In The FACE!!

Disney World was lots of fun. John and I got in late Friday night after a moderately turbulent flight, and Kel and I were out the door for the parks by 9:30 the next morning. We spent the first half of the day at EPCOT--we checked out that House of the Future thing that Nips had been so impressed with, and I must say it was pretty impressive indeed, other than a Microsoft-designed media center which kept ignoring the guide's voice commands. Go figure. The coolest part was that instead of installing speakers in the walls, they actually just attached drivers TO the walls, so the room itself was thumping away. We hit the other normal EPCOT stops, stuffed ourselves with Italian food, and headed over to Magic Kingdom around 4.

For some reason there were a ton of British people there, and they were comically different from the American vacationers. Kel characterized it best when she noted a small British child coming out of Philharmagic holding his mom's hand and saying "Mum, do you know what my favorite part was? It was when Lumiere brought out the cherry pies, and everything smelled of cherries!" as opposed to several American children careening out ahead of their parents shrieking "I like the part where it looked like stuff was gonna hit you in the FACE!!" It's funny both because of the cultural contrast, and because my favorite part is also where it looks like stuff is going to hit you in the face.

We hit some other rides which I had never been on before: Goofy's Barnstormer--the most intense 12 seconds of kiddie roller coaster you will ever face, The Tiki Room--the best show featuring talking birds, singing flowers, and angry gods I have ever seen, The Jungle Cruise--non-stop puns peppered with animatronic hippos, and The Swiss Family Treehouse--the worse "ride" ever. Ever. It's just a line with no ride at the end. You know how in Pirates or Space Mountain you walk through the building by all these rooms and canons and spaceships and what not, and then at the end of the line, there is a ride? On The Swiss Family Treehouse, it's just the first part. At the end of the line, you just get go back into the park. It's totally awesome.

We stayed in the Magic Kingdom until 9:30 or so and headed back to the condo. It turns out 12 hours of straight Disney is a LOT of Disney, so I think I'm pretty set for a while. Sunday we just lounged at the pool and I flew back on another moderately turbulent flight that afternoon. The flights have given me a chance to get about halfway through Harry Potter, which is pretty good, although so far it's not quite as good as the last couple have been. Nobody tell me who dies. And for the love of God no one tell me it's Harry. Although I am guilty of making that hilarious joke myself, that's no excuse for you to do it.