Sun and Sand... and Marching Band.

hello, all! i have returned from florida! it was fantastic, i can assure you. i didn't need to worry about anything. it was all really, really, really great. i spent the bus rides (all of them, regardless of how short the ride) snuggled up with evan, napping comfortably in his lap. the buses were wonderful! they were comfy and smelled good (my pajama pants still smell like our bus) and there was always a movie going for us. i usually just fell asleep during the movies, but still. everyone was quietly absorbed in their silly movies, so the bus was never almost never loud.
i think we went to the ocean on the first day in florida, which was kind of scary, and i didn't really like it, and then we went to see the Blue Man Group. the Blue Man Group was fucktastic. strobe lights flashed, music boomed, black lights glowed, people laughed hysterically. i couldn't even begin to describe the whole thing. it was just really terrific. i went ahead and got an "autograph" from one of the blue men: a blue thumb print on my ticket and fingerprints on my face.
on the second day, we got up bright an' early to go off to some instrumental thingy. maybe i'll remember what it's called later. anyway, we went to this thing where this Disney guy who had done so much for Disney music for twenty years taught us real quick-like how to play some Disney songs with emotion. i figured the whole thing would be a total bust - band class in florida? blech! - but it was actually really fun and i found myself wishing that we could stay longer. but the day had bigger, better plans for us.
so, off to Disney World we went. we were dropped off at the transportation center, where we immediately hopped onto a bus to Animal Kingdom - a regular-type city bus, with bars and straps to hang onto and everything. i couldn't get over the fact that we were on public transportation in a big city. in fucking florida, even. my balance on the thing was awful, of course, and i kept smashing into evan or the poles or almost falling off of the step i was standing on. then we arrived in Animal Kingdom. pretty much the first thing we saw was a little group of Disney characters, surrounded by crowds of kiddies and their parents. my first reaction was, "ack, they're a lot scarier than i thought i would find them," but i got over myself eventually and decided that i really wanted to hug Papa Bear from The Jungle Book. but nooo, i just got to hug Meeko, the raccoon from Pocahontas. when i went up to him, he made kissy noises at me. instead of giving him a nice peck on the nose, i just stared at him like he was a crazy person, and posed for a picture. when i was done, i rubbed his head and told him, "thank you." he rubbed up against my hand and made a funny purring noise. then we were off to the more exciting parts of the park. we went on a few rides... hmm, let's see. there was something from the movie Dinosaur: we were going back in time to retrieve the Iguanodon, who apparently held all secrets to the extinction of dinosaurs or something. the director of the time machine thing was like, "NO, you're not sending them to that time, that's the day of the meteor shower," but the dude who wanted the Iguanodon was like, "teehee guys, i'm sending you anyway, bye." so the ride was one of those dark ones in a building, with short little drops and turns, and there were plenty of roaring dinosaurs. bethany was screaming bloody murder the entire time, whereas i was screaming, "why do we have to stop in front of every hungry dinosaur, HUH?" to the talking time machine and that dumbass who sent us to the day of the meteor shower. well, of course the meteor shower started happening, and the dude's like, "GET THEM OUT OF THERE," and actually tells us that we're not going to make it, and we pass right by that Iguanodon and he says to leave it there, there's no time, but somehow, after all that screaming about us going to die, we end up back in present-day, the dude isn't even surprised, and somehow the Iguanodon, which was about twice the size of the little car we were riding in, hopped into the car when we weren't looking. okay.
after that, we discovered how expensive the meals were in Disney World. i paid maybe eight bucks for a mediocre cheeseburger and fries. i wasn't angry, though. i understand that they have to make enough money to maintain all of Disney World, and enough to make new rides and buy enough food to feed hundreds of thousands of people every day, etcetera, etcetera. after we ate, i think we went off to some safari. maybe. what's there to say about a safari? there were lions, giraffes, cheetahs, rhinos, hippos, wildebeests, warthogs, crocodiles, elephants, flamingos, antelopes, whatever. it was really quite cool. i think my favorites were the white rhinos that stood right in the middle of the road that we were supposed to be driving on. they were so cute.
next, i was somehow persuaded into going on a roller coaster. it was this Mt. Everest thing, the newest ride in the Asia part of Animal Kingdoms. bethany and i weren't going to go on it at first, because we've a fear of heights and speed and the air we breathe, but evan's just so damn good-looking, and i didn't want to be a total pussy when we were in Disney World, so i kind of went, "okay, bethany. we're going." i thought she was mad at me, and i was just kind of standing behind her, making sad faces and whispering to evan about how i felt really badly about it. but guess what? in the line for a freaking roller coaster, when i was finally starting to grasp the fact that i was about to go on a scary ride, i had my first kiss. well, kind of. i guess evan sort of kissed me the night before, in the hotel, but i pretended that was an accident and it didn't count because i was shocked into not kissing him back. anyway, Mt. Everest was splendid! it wasn't too crazy. it didn't have flips or anything, but it did go backwards at full speeds into the dark. that was the best part! i really, really liked it.
i think we left Animal Kingdom after that and went to Magic Kingdom (or whatever). that's the one with the Disney castle, of course you know it. we went on, um... let's see... Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain (is that three mountain rides we've been on already?), and, uh... oh, yeah! the creepy It's a Small World ride! i think that's it. to conclude our fun time there, they had a lovely fireworks show for us (do they do that every night?) where all the fireworks were perfectly choreographed to the music playing. evan and i didn't do the cliche kissing-beneath-the-fireworks thing, but there was really no need, because we had been stealing nervous kisses in the lines for the other rides. i was still pretty worried about kissing and i made stupid noises after each one or mumbled about how much i hated the world because i wasn't the greatest kisser ever or something stupid like that. anyway, after the fireworks, we tried to leave the park and return to our charter buses. griffin, bethany's beau, led us through the crowds. he had bethany's left hand, i had her right, evan had my right, and evan would have had matti's - (SECRET FRIEND)'s beau - but there was some awkwardness after evan accidentally confused matti's hand for mine (don't know how) and did this whole stroking thing with his thumb. so of course griffin, bethany, evan, and i got separated from (SECRET FRIEND), matti, ethan, lauren... and maybe someone else i don't know about. we ended up getting lost, had to take a ferry, and were totally late to the buses.
next day was our performance day, maybe. man, i couldn't tell what day it was all week, leave me alone. our march through Magic Kingdom was so very short, maybe the shortest march i've done except for wednesday mornings in class. after that pathetic, insignificant march, we were sent off to do whatever we wanted, so we did just that. i can't remember what we did, sadly. i think maybe this was our Hollywood Studios and Epcot day? in Hollywood Studios, we went on some silly Star Wars ride and the Tower of Terror or something: some scary elevator drop ride that i went on because bethany suggested it, and she's afraid of all the things she should be afraid of. she and i didn't go on some rock 'n roll coaster, but i went and found my elusive Donald Duck stuffed animal (i hadn't seen one in any other park) and she and i began a collection of trash for ashley, who was sad and alone back home. i also bought ashley a Chewbacca because her nickname is Chewie (her wookie impression is very commendable). at Epcot, we went on some car testing ride (meh) and then bethany and i sat around again while our friends went on a scary ride that had apparently caused some guy to die way back when. well, i guess our friends forgot about us, because we waited around for an hour and a half or something before (SECRET FRIEND) and her beau came out and told us that (SECRET FRIEND) had lost her phone. then they disappeared again and we waited some more. oh, well. the fireworks in Epcot were unbelievable. perfectly choreographed, and with giant explosions of flame, not just your average fireworks. it was ten times better than Magic Kingdom's had been.
we spent the last day at Universal Studios. bethany and i refused to go on some flippy, swirly roller coaster: The Hulk. we agreed that we would go on the Dueling Dragons instead, but when we walked halfway across the park to that one, we saw that there was no place to smash our feet into during the ride. dangly feet are not okay, so we immediately started to kind of hyperventilate and tried running away while evan held me much tighter than i thought he could and prevented me from leaving. bethany and i screamed that we would go on The Hulk, we would go on The Hulk! so evan let go, and we scurried off to the big, green and purple coaster. the wait was forty-five minutes or something, and half-way through the line, after plenty of nervous conversations, there was an announcement about technical difficulties. bethany and i decided that it was a sign from God, so we scurried away through areas we were not allowed to be in and broke out of that hellhole. we went to find our friends, but what do you know, we couldn't. they had all our money and bethany's cell phone and glasses, so we couldn't get ahold of them and we couldn't get anything to eat or drink. we were dying of thirst (florida's a lot hotter than iowa, if you didn't know), but since we couldn't do anything about it and we had noticed that The Hulk was working again, we gave up and got back in line. it was only a twenty minute wait this time, and when we got up to the front, all we could do was scream about "WHAT IF WE PISS OURSELVES," "WHAT IF THE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES COME BACK AND WE GET STUCK UPSIDE-DOWN" (i added a "AND WHAT IF THE SEATS OPEN WHILE WE'RE UPSIDE DOWN, SO WE FALL INTO THEM AND BREAK OUR NECKS" to that one) and then, when we were in our seats, our voices got really high and cracked a lot, our entire bodies trembled violently, and everyone around us immediately hated us. when the ride started moving, we screamed and screamed, "WHY ARE WE DOING THIS, OH MY GOD THERE'S NO WAY OUT NOW OH MY GOD WE'RE GONNA DIE," and then, B O O M, the ride started and it was the. most. fun. thing. ever. we screamed with joy now instead of horror, and smiled and smiled and smiled.
well, it took us a very long time to find our friends, but we did, and we did not die of dehydration. we went on a Jurassic Park water ride twice, found another, more extreme water ride (only four of us agreed to go on that one), went on The Hulk again, and went on some silly "4-D" Spiderman ride. the whole trip was amazing. i couldn't have wished for better luck. whew.
oh, and by the way, i'm not so very nervous about kissing anymore. unfortunately, you can ask anyone who sat around us on the bus and they'll agree. eeheehee.