Disney Boardwalk

It's Tuesday afternoon, I've just dropped Jen off at the airport, and I am back in my hotel getting myself dressed for the day. We whined and complained about the breezy 44 degree weather on the way to the airport until we called my mom and found out Asheville was a whopping 4 degrees today... Thank the lord for Florida, because I think if I was at school right now, I wouldn't have gone to a single class today. I would have sat in my bed with the heat blasting and pretended I was somewhere tropical. Before I get too crazy with the rest of my day though, here's what we got into last night.

After I posted yesterday, we got ourselves up and decided to explore Disney Boardwalk. Neither of us had been before, so it was an all new adventure. We got there about 7, and at first thought that maybe we weren't allowed to go in unless we were staying in the hotel, but lucky for us, we were allowed to just go walk around.

Disney Boardwalk, for those of you that haven't been, is a cute little boardwalk set in the 1930's. There was a little general store, several restaurants, and a dance hall that unfortunately was 21 and up last night. There are several ferries that run between the sides of the boardwalk, the different Disney parks, and a few of the hotels.

 We kept walking around the loop and found an absolutely adorable beach, that I will definitely be frequenting when it starts to get a tad warmer.

 

 

We found this cute little boardwalk sign, and since it was way too cold for normal people to be outside walking on a breezy boardwalk, we had to set the timer on my camera and take the pictures ourselves.

We watched EPCOT's 9:00 fireworks from the boardwalk, and then headed out to find some dinner. We found an IHOP on the road where we're staying where we had a decent meal with the absolute worst service ever. We walked into this restaurant and waited a few minutes for someone to seat us. There were probably three other tables in the restaurant and two servers, the woman who seated us and a man whose nametag said "Fancy" but was The whole thing just went downhill from there, but I won't bore you with the story. The moral of the story is, Steve/Fancy couldn't handle his four tables, and I feel sorry for the guy's poor tables during the dinner rush.

We made it back to the hotel after some adventuring and went to bed.

This morning we were lucky enough not to be awoken by a fire alarm, so we took our time getting dressed and eating breakfast and before we knew it, we were off to the airport. I dropped Jen off at the gate and headed back to the hotel. I've been hanging out for the last little bit, and here in a minute I'm going to head back to the airport to pick up my roommate, Lindsey. Tonight I think we're going to try to head to Downtown Disney and have lunch with another one of our roommates, Rachel, and then tomorrow morning is check in! I'll keep you updated, and since I'm running out of time to head to the airport, I'll do the last three on my countdown either later tonight or tomorrow.

Ok. I've edited this so my pictures are here. Enjoy :)

Sunshine State of Mind

I know I've slacked the last few days, but Jen and I have made it to Florida, and here are the pictures to prove it!

 

 

We left Asheville about 9 yesterday morning, drove all day and got to Orlando about 6 last night.



Notice Bean in the background making wonderful faces

 

 

The hotel we're staying in we've stayed in before when we came to Disney. The last time we stayed here, one of the heating units caused the fire alarm to go off and we sat in the parking lot waiting on the fire department. When we checked in, we joked around about not turning on the heat and how we couldn't do anything to make the fire alarm go off. We cleaned ourselves up and gallivanted around downtown Disney for a little while, found a buffalo wild wings for dinner, and then came back to the hotel and promptly fell asleep.

 

9:30 this morning, guess what. The fire alarm goes off. What are the chances? We get up, truck ourselves outside in our pajamas and wait until the alarm quits, truck back inside and get dressed. Today, we drove around Orlando

 

 we found the apartment complex that I'm (hopefully) living in

 

 and where I'm supposed to check in on Wednesday. We discovered that there's a big outlet mall a hundred yards from the complexes, which is going to be very very dangerous. Anyway. We walked around the shopping mall until about 4, got some late lunch, and now we're sitting in our hotel watching a movie for a little while. Later on, we're planning on going to Disney Boardwalk to find some dinner, and see what else Orlando has going on.

 

Here are my countdowns for the last few days.

 

Number 22: Underrated movie
Disney doesn't make a whole lot of underrated movies, I don't think. Disney movies are pretty hugely hyped up, and that's great. Disney starts the hype, then they release a great movie, and then the fans do the rest. Let me see. Underrated movies. As far as classics go, I'm going to have to say Peter Pan. Tinkerbell herself is pretty hyped up, but the movie Peter Pan itself is really great, and kind of forgotten.

Number 23: Movie that makes you laugh
I already kind of mentioned this movie in passing in an earlier post, but Madagascar never fails to make me laugh hysterically. It's just such a funny movie on so many different levels. It's a cute plot, and it's just a funny movie with a funny cast. If you haven't seen it, you should definitely find it, because it's worth the hour and a half. I started looking for clips to post, but I really couldn't pick, so if you'd like, youtube Madagascar highlights, or watch it on Netflix.

Number 24: Movie that makes you cry
I know I've already used Up, but no movie makes me cry like that one. I've always said that movies don't really make me cry like books do, but that movie had me in tears ten minutes in. I dare you to watch that movie and not cry. Seriously. Leave a comment if you can do this. I bet you can't.

Number 25: Favorite scene from your favorite movie
So, I've already talked about how Cars is one of my favorite movies. I'm sorry for the quality of this clip, and I wish I could find the whole scene, but I guess this will have to do. If you want to save thirty seconds, here's the gist of the scene. Lightning McQueen and Mater are talking about how Lightning is going to take Mater on a helicopter ride, and Mater drops the best line ever on Lighting.
Mater: "I knowed I made a good choice"
Lightning: "In what?"
Mater: "My best friend"
AWWWWWWW. Tell me you didn't want to just eat Mater up right then and there.

Number 26: Saddest death

Ok ok. I JUST talked about this, but Ellie in Up is the saddest death I think. It makes me bawl like a baby. It isn't exactly her death that's so sad, it's the love story that they build leading up to it, and the stupid scrapbook that make me absolutely bawl. This is a long clip, but it's worth it.

 

Number 27: Favorite quote

I have a lot of Disney quotes I like a lot, but I think my favorite right now is "Take it from an old spectator. Life’s not a spectator sport. If watchin’ is all you’re gonna do, then you’re gonna watch your life go by without ya." ~Laverne, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Seriously, that's kinda the truth about life. That's kind of how I've been feeling about a lot of things lately, I'm twenty years old, I'm going to start doing stuff. That's what this internship is kicking off for me. Playing the sport. Doing things that one day when I'm sitting in my rocking chair telling my grandkids stories I'll have to pull out the photo album to prove I did.

 

So, I think I'm caught up. I'll post more pictures and adventure stories tomorrow. I hope everyone has a magical evening!



Seeing White

Well, guys. Snow is falling in Asheville, and while my siblings who would love not to have school tomorrow are getting excited, my Flordia-bound butt is hating every second of it. The good news is, I'm heading for sunshine and 70 degree weather in T-2 days. Guess who has barely thought about packing. This kid. So, that's what I'll be doing with my next two days if anyone needs me.

Number 20: Favorite sequel
I'm just going to climb up here on my soap box for just a minute. This is a tough one for me because as a rule, I don't really like sequels. That's not just for Disney movies, it's for any movie or studio. (Unless it's based on a book series. Then it's acceptable.) I generally feel like they're just a company trying to squeeze money out of a box office hit. For example. I love Cars. I talked about that yesterday. But Cars 2, and Planes, and the cartoons? Totally not necessary. I just now looked online and saw that there are not two, but THREE Cinderella movies. The princess married the prince and lived happily ever after. What more do we need to know? Anyway. Getting off my box. My favorite sequel is probably Pocahontas 2: Journey to a New World. Firstly, because it's one of the only ones I've seen, and secondly because it continues the story Pocahontas started without having to pull (too much) crap out of the air.

Number 21: Overrated movie
This one is also tough, because most of the time Disney movies actually do live up to the hype. I think on this one, I'm going to have to go Lion King. Sorry, sorry, I know this is most people's FAVORITE MOVIE EVER and it has a pretty good soundtrack, but seriously, three movies, one of which is just the first movie with Timon and Pumba narrating it, a TV series, a Broadway show, can we not just leave a classic alone? Anyway. I actually can't even really remember the plot of The Lion King. It was just never one of those movies I wanted to watch over and over and over. But, like I said, it's some people's absolute favorite, so keep in mind that this is just my humble opinion.

As of right now, the ground is sufficiently covered with snow and Jack and Lana are pretty convinced they're not going to school tomorrow. Sunday can not get here fast enough.



Pixar Films

January 1st has come and gone, and the clock is counting down to Disney! I hope everyone rang in the New Year doing something wonderful with people they love.

Number 18: Favorite Pixar film
Easy easy easy. Cars. I think half of why Disney/Pixar movies are good, and why people still like to watch them when they get older is because Disney understands that you have to entertain the parents too. So Disney and Pixar do a really good job layering the humor in their movies, so that kids find a certain part funny for the obvious layer of humor geared towards them, and at the same time the parent finds that same part funny because there's another layer of humor underneath. When I was starting to get old enough to understand the underlying, more adult jokes was about when movies like Madagascar and Cars came out. Come on. You can't tell me this doesn't make you want to wet yourself laughing. Anyway. Apart from the layered humor, Cars is my favorite because it's a super sweet movie. At the beginning of the movie, Lighting McQueen is this big hotshot, too good for friends, too good for normal people. Radiator Springs kinda knocks him down a few pegs, and teaches him that it's ok to go slow and enjoy things. He makes a best friend, finds love, and learns a whole lot about life on the way. It's just a really cute movie.

Number 19: Least favorite Pixar film
OOOOOOOh God. By far, my least favorite Pixar film is Wall-E. I didn't even get all the way through it before I had decided it was my least favorite Pixar movie. It was just stupid. The first half of that movie was just Wall-E saying "Eva" and Eva saying "Wall-E", and the second half is about people who can't walk because the bones in their feet are going away? Seriously, I can't figure out how Disney and Pixar messed that one up. Maybe I just don't get it, I get how the concept could be cute, but I just couldn't get into it.

What are your favorites and least favorites?