Weblog Entry - 02/06/2003: "The Florida Post"

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02/06/2003 Entry: "The Florida Post"

We headed out Saturday morning. We left Portland at 9am, I think. The Portland jetport was nice. They had an Xcelerator hand dryer--the first of the type I've ever used. It's a powerful beast! Anyway, we flew on some jet. It had 3 rows of seats on the right side, and 2 on the left, so whatever model that is. Lots of horsepower. I didn't like flying. I had flown in a little one engine machine with an ex-boyfriend of my sister. And my cousin used to fly the plane for the governor--a 9 seater twin prop. I liked that--I think because I could see what was going on. Going up and coming down on the big jet was not fun. Once we were up I was fine.

Cincinnati airport: nothing to report, really. It was clean. My first moving sidewalk. A Cinnabons. Eh.

Miami International. The Delta terminal wasn't even connected to the main airport; you had to take a monorail to get to the main airport. There was a fountain right in the middle of the thing. (The main airport, not the monorail.) This lead me to Florida axiom #1: Floridians like fountains.

Drive to the condo. Condo has four fountains (see axiom #1). Condo is beautiful! Two bedrooms, two living rooms with pull out couches, a kitchen, and a kitchenette. Two bathrooms, each with whirlpool, one whirlpool big enough for a family of three.

Sunday we slept a little late. Then we went to the Holy Land Experience. It took me a little while to get into it, in all honesty. I mean, the Goliath burger, the Byzantine Bible gift shop, that kind of thing. It made a little too much light of faith, I thought. But the Center for Biblical Antiquities changed my mind. In it they had a John Wycliffe Bible. He was the first man to translate the Bible from Latin to English, so common folk could have God's word, and not depend on a priest to tell them what God said. They also had a portion of a Guttenberg Bible, the first book to be published with moveable type. I enjoyed that a lot.

Monday was MGM Studios in Disney. They had the Disney Villains store (the best Disney shop I went in) and we had lunch with Minnie, Goofy, Chip and Dale. That night was the Mickey's Imagination closing show--my favorite closing show of all the parks.

Tuesday was Epcot. Epcot is divided into two almost separate parks: Future World and World Showcase. On this day, we went to the World Showcase. My office mate, Art, was on vacation in Florida the same week, and Epcot is his favorite park. High lights included the comedians in England doing sorta improv sketch comedy, and the Taiko drummers in Japan. (Also there was a good band in Morocco. The bass player was awesome, and the belly dancer was pretty good too. :-) I preferred the bass player. For different reasons of course.) The gymnasts in China were good, and Julia loves the masked street theater in Italy. She watched this one particular female performer in a purple and black velvet dress very intently through two shows. The fireworks display here was very good. The park closed at 9pm--a long day.

Wednesday was Animal Kingdom. This was my least favorite park, although the barbecue was very good. This was the only park at which Julia ever had a meltdown the entire trip, and both were late afternoon after she couldn't have her way. Nothing major, but I bring it up because otherwise, she was such a well behaved child.

Thursday was Magic Kingdom day. For visiting with a kid, this is the park to see. It has a good mix of kid and adult rides. Julia liked the Dumbo Flying Elephant ride. (Honestly now: this is the ride that had the longest line I had to wait in at four days in Disney.) I liked the Big Thunder Railroad roller coaster (funny how I love roller coasters, but not flying...), but Susan did not. The Haunted Mansion is a classic, and one of Disney World's oldest attractions. Too bad I didn't notice the busts that follow your movement. Well, it gives me something to check out when I go back.

The highlight of the trip was breakfast Thursday morning. I'll admit, my eyes got a little watery when Julia threw a hug on Cinderella. She's quite the Cinderella fan. My mom has even made her two beautiful Cinderella gowns. Julia wore one to breakfast, and even Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Belle complimented her on it. I'll post a picture of it later.

Friday, we went to Epcot in the morning, and rode the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom in the afternoon. That gave me an opportunity to buy the souvenir I wanted. Here's the story on that:

As I mentioned, MGM had the Villains Store. They had a coffee mug with Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty on it, both in human and dragon form. But since it was the first day of my trip, I didn't want to commit to it right off the bat. Then Thursday morning, I found it again in the back of Cinderella's castle. This was the last park, and I had seen all kinds of other shops, and this was still what I wanted most. So, after the fireworks Thursday night, I went back to the shop to buy the mug. (It's only $10 at Disney, BTW, not $20 like on the web.) The shop was closed. I was sad. So we decided to go to the Magic Kingdom on Friday to shop--so I could pick up the mug!

OK, Axiom #2 for Florida: Floridia water has a funky odor. All I could think of was rubber tires. Not real strong, but you could smell it. I noticed the same smell in the condo, in Disney, and in the fountain at the airport, so I think it's an Orlando water table thing.

Axiom #3: hot Krispy Kreme donuts Rock Neddick! But they have to be hot! They also have a cream filled chocolate frosted that's pretty good, 'cause it uses cream instead of custard, and I prefer that. But still, with the exception of the hot glazed, I prefer Dunkin' Donuts. DD gives you cake donuts and raised donuts. KK only had one cake donut that I saw.

Whew!

Replies: 2 people have rocked the mic!

Can you tell me why kristpy cream

does not make sugarles donuts

for people who have diabetes?

I just found out I have diabets

and it just kills me to not be able

to have a kristpy cream.I love them

love them.Thank you.Shannon