Disneyland. April Fool's! (4/1)

Lauren and I went to Disneyland on April Fool's Day for the last time before our passes expired on April 2nd. It had been a while since we'd gone, so we parked, walked excitedly over to the tram (during which we witnessed the kid-punching incident) and were just about to enter the park when I remembered--

Crap. My camera was in the car.

So good friend that she is, Lauren went with me back to the tram, to the parking lot, up the escalator and over to our car (note: the Disneyland parking structure is one of the biggest in the world with over 10,000 spaces) and retrieved the camera. Now we could enter the park.


Yes! Giant letters! The gold looks much better than that awful cloudy-sky tile that was on there for a while. Here I am.


Here's Lauren.



Tradition dictates that one must stop before walking under the bridge, have one person in the group read this sign aloud in a serious, magical tone, and with linked arms, all must WHOOSH under the bridge in one breath. That's how you enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.

Sorry, vintage Disneyland posters under the bridge! We're too busy WHOOSHing!


Fresh blurry flowers on Main Street.


Please ignore that blob in the foreground. Lauren and I have almost perfected the art of "taking photos of each other" when really we're "capturing the ghastly group in the background." ("Quick! Take a picture of me in front of this pole!" = "Oh my god please get photographic evidence of that person standing right there.") They were worse up close.


(Case in point.) Look! I'd like to know this gentleman a little better. There's more to him than the tie-dyed muscle shirt, green neckerchief and bozo friends than meets the eye.


Ah! The elusive heavy metal hotties again!


Lauren and I went to eat at Cafe Orleans, which has pretty much what the Blue Bayou offers without the ambience. And as much as we enjoy the BB's ambience (we like sitting by the water and waving to the passersby on Pirates) we are still poor college students. (At least until this week. Damn, what's my excuse going to be now??)

We chose a good table for people-watching and proceeded to people-watch the hell out of this child, who couldn't seem to cut into that brick with his pirate sword, as hard as he tried. Have I also mentioned we're creepers?


Lauren and I skipped over to DCA to go on Tower of Terror a couple of times (we can't get enough of that ride. So fun!) and stopped at the letters. We took some shots, but I can't expect to hog the "C" forever. There are more important people around. I'm not disgruntled about it. No, we're all very gruntled here.


Lauren is just too cool for school.


This is what she looks like when punched in the face. Yeah, I did that. She giggles when you punch her, I invite anyone to test that.


This is me putting up with Lauren's crap.


This is Lauren putting up with my crap.


And for putting up with my crap, this is Robert, pianist extraordinaire!


That is all.

Disneyland 6/9-10 Recap

Got off work Monday the 9th at 7 and went to Disneyland with Lily. Since we got there after 9 (right when the fireworks were starting) we snagged primo parking right by the tram. Had the clam chowder in a sourdough breadbowl at Try Our Gumbo. It's been so long and it was DELICIOUS. We totally saved our leftover bread plugs and ate them later, haha. I managed to switch shifts at work so I could have Tuesday free, so the next day Lauren and Lily both headed over and we went again!

We decided to start at DCA because Lauren hadn't been on Tower of Terror yet, so we screamed ourselves through that a couple of times. Met up with Tross at California Screamin' and trekked to THPOE after that.



This time I remembered to print out the Indiana Jones explorer map and decoder card that they issued to promote the Indy 4 movie and we spent a fun 15 minutes in Adventureland finding the clues that were "hidden" there. Later we did use the decoder card in line for Indy, but it was moving quickly at all the wrong parts and we could only translate bits and pieces. Space Mountain has been really lacking lately; even very late at night when the ride should be its fastest it legitimately feels slow at points, the kind of "wait, are we moving?" slow. It's really disappointing--I'm sure too many people complained about the old speed. =[

Showed up to moderately empty Cafe Orleans (our enthusiastically received discovery as a cheap alternative to the Blue Bayou) hungry and tired, where they said they weren't taking any more reservations for the night. So we did the natural thing--called Disney Dining and booked reservations there (what a surprise! There were openings) for a half-hour later. Went on Big Thunder, came back and ate a delicious dinner. I opted for a full bowl of the gumbo this time, Lily was saving her appetite for Lee's later and Lauren and Tross split a Monte Cristo, with an order of pommes frites for the table. One good thing was that Lauren had brought tons of snackies to the park, so we had been munching all day and were able to eat the whole meal (stretching our stomachs out, she says).

The parks were pretty crowded for a Tuesday; then again, it's June. We decided to go those days because having the cheapest annual pass, these are the only days available to us for the rest of June all the way through August (July is blocked out completely). I'm glad we didn't go for the more expensive passes anyway--who wants to go on a Friday when the place is ridiculously packed?

Oh! A scary thing happened: Lily and I took Lauren into the Star Tours shop to show her the build-a-lightsaber station. As is the case in most Disneyland crowds, we got separated and all I noticed was that I started coughing. Not for any definitive reason, I wasn't choking or thirsty or sick, it was just a hacking cough that I got. Then I noticed that EVERYONE--I mean, dozens of people--around me was also coughing their lungs out too! And I got really freaked out. If I had been the one not coughing in this place it wouldn't have bothered me that much, but the whole place was full of coughers who all seemed to have inhaled the same thing. So I left the place and went outside, where Lauren, Lily and Tross were--Lily had started coughing there and Lauren had felt her nostrils burning! It was so odd, and for no discernible reason. We hightailed it out of Tomorrowland and the northrax attack.

Besides the biological weapons, screaming children and pushy crowds, the double Disneyland detour was wonderful. I will be happy to wait until August, when I hope the crowds will have cleared up some. Tonight I'm supposed to go shooting with Chris (this time actual gun shooting, not the shooting with cameras that I say all the time and people joke about), which we were supposed to have done yesterday before it got too late. Justin's in too; let's hope it actually works out. After all, today I was supposed to go hiking. Crossing my fingers for plans that don't fall through!

Miscellany

Also...I got an e-mail earlier today that confirmed my reservation for the Battlestar Galactica Envelope Screening Series! I'm going!!! So freaking excited. I sent them an e-mail hoping they'd read it and they did! And I got work switched around so I could go. BSG, here I come!

In other news, I just got back from Disneyland and am going to wake up and do the same thing tomorrow. Woot!

DON'T...