry the grumpy vampire with dumb hair or the werewolf who can't keep his shirt on.

Disney 2011, Day 7

Exciting Things That Happened In Between the Last Report And Now
Katie snored like two chainsaws making love. I woke up at like 3 AM and didn't get much sleep.

Because we were both tired (Katie was apparently able to snore loudly enough to wake herself up), today we did Disney's Animal Kingdom, which is kind of a half-day type of thing. First we went on "Dinosaur", based on the 2000 movie. Called "Dinosaur". Remember "Dinosaur"? I didn't remember "Dinosaur".
That's okay because as it turns out, the ride basically has nothing to do with the movie ("Dinosaur"). Instead, the guy who plays Dr Hodges on CSI has invented a time machine, which everyone on the ride is kind of blase about, and you're going back in time to 90 seconds before the apocalyptic meteorite that destroyed the Dinosaurs (from the 2000 film "Dinosaur") hits. Why you can't go, say, six hours before it hits is because shut up, that's why.
The ride's discription says that it's for big kids, tweens, and adults (I guess teens aren't allowed), and even as an adult this ride is pretty scary. Most of it takes place in the dark - at some points, only small falling stars illuminate the track, and sometimes it's just totally black until thunder crashes and a scary dinosaur pops out of the darkness trying to eat you. Regrettably, we were both eaten by dinosaurs.

Next we wanted to cool down after getting eaten by dinosaurs, so we went on Kali's River Rapids, which is a lot like the Ragin' River or whatever it's called at Great Escape - The ragin' river of ragin' river rapids that rage in the river. Basically, you get in a round boat that goes down a big waterfall and you get soaked.

Weirdest conversation we have had at Disney World (yet)

What hobbies would a bird have? Can he take up scrimshaw? Although he doesn't have thumbs, is it possible for him to scrimshaw using an AutoCAD machine where he can insert the bone to be worked, then press buttons to operate the saws and lathes?

Now it was time to go on the last ride of the day, believe it or not. This is the park's signature attraction, the Kilimanjaro Safari. Here you get into a big open tour bus and drive through the nature reserve lookin' at animals. We saw black and white rhinos (although the white rhino isn't actually white, its name is thought to be a mistranslation of the Dutch word "wijd", which mean wide, because of its wide jaw). We saw some hippos, nature's biggest jerks. We saw a ton of birds whose name I totally remember, such as the (loud coughing) and (indistinct mumbling). We saw TWO kinds of giraffes, which I didn't even know there were, but I guess there are. We saw a male lion lazily sleeping (probably waiting for his government handout - thanks, Obumbler!) and a female lion keeping an eye on our ride vehicle. And an elephant. And some gazelles? Yeah, throw some gazelles in there.
Then we saw a hollow stump where a female duck managed to swim into somehow and hopefully she was able to swim back out. Also we saw two tiny cute monkies. Then we came home.

Nick Hammer and the Shorter Than Usual Trip Report

Then we went swimming. I like swimming, but the problem is I usually get bored after three minutes. So after three minutes of swimming we wandered down the beach. The Polynesian has a beach with no shells, so you can walk barefoot on it, which we did, until we came to a hammock, which Katie got in and then couldn't get out of without falling out of it her head on the sand, which probably would have been pretty funny. I mean, not good.
Then we came back to the room and Katie watched mind-rotting Disney Channel original TV for a while. Did you know there's a show on here called "So Random"? And there's "My Babysitter is a Vampire", where two boys who are like 15 years old apparently have a babysitter who's 16, and she's a vampire? Wow.

Contextless audio clips from ads on the disney channel

Zombie barf!!
Yum!!

Oh, I almost forgot!

Totally free, awesome movie pitch: July ROAR 1776, the story of the American revolution except everyone is dinosaurs.

The cast so far:

Benjamin Franklin - purple Stegosaurus with some of those frameless glasses that just perch on your nose
John Adams - smug triceratops
King George III - Tyrannosaurus Rex sitting on a big throne with one of those goofy wigs they still use in court over there

Disney 2011, Day 6

Exciting Things That Happened In Between the Last Report And Now
I had a dream where I got hit by a ray gun blast that turned me into a little girl, so the police detectives from "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" came and arrested me, and I was like "I didn't do anything," and they were like "Keep talking scumbag - you're going down for a long time!"

Also, Katie emailed me a bunch of photos from the ipad (find one of our room with the curtains open attached).

Today we had an 11:30 reservation at Tutto Italia, which is the nice sit-down restaurant in Italy at Epcot's World Showcase. As soon as we got to the park, we fastpassed Soarin', then went to eat. I'm guessing it's because today is Saturday, because Epcot was packed.

A digression on theme park design

One of the reasons I like Epcot is that it has the widest walkways I've ever seen - 30 feet across is narrow for Epcot. This means that even when it's packed, it's never hard to move around like some other places. A gaggle of moms squawking over a bunch of strollers that would be an impassible blood clot in Disney MGM's circulatory system is here something you just swing around and continue on your merry way. Even with 50 foot walkways, the entrance and exit area of the World Showcase was packed, probably as tomorrow is the last day of the food and wine festival.

How to deal with clogged areas

Hold hands with your wife, and raise and extend your arm to deliver clotheslines when necessary.

At Tutto Italia Katie got the fresh mozzarella, which I guess is good if you like cheese, like Hitler. I got the Proscuitto di Parma, which is thinly sliced ham on mango slices. This was pretty good, but I didn't want to eat it all since I'd also already had a bunch of bread and olive oil and wanted to have some space left for lunch. For entrees, Katie had the gnocchi, which had four kinds of cheese in it. I had the penne with no cheese, which tasted exactly like my dad's homemade pasta. Katie wimped out and got vanilla ice cream (okay, gelato, but let's be honest, it's vanilla ice cream). I got the tiramisu, which was yummy.

After lunch we went back on the Maelstrom at Norvay!!!! and this time I talked Katie into staying and watching the movie they show afterwards. It's actually kind of funny - you can tell it was filmed in the 1970s, and the narrator is like "It vould be very very brave and good looking of you to come leave all your tourist dollars in NORVAY!!!! just sayin'. Othervise, ve vill send our dreaded techno-vikings armed vith these 1970s dumb terminals out. From NORVAY!!!!"

Then we went to Mexico and went on the ride there, called I Forgot This Ride's Name. This is a very odd ride. The area you ride through is spectacular; There's a night-time pyramid with a glowing sky, a jungle river, the inside of the Pyramid, which looks like Montezuma's flooded living room, and then a rock-cut channel with waterfalls before you come to a sleepy Mexican town with perpetual fireworks going on over your head.
That's all very nice, but almost nobody is looking at this; Instead, they're looking at the hard to ignore TVs blasting two birds looking for Donald Duck so they can perform their Three Amigos routine with him. (There's a particularly big one in Montzeuma's flooded living room; He seems to be doing well for himself despite being dead almost 500 years. Despite having tourists riding boats through his pyramid, I mean.)

Next we did Journey into Imagination with Figment again and then Captain Eo again, thus falling victim to the curse of Rides I've Already Described.

Options for describing rides again
Just state that we went on the ride again.
Mention overlooked details, such as that Captain Eo seems like a small part of a larger movie where Luke Skywalker is replaced by Micheal Jackson, and who wouldn't want to watch that movie? I'd watch the fuck out of that movie. They can put that right on the poster. "I watched the fuck out of this movie!"
Make up a bunch of crazy lies, unlike what really happened on Journey into Imagination with Figment, where Figment got startled by a crying child and bit Katie, and she turned into a 18 foot purple dragon with crazy hair who could fly, and I rode her into an awesome space battle with an attacking UFO, and after Katie breathed purple plasma fire their UFO crashed, but it's OK because it collapsed into the lagoon, and the aliens were like "What are we supposed to do now?" and I got them jobs at the snack stands at Epcot and Obumbler re-distributed them citizenship using his union thugs. *

* All of this really happened. ☨

☨ In my imagination, which Figment taught me to use. ✝

✝ And Eric Idle taught me how to use footnotes.

Next we needed to sit down - Captain Eo is fun, but the sloped floor you stand on while waiting to get into the theater hurts my feet - so we went on Living with the Land again. This time there was a whopping two minute wait, which gave me time to read some of the messages on the walls. There's a bunch of quotes here, including one by Venda Green, Age 10, saying that she's just a person, but even she can make a difference. So if the Earth doesn't get better, we know who to blame, VENDA GREEN, AGE TEN.

And then what? Well, you remember our fast pass, I'm sure. It was ready now, which meant it was time for

SOARIN'
MOTHER FUCKER

Did Soarin' measure up the second time? Well, yeah. Shit yeah. In fact, I'll just live on Soarin' from now on. No, wait - when I die, put me in a little urn and securely fasten that urn into a seat on Soarin'. Yeah - that's not creepy or morbid at all.
Then we came home, although I do have a further digression on the importance of a good hat.

A further digression on the importance of a good hat

A good hat is important for two reasons. The first is that it keeps your brain from getting too hot. This is the number one cause of brain explosions. The second is that it keeps the sun out of your eyes. If you have a nice hat with the right sized brim and a good pair of sunglasses - or the kind Katie and I have where you can just clip sunglasses attachments to the crazy magnets that are right in your lenses you guys - you can look straight into the sunniest, shade-lacking area Florida has to offer. In Italy I like a nice woven straw hat, but in Florida I prefer a soft canvas hat. The kind that Katie and I have is like this - you can roll it up and stuff it in your pocket, you can soak it in the ice-cold water that comes out of the water fountains and jam it on your head while yelling WOW THAT'S COLD and pretending you had no idea it was going to be that cold, and it even has snaps on the left and right side so you can button the brim up. If you button both up, it makes your hat look like a delicious taco; If you button one up, you look like Crocodile Dundee. We uh, normally don't button these up.

That's all there is to report
Tomorrow is probably going to be Disney's Animal Kingdom, where you can probably guess what they have. Until then, I guess we're watching Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure, and Tinkerbell's kind of being an asshole right now, I'm just saying.

** Update **

Woops, never mind; Looks like Tink's about to learn her big lesson, and I think the bugs are bringing her food. What the hell are these bees bringing her, flan? Where does a bee get that? This is silly.

** Update 2 **


Never mind, it's honey.

Disney 2011, Day 5

Exciting Things That Happened In Between the Last Report And Now
Katie snored like a revving chainsaw, prompting me to tell her to be quiet, which apparently woke her up enough that she was reading tvtropes.org for two hours about Phineas and Ferb (turns out I have the same birthday as Doofenschmirtz's daughter!)

Today we went to Disney MGM park, which is kind of the odd park out. Disney usually acts like this:

THE MOTHER FUCKING MAGIC KINGDOM!
OH SHIT - IT'S EPCOT!

DISNEY'S ANIMAL KINGDOM!

I GUESS DISNEY MGM IF IT'S NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE!

Now Disney MGM has a few neat rides. The big attraction is the new "Star Tours", a Star Wars-themed ride through space and some planets. I like the old one, but it's been redone now so that it can go to a bunch of different places, and so it's different every time. The way it works now is cute; You get on board and they take a picture of an audience member, then as you try to leave, the Empire figures out that there's a "Rebel Spy" on board and your ship zooms away as you're chased down. I'm not going to ask why a tour ship has laser cannons that R2D2 uses to shoot down TIE fighters, let alone how we managed to escape six Imperial Star Destroyers.
The two planets we ended up with were the Wookie homeworld, Kashyyyk, and the capital planet of Coruscant. They're both neat, although it is a little weird going from Episode IV - VI Kashyyyk straight into Episode II Coruscant with totally different ship designs. Nerd alert.

So what then? Well. Disney MGM is kinda lite on awesome rides; It has a bunch of stunt shows, which look nice, but the wait times are all pretty big. There's a 3d Muppet movie, but I'd already seen it. So we went on the Backstage Tour, which gives away such treasured Hollywood secrets like sets don't feature whole buildings, but instead just a false front. Major spoiler alert. You drive through Disney's costuming and set-building departments, which is a genuinely neat behind the scenes look. Then you go to a fake "movie set" where they set off a huge propane explosion and dump 70,000 gallons of water on your ride vehicle. This is pretty neat. The propane burns so hot you can feel it on your skin from 50 feet away.

A weird aside: For some reason, this whole ride seems to take place in an alternate universe where 2001's "Pearl Harbor" was a massive hit, because it's mentioned repeatedly and the pre-show explosives demonstration is patterned on it. Go figure.

So now it's about 2:45, and we're done with Disney MGM; After spending like 9 hours in the park yesterday, we're ready for a break. We both came up with an idea of what to do next.

My idea

Eat something at one of the restaurants in the park and go home.

Katie's idea

Get a bus to the Contemporary, walk to the monorail stop, take the monorail to our resort, walk to our room, drop off our extra stuff, walk back to the bus stop, get a bus to downtown disney, eat at the Rainforest Cafe, get a bus back to the Contemporary, walk to the monorail stop again, get the monorail back to our resort.

Nick and Katie's Wild ride

Well, you can probably guess what we ended up doing since the heading isn't "Nick and Katie's Relaxing Lunch". Actually, to be fair, we were having great luck with these bus and monorail stops; The first two busses we caught were waiting for us when we got to the bus stop, as was the monorail every time. At the Rainforest Cafe, though, Katie committed the ultimate crime - telling me we'd split an appetizer and then not having very much of it. Then she punched a baby and tipped over an old man's soup into his lap, laughing maniacally as he made a comical sad face.
Okay, no, those last two things didn't happen. But she did in fact agree to split the appetizer with me, then ordered a house salad, just like Judas turned Jesus over to the Romans. Exactly like that.
After we ate we wandered around Downtown Disney. We went in World of Disney, which is more difficult than it sounds, because people still stand right in the doorway taking pictures of the lobby. (I feel for whoever has to look at that slideshow.) I got a new hooded sweatshirt, but we couldn't find one for Katie, as women apparently don't get cold now.
Then it was time to take the bus back to the resort. And we happened to get on the dreaded

BUS WITH OBNOXIOUS KNOBS ON BOARD

BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM

Up until now, the most annoying bus passengers we'd ridden with was a loud obnoxious lady who held forth on how Disney is a rip-off, and paying $20 a person to have lunch in Cindarella's Castle with Cindarella isn't worth the money (right in front of her child she'd done this with). This time we were riding with three of them.

Subjects covered by three obnoxious bus passengers

I'm never coming to disney again.
This gentleman right here could give up his seat for me.
Nobody knows how to be a gentleman anymore - they don't have no role models!
(On hearing someone five feet away is getting off at Pleasure Island): What dumbass is getting off at pleasure island! You can't be serious!
(On getting a new bus driver): Is it a he or a she? Or both. Sir, are you a ma'am or a sir or both?
If I didn't have a kid, I wouldn't be here, I'd be sippin' a coconut on the beach!
If my husband was here, he'd kick somebody's ass.
Do I smell? (They then proceed to sniff each other's armpits.)*

* Yes, really. Right there on the bus. Can you believe it?

I have to give myself credit for not letting out a loud "Good" at their loud promises not to come back to Disney, but instead I just smirked annoyingly. (It's a gift.) We got off at the Contemporary, and Katie's butt had fallen asleep, so we checked out the stores before getting on the monorail. (If you're curious, it's $65 for the princess dress for a little kid, then extra for all the accessories. I think Disney's missing out on making money not making these for adults.)

And that's it for today.  Tomorrow it's back to Epcot for lunch at the italian restaurant, and then who knows? We might do Soarin' again, or Test Track, which is the one excellent ride we haven't done at Epcot yet. Now come here and sniff my pits - do I smell?


Wife Addendum:  The gentleman who should have moved according to the obnoxious NYC family was Nick.  It's called being on time for the bus if you want a seat so fuck you. I have three huge bug bites and Nick has zero.  Unfair, Disney insects!
We have mugs that allow us free unlimited drinks at our hotel. The hot chocolate that comes out of the machine is some of the best I've had and it's free.
We didn't eat at MGM because the food isn't that great (at the places I've been to that we could also get into) and Nick isn't fond of buffets.  I think he liked the buffet there when we went last but sometimes it's hard to tell if he likes something because he only came with one emotion cartridge. His memory and emotions are stored just like Robocop's.

Disney 2011, Day 4

(Author's note: Due to my decision that it would be clever to make each country's name appear in the colors of its flag, the text color for some parts of this post are, to use a technical term, all jacked up. Since blogger isn't the greatest with formatting, it looks like right now some parts of the text will either need to be highlighted to be legible, or manually given a white text backround - see Greece for an example of this. I'm working on fixing this, but in the meantime, you may need to highlight some of the text to read it.)


Exciting Things That Happened In Between the Last Report And Now
The universe was completely destroyed in an apocalyptic "Big Crunch", as the forward momentum generated by the Big Bang was finally stopped by the combined gravity of the universe, then began rushing in again until all of the matter in the universe, converted into energy, collapsed into a single, subatomic pinpoint, before exploding out again in an unimaginably huge Big Bang. You probably missed it, though, probably happened while you were asleep.

Back to EPCOT

Today is Katie's birthday, and she wanted to do the Epcot Food & Wine Festival, so we did. First we went and fastpassed Soarin', determined that we're finally going to do this ride. Then it was festival time as we wandered around the Epcot World Showcase, where each participating country had a stand. Here's the report, where I have color-coded the name of each country to approximate the country's flag, which you'd better enjoy because it took a while!

GREECE

We ate: Greek Salad (Balsamic dressing, Feta cheese, olives, tomato, onion) with pita wedge.


Verdict: This is a good appetizer, but I'm not sure it's really different from any other salad. I didn't even notice the feta, which I guess is a good sign.


Katie's verdict: Good, but a lot like stuff we've already had.

CANADA

We had: Chicken Chipotle Sausage with Sweet Corn Polenta & Apple Ice Wine

Verdict: I'm not much of a sausage man, but this was pretty good. Went very well with the wine, which was otherwise a little strong (alcohol-tasting) for me. The polenta was delicious - tastes like it's got some maple syrup in there. I could eat it all day.

Katie's verdict: Yum! I'm not a huge sausage fan either but I liked it. The polenta was the best and I enjoyed the wine but it's hard for me to ever drink more than a few sips.

Break time!

Now we went on a movie, "O Canada!" in, well, guess which country. This is one of those movies where there are eight screens in a octagon, and you stand in the middle. Martin Short hosts, and it's actually pretty funny - it starts with an omnipresent narrator declaring that every Canadian lives in an igloo, because it snows in Canada 24 hours a day, which, come on, we all know is true. Then Martin Short comes in and takes over, and you get some nice sweeping shots of the nature and cities of Canada. I just wish we could have sit down, because this hurt my feet. Also, the movie ends with a song by the winner of Canadian Idol 2006, which is even worse than it sounds, if you can believe such a thing.
Now more food!

IRELAND

We had: Kerrygold Cheese Selection (Aged-Irish Cheddar, Dubliner and Ivernia Cheese) with Apple Chutney and Brown Bread; Warm Chocolate Lava Cake with Baileys Ganache; Guinness Draught; Bunratty Meade Honey Wine

Verdict: The Guinness is the best beer I've ever had, not that that's saying much. The meade is very honey flavored, almost too sweet. The volcano cake is delicious - is this really Irish?? The bread was normal brown bread, but the sweet Irish butter that it came with was very tasty and went with it well.

Katie's verdict: Cheese was good, but tasted just like cheddar. I don't like beer but still the Guinness was good. Meade is strong!

FRANCE

We had: Coq au Vin sur Gratin de Macaroni (red wine braised chicken, mushrooms, pearl onions and macaroni gratin); Creme Brulee au Chocolat au Lait (Chocolate milk creme brulee topped with caramalized sugar); Parisian Cosmo Slush (Ciroc vodka, Grand Marnier, and cranberry juice)

Verdict: The red cosmo looks good, but it's just too bitter and cranberry for me. Creme brulee is creme brulee - absolutely delicious, even in a tinfoil and paper container from a booth on the street. Chicken was OK; Not really my speed, but it seemed well-cooked.

Katie's verdict: Snooty Frenchies ran the stand. Liked everything.

BELGIUM

We had: Belgian Waffle with Berry Compote and Whipped Cream

Verdict: Man, this was good. Deliciously light and tasty. We just about inhaled this waffle.

Katie's verdict: Is it bad we just got the waffle? Yummy with the fruit compote.

PORTUGAL

We had: Linguica Sausage with Onions, Peppers, and Olives & Pastel de Nata

Verdict: The chicken sausage was OK; The peppers & onions were good. Real star here is the desert, a miniature pie that is delightfully light and flaky and filled with delicious warm custard.

Katie's verdict: Sausage and veg were OK, but nothing special. Desert was the best part.

MOROCCO

We had: Kefta Pocket (ground seasoned beef in pita bread), Harissa Chicken Roll, and Baklava

Verdict: The Kefta Pocket is basically a spicy hamburger in a pita pocket. It's pretty good - I could see having one of these as a nice snack. The Harissa is basically like a narrow egg roll filled with spicy chicken and vegetables; It's very tasty and we ate the whole thing. Baklava is a honey and nut cake made out of flaky pastry that was excellent. Nothing bad I can say about the whole menu!

Katie's verdict: Beef was good, like a spicy hamburger. Chicken roll was very good. Baklava was awesome.

Break time!

Next we went on THE AMERICAN ADVENTURE, a combination movie/anamatronic show exploring America. This is at the America section of the World Showcase. It's hosted by Ben "I love boobs" Franklin and Mark "Always depicted smoking a cigar" Twain. I have to give this show a lot of credit - it would be easy and knee-jerk to just make the show about how Americans cut a great nation out of the wilderness using nothing but manly beards and not taking showers, but they have Frederick Douglass and Chief Joesph stop by to remind people who did much of the work building America and who we took the land from, respectively. The only downside is that the closing song, about how America needs to spread its golden wings, is incredibly cheesy and catchy and I need to stop thinking about it right now before I start humming it again.
Now back to the food!

NEW ZEALAND

We had: Lamb Slider with Tomato Chutney

Verdict: This tasted just like a meatball marinara sandwhich! Kind of messy, though (the lamb piece didn't quite fit the bun).

Katie's verdict: Lamb was yummy.

JAPAN

We had: Spicy Tuna Roll & California Sushi Roll

Verdict: I couldn't taste anything but seaweed in either one of these, sorry. Um, the ginger on the side was good.

Katie's verdict: Still don't like raw fish. I liked the ginger

SINGAPORE

We had: Beef Rendang (Coconut brasied beef) w/ Jasmine Rice

Verdict: Good, but a little spicy for me. Sauce tastes like curry. Probably a side dish, I don't know how much I could eat, even with the rice, before the spice just gets too hot.

Katie's verdict: I agree. Too spicy for a main dish.

ITALY

We had: Ravioli di formaggio all'Emiliana (baked cheese ravioli with creamy beef bolongnese, parmesan, and mozarella) and canoli

Verdict: Totally inedible. Looks and tastes like Chef Boyaredee left in the microwave too long. Blech!

Katie's verdict: Not what I was hoping for from a country that practically is food.

POLAND

We had: Kielbasa and Potato Pierogie with Caramelized Onions and Sour Cream

Verdict: Kielbasa is nasty and chewy - yuck. Perogi was OK. Best part was the caramelized onions, which were nice.

Katie's verdict: I feel like I cheated cause I already liked perogis.

GERMANY

We had: Apple Strudel featuring Werther's Original Karamel and Vanilla Sauce

Verdict: Absolutely delicious, although kind of hard to eat - Katie and I had to put a fork in each end and pull to break the strudel up. We almost got the goulash soup, but it was a little hot out for that.

Katie's verdict: Very good.

Break time!

Time for the Maelstrom - in Norvay!!!! This is a boat ride where Odin welcomes you to Norway, and you see the traditional Vikings, up though today, where they have, um, oil rigs. This is cheesy fun, and the way everyone keeps growling NORVAY!!!! never gets old. I feel bad that nobody - us included - sticks around for the five-minute film on NORVAY!!!! you have to exit through, but I think we made up for it by checking out an exhibit about the Vikings that showed you what a typical warrior would look like, what Olaf II looked like, etc.
Now back to the food!

SOUTH AFRICA

We had: Bunny Chow (Vegetable curry served in a bread loaf)

Verdict: I really liked the presentation on this dish - the vegetable curry is served inside a bread bowl you can eat. (It's probably easier if you eat it with a knife to cut the bread bowl, which we didn't think to grab.) The curry isn't bad, but all I could taste was, umm, curry.

Katie's verdict: I would order this, but not as a huge bowl. The small cup of bread we got was the perfect side.

SOUTH KOREA

We had: Boolgogi BBQ Beef with Steamed Rice and Kimchi

Verdict: Kimchee is nasty. Probably the worst thing we had all day - yuck. The beef was excellent, however, and I'm normally not a beef man. BBQ sauce is tasty.

Katie's verdict: Kimchee is gross.  I'm surprised that I liked the beef as much as I did.

CHINA

We had: Caramel Ginger Ice Cream

Verdict: Delicious! Ginger ice cream sounds like it could be nasty, but it's a wonderful combination of flavors. We at the whole thing!

Katie's verdict: Bonus points for the ice cream being frozen when we got it.  I'm going to be sad that I'll never be able to eat this again.

And that's it for the food. There were some more booths, but by now our fast pass for Soarin' was done cooking, and if it burned, my pants would be on fire. With not going on Soarin'. Maybe I had too much of that meade. So anyway, despite the fact that this is the third time we've been to Disney together, we'd never made it on Soarin' until now. And was Soarin' worth the wait and all the trouble and excitement?
Let me put it to you like this: Yes.

Totally free suggestion for a motto for Soarin', because I just enjoyed it that much

Soarin': Fucking Awesome

Soarin' is probably the most amazing experience I've had in all three trips here, and that includes the time I got turned into a were-badger. It's hard to describe, but basically, you sit in a big harness that lifts off the ground and you go into a 180 degree curved Imax screen that simulates hang-gliding. And it's awesome. You really feel like you're gliding over California, in the best sense; It's not scary at all, just exhilarating. I can see why people wait 65 minutes to go on this fucker. WOW

Then we went on Living With the Land to calm down, which is a tour showing you the rainforest - yeah, why not - and to me the more interesting part, a huge experimental greenhouse and aquarium. Katie and I were being annoying douchebags elbowing each other and reading each other the signs ("Look - cucumbers!") but we didn't even give a fuck. We might sign up for the - horrible pun alert - Behind the Seeds greenhouse tour one of these days. I'll have a full report.

By now the sun was down, which cooled things down nicely. So went on Mission: Space. This is a space training simulator where Gary Sinise guides you through a simulated mission to Mars. We were paired up in our four-person crew with a British bird and her son, and I diplomatically refrained from using my obnoxious cockney accent (it's about as offensive and accurate as Dick van Dyke going MARRRRRY POPPINNNNSSSSS in, uh, Mary Poppins). The mission was a success, you'll be happy to hear; You basically just need to push two buttons, but it's masked pretty effectively and even after going on this ride like six times, it's still hard not to get nervous when the flight simulator is rotating so you're on your back getting ready to take off looking up the launch rail.
Then we tried to send goofy Postcards from Space where it superimposes our picture into a video feed so it looks like we're calling from space, but you have to email these and it never seems to work. So we got some astronaut ice cream. Booya.

Gosh, then what. By now it was 6:50 and most stuff closes at 7, so we went on the last run of the day on Ellen's World of Energy, a really weird movie/ride where Ellen falls asleep watching Jeopardy and has a nightmare where she's on Jeopardy, except all the questions are about energy, so Bill Nye the Science Guy stops by and teleports her back to 65,000,000 BC to see how oil is made and she almost gets eaten by a snake. Did I mention this ride is weird? Katie swears I've been on this ride before, but I'm 100% sure I'd remember 37 minutes of Ellen and Bill Nye doing educational schtick. It's a cute ride, though, about as meta as you're going to get at Disney.
Finally it was time to go home, so we did Spaceship Earth again - this time we picked to have a house that cleaned up for us automatically, so our clip-art heads could enjoy coffee and give Fonzie-style thumbs up in joy. Then a trip on the monorail and here we are. Now I'm gonna go digest and watch Phineas & Ferb.