Ryan comes to visit!

So, just as I had recovered from the lack of sleep and energy from my parents visit, Ryan comes to visit. I worked all week after my parents left. Thursday night I worked until 12:15, getting home around 1:30 and then the next morning I was on the bus at 7:22am. I was meeting him at the hotel he was going to be staying at while he was here, All Star Music. I actually had never seen the All Stars so it was interesting to see. While I was checking him in, since I had booked it for him with my cast member discount, he snuck up behind me and scared the bejeezus out of me. It was so good to see him! I had missed him a lot since we really had only just begun our relationship before we left. We have been doing really well with the long distance relationship thing, but I definitely missed him a lot.

Just as soon as he arrived, we were off to the parks. We were doing 4 parks in 2 days which was a challenge and we were pretty exhausted at the end of each day!

First, we went to Animal Kingdom since there is not that much to do there we decided to hit that first. We rode the safari, Expedition Everest (which he hadn't rode before), and we saw The Festival of the Lion King, which is one of the best shows in Disney. I got calls from people and texts all day given it was my birthday. One particular call from my friend Mary got me tearing up. I was pretty homesick on my birthday missing all of my friends from school that I had celebrated my birthday with for 4 years and now I am not with them. I think I just realized that college was over and that it will never be the same again. Ryan was amazing, as usual, and actually expected that I would get a little emotional missing home on my birthday.

Anyway, I put my smile back on when the show began and then we headed over to Magic Kingdom. I have to say we were Magic Kingdom masters! Even though the park was busy we rode every ride in the park that was worth riding. We fast passed rides that had long waits and while we waited for our fast pass time we waited in the shorter lines like Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. It was crazy. I couldn't believe how well we did. We even got to ride Space Mountain twice because this lady handed us our fast passes. We were going to go to a nice dinner, but all the restaurants were overbooked. So we went to Cosmic Rays and it ended up being a better deal because we got a great view of the castle!

The next day we had planned on doing the other 2 parks. We started at Hollywood Studios and got fast passes for Rockin' Roller Coaster even though the wait time was only like 30 minutes. The park was pretty slow actually. I think because a lot of people were either at Magic Kingdom or the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot. We rode Tower of Terror, of course, and the Great Movie Ride. I found out that he had never seen the Beauty and the Beast show or the new stunt show Lights, Motors, Action. So we did both of those and in between did the Backlot Tour that I had not even done since I got here.

After all this we headed over to Epcot. We were planning on meeting my friend Courtney who has the same birthday as me and whose boyfriend was also visiting and my friend Sarah. While we waited for them to arrive we went and did Turtle Talk with Crush which is so much fun! The kids get to talk to Crush and ask him turtle questions. One kid asked Crush what he eats and Crush said vegetation and then Crush asked the kid what he likes to eat to which he responded with "Fish." It made for a very funny moment for Crush where he said "Fish are Friends, not food, man!" It was really funny.

We met up with Sarah and we rode Spaceship Earth, the ride inside of the big ball, which I also don't ever remember riding. Eventually, we met up with Courtney and her boyfriend and we walked around the food and wine festival. There was a fight that broke out near Mexico where there was beer flying. It felt like I was back in college again. People were yelling that this is a family place, but it didn't change much. I heard that this happens quite a bit with the amount of drinking people do in Epcot, but it was crazy to witness. Hard to believe this would happen in Disney.

It was crazy busy in Epcot, much busier than the previous weekend when my parents were here. So we walked around the world and then decided to get dinner off property. We went to Olive Garden, which is funny because we always used to go there for people's birthdays back at ISU. So, it all came full circle.

The next morning Ryan met me for breakfast at Panera, which is around the corner from my apartment, and then he headed back to Tampa to spend time with grandmother who lives there. I miss him more now than I did before, but he is hoping to come back in November some time pending my work schedule!

I am a really lucky girl! For my birthday present he got me the pictures we took from the Photopass Photographers and a picture frame, since before this trip there was only one picture of us together! I had some taken with my camera too so I would have them in electronic form too!

Mom and Dad come to visit!

So I guess now 3 weeks ago my parents came to visit. They were supposed to be arriving at the hotel around 11:00pm so I took our cast member buses over the Animal Kingdom Lodge and waited for them. This was the resort we had stayed at 4 years ago after I graduated from high school and walking through the front doors really brought back memories from that trip.

I checked them in and then we headed to the room where there was a Mickey made out of towels on the bed. A little bit of Disney magic to keep reminding me how great Disney really is. The magic really hasn't been lost for me yet.

The next morning we headed straight to the Magic Kingdom and decided to stop in the bakery for breakfast because I really wanted my mom to try the chocolate croissants, one of her favorite things. Then we took in a ton of rides and honestly I don't really remember that much about that day in the Magic Kingdom. One thing we did was the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. None of us had done it before so we decided to check it out! It was ended up being so much fun! It was an audience participation little comedy show. They would talk to people in the audience and before the show you can text jokes to this number and then some of them get read during the show. It was really cute and the inside looked like a Monsters Inc. comedy club. It was a lot of fun!

The next day we went to Epcot because of the Food and Wine Festival. It was really busy over there the day we went, but we still got some good tastes of some yummy food. I didn't eat much since I am a vegetarian, but I did have some great drinks. In a effort to turn me into a wine person, I tried a Riesling and that was pretty good actually. It is like juice, but eventually they think I will like wine. I doubt it!

I also loved this orange liqueur drink we got from France that was delicious. I also had this Cosmo slush, which was like a cosmopolitan in a slushy form and it was the best thing I have had at the food and wine so far. My parents liked pretty much everything they tried. They shared little plates and tried lots of different things that I cannot even remember.We also bought a hidden mickey book while were there. there are hidden Mickey's all over the park. It usually just the 3 circles and they are really hard to find. Mom got the pictures and they were really cool. We found a couple in Canada that were really cool and discovered the one in Peter Pan. It is really fun to try to find them and really hard at some times. A guy that had already found the Mickey's in Canada gave us extra hints to help us find them. It makes for something more interesting when you have been to Disney many times before!

That night I had to work glow, so we headed back to the hotel and then back to apartment to make it easier for the next day when I had to work again. I took the cast member bus back to my apartment and then got a ride with Sarah to work. I was pretty exhausted after doing the parks the day before and the day of work. Afterwards, I just stayed at my apartment because we were working until 12:45 and it would have been considerably later going back to the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  This night they actually came and visited me at work which was nice. It was weird to see them while I was working. I am not used to seeing familiar faces while I am working!

The next morning I met them at Animal Kingdom and we did the safari, which you always have to do first and at the beginning of the day. We got to see park open which is really cute over there because Mickey and Minnie drive by in a little safari car and welcome people to the park. We also saw Finding Nemo the Musical, which my mom really wanted to see. It is a pretty cool show where they puppeteer and act at the same time. It is similar to The Lion King Broadway show, but they don't have masks on. Mom loved the show and thought it was great. Then we decided to eat at this Yak and Yeti Restaurant in Asia that we had never heard of/been to before. It was amazing! Some of the best food I have had in Disney. It is, obviously, Asian food and it was delicious. We all loved our food and ended our meal with wontons which were melt in your mouth good. Our waiter was also a really cool guy which is nice because sometimes when they find out you are a cast member they shut off and waste their energy on non cast members. I am glad that he was good for my parents still!

Then I said good bye and went back to work again.

It was a really nice weekend. I was pretty exhausted with all the working and playing, but I had a lot of fun and it was good to see my parents.

Daytona

So I know I have not updated in a while. I have been super busy with visitors and things the last couple weeks!

The week before my parents came to visit I actually took a little side trip to Daytona with a couple of my friends.  It was really windy and the waves were really bad on the beach. The three of us were standing in the water and this lady stands on the shore close to the water and just starts screaming, a terrifying scream. We figured out someone was drowning and needed help. We all thought that it was a child. My friend Sarah had her protective instincts kick in and she swam out to help while my other friend and I ran to shore. My friend grabbed her cell phone, but by the time she got it there were lifeguards coming to help. It turned out it was a grown man and it was really scary because we didn't even see a head pop up for a while. When Sarah and this other man that eventually came to help brought him in we were all surprised that it was not a child. He was okay, but he threw up and he looked really bad. That just shows how big these waves and how strong the current was because this was a grown man who was built. The type of person you would expect to save someone not be swept away.

We were pretty freaked out and Sarah had swallowed a lot of water so we didn't go back in. There was another drowning scare which turned out to be a false alarm. That was enough for us to stay out of the water!

After the beach we went to Bubba Gump's for dinner and headed home for the night. It was fun, but a really weird day. Daytona was so dead. There were no people around. It felt like we weren't supposed to be there!

Food and Wine Festival in Epcot

Last Thursday I had the day off and so did a couple of my friends. So, we went to the cast preview of the Food and Wine festival over in Epcot. Anybody, including guests, could go to the festival, but we could use our main entrance passes to get up to 3 people into the park without having it count towards our 6 days and 3 people pass. Sounds confusing, but basically we could have gotten 3 people in for free to Epcot, which included the Food and Wine Festival.

The world showcase has the countries that are year round like Mexico, Norway, United Kingdom, China, Japan, Morocco, Germany, Italy, and France, but for the Food and Wine Festival there are about 50 (I think) other countries that are brought in. There are little booths where they have sample portions of food from that country and then a few drink options (wine, beer or liquor depending on the country). It is really fun because they have Puerto Rico, Brazil, Ireland, Poland, Australia and a lot more. It is kind of pricey so my friends and I didn't go to crazy. I tried a tangerine mimosa and falafel from Morocco (which is funny because Morocco is always there, but they don't always have the tangerine mimosas!) and I got a lava cake from actually I can't remember which country haha. My friend got Godiva liqueur coffee and I tried some of hers and it was delicious.

The festival runs from October 1 through the middle of November, so I think attendance will start picking up again.

Funny story: while we were in Epcot we stopped and said hi to Princess Aurora over in France. We stopped to take a picture and she asked us if the 4 of us girls have princes. All of us, but my friend Sarah answered yes. So Princess Aurora proceeded to tell Sarah how to find a prince. You go into the woods and just start singing, but you have to be barefoot! then your prince will come and you will live happily ever after. It was super sweet and pretty funny actually.

Overall we just had a lot of fun hanging out and these girls are my best friends down here! We have had a ton of fun together and we are planning more adventures to the opera, Savannah, and more!

I am excited for my parents to visit next weekend and then my boyfriend Ryan will be here the weekend after that! October is a busy month for me!

Apartment Inspections

So last week we had our apartment inspected. I guess this happens every other month while we are here. What this means is that the apartment has to be spotless! All the dishes have to be done, vaccuuming, wiping down bathrooms, clean mirrors, NOTHING can be on the floor, etc. My roommates and I went crazy the day before and the apartment basically looked like no one lived in it, which is funny. They have vaccuums and mops and such that we can rent so we rented a vaccuum the day before to make sure it was clean.

On the day of inspection my roommates and I sat around forever waiting for them. I went to the gym and came back and they hadn't come. So I went to the pool, then came back and still no inspectors. I didn't want to eat anything and dirty a dish, but I eventually had to give in and eat and hand wash the dish and put it away.

Then finally the inspectors came and it took them less than 5 minutes to inspect the apartment and we got the white glove award! Ah! The way it works is you either fail (which is bad because you pay a $25 fine and pictures are taken of your apartment), pass (clean and did everything necessary), or the white glove award which means you went above and beyond! So we were all excited about this. However, it is really not that exciting. You get a generic thank you note, a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates and your picture on the board in the clubhouse. However, I don't think out picture is up there because I didn't see it when I was in there the other day. Oh well, I looked pretty horrible because I hadn't been able to shower because my luck would be that they would show up while I was in the shower!

Anyway we are all good. The apartment looks a little more lived in now, but really we keep our apartment pretty clean!