Tuesday, October 24th - Don't You Know We're Riding on The Marrakesh Express...
A funny thing happened on the way to Germany.
Jay and I were discussing chocolate. No, that's not the funny part - there's nothing remotely amusing about chocolate, but it does play a role in the funny...sort of.
Anyway, we had decided to buy his mom chocolates from around the world as a "thank you" for having made our
MNSSHP costumes. This woman is a fiend for chocolate. Some people stash cash in their homes to tide them over in case of an emergency - my mother-in-law has chocolate hidden around
her house.
We were debating whether or not we should get her anything from Germany, and I was fighting the urge to suggest Toblerone, when we noticed that Plankton was missing...again.
You can imagine the panic that threatened to overwhelm us when we discovered he was gone. Thank goodness he's so small that he didn't have a chance to get very far. Although as you'll see from this picture, had we not found him when we did he might have been lost to us forever.
Vrrroooooom! Vrrroooooom!
As an aside, does anyone else wonder why the small display area for South Africa showcases an old Coca-Cola delivery truck? I'm no expert on South African history, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
Just kidding - I stayed at home last night, but I've been looking for a way to work in that line from those goofy commercials for months now.
OK, where were we? That's right: Coca-Cola...the company isn't headquartered in South Africa; it's not owned by the Dutch, Dutch-Afrikaners, or Native Africans; and I seriously doubt that the company had a starring role in the elimination of apartheid. So what gives, other than a lucrative advertising contract between Disney and Coke? I'm such a dork that I had to go looking for an explanation...
My research shows that when the company began its international expansion in the 1920s and 1930s, South Africa was one of the countries where Coke opened a bottling plant. And at the close of the 20th century Coca-Cola supposedly invested upwards of $1.5B for new bottling facilities throughout the continent of Africa. I could make a really snide comment here about how helpful a carbonated beverage will be for an area of the world that's being ravaged by war, famine, and disease, but I won't.
That's it. That's as far as my admittedly superficial research efforts took me. The obvious lesson to be learned from all of this is that I need to drink more and think less while wandering around Epcot.
By the way, the funny part already happened...you know, with Plankton.
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***crickets chirping***
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Ahem, let's get on with the afternoon then, shall we?
We wandered through the candy shop in Germany but ultimately decided against German chocolates because the in-laws had spent three weeks in Germany some years back and there was no way that Jay's mom didn't ingest a fair portion of their confectionary offerings. As we wound our way out of the candy store, through the wine celler, and into the store that sells all that lovely crystal and glass, I had to stop and gawk. It didn't matter than I'd already gawked here a few days earlier and that I'd also gawked at length in the Arrabis Brothers shop in Downtown Disney...any place that sells cut glass and crystal gains automatic entry to my personal list of Gawk-n-Point shopping stops.
Those of you who have been suffering through months of reading may remember a picture from earlier in our stay when Jay and I were trying on hats at the Polynesian. I tried on a pink Princess hat with a small veil and mouse ears that made me look, in a word, craptacular. I realize now that I was trying too hard to be something I'm not...young and sweet. I needed a more mature look...something a bit more substantial... something, say, like this?
Just Call Me Duchess...
I almost bought the damn thing.
Really.
I was standing there admiring myself in the mirror (not something that happens often) trying to think of a reason to go ahead and purchase it. I considered breaking it out for the formal night dinner on our (at the time) upcoming cruise, but then I was faced with the question of what I would do with it after the cruise. In a family that has 5 nieces all under the age of ten, I couldn't give a tiara to one of them without giving a tiara to all of them...and that's way too rich for my blood.
A little sad, I pulled it from my hair and placed it back in the display case.
Time to brave the elements again and you know what sounds good now? Dessert...dessert and more booze. There's a booth just past Italy's F&W offering called Champagne - sounds promising. And as an extra bonus, there's no line. Not that we've really had to wait in any lines today, but no line at all certainly seems like a good thing.
Food Choices: A Trio of Chocolate Truffles
Beverage Choices: Moet & Chandon Selection: White Star, Rose' Imperial, Nectar Imperial, Nectar Imperial Rose'.
Never ones to pass on a single serving of chocolate, let alone three, we ordered the truffles with a flute of White Star Champagne.
Ummmm, does anyone else here notice something that's not quite right?
Let's review: the menu board read "A
Trio of Chocolate Truffles." The last time I bothered to look it up in Merriam-Webster, trio was defined, roughly, as a group of
three. I only see two truffles here, unless the box is edible.
In case you were wondering, the box did not the third truffle make.
We were not able to obtain a satisfactory answer for the why behind the trio equals duo, but we ate the chocolate anyway. And it was good - a milk chocolate shell with a milk chocolate filling and the second was the same concept only with dark chocolate. This worked out well because I prefer milk chocolate and Jay is a dark chocolate kind of guy. The truffles were even tastier with the champagne, White Star, which was a drier, less sweet option among the choices being offered and it only cost $7 per flute (sheesh, it was good but for that price I could've had one of those alcoholic squishees in France instead).
Here's a self portrait of our happy little family in Italy, or as Grimace would say,
Eye-ta-lee.
This next shot always makes me a little sad; Plankton seems pensive, as though he might be a little homesick. Jay says that I completely misinterpreted the situation and Plankton is actually screaming profanities at the Friendship that neglected to stop and pick him up.
From Italy we wandered lazily over to the Hops and Barley Market in the hopes that we might catch one of those "free" beer seminars being offered by Samuel Adams. Let me tell you, if they wanted anyone to show up for this thing they sure didn't make it easy to find. We looked and looked and then looked some more, but we never did figure out where Sam was giving out the freer beebies...I mean beer freebies. So we gave up and decided to order another snack and a beverage, which is what I think the Sam Adams Brewing Company wanted all along.
Food Choices: Savory Onion and Bacon Tart; New England Crab Cake and Barley Salad.
Beverage Choices: Sam Adams Beer Selection - Cherry Wheat; Black Lager; Boston Lager; Light; Pale Ale; Hefeweizen; Cream Stout; Oktoberfest; Brown Ale; and 11th Year Anniversary Festival Beer.
Our choice: The New England Crab Cake and Barley Salad with Sam Adams Oktoberfest.
I'm just going to be brutally honest here - the crab cake was really good. However, the barley "salad" strewn across it looks like a bunch of rabbit pellets and there's no way that I'm eating them. Jason, cast as usual in his role as Captain Adventure, ate the pellets and pronounced them "pretty good."
We both liked the Oktoberfest beer just fine. Based on the historical evidence I wouldn't blame any of you for thinking that we tried all the beer offerings on the menu, but we behaved ourselves. Besides, it's not like Sam Adams is something exotic that we can only get at the F&W Festival. Here's a suggestion, Epcot-Powers-That-Be: why don't you make things more interesting and sponsor some smaller micro-breweries from around the US? Now there would be some tasty, good beerieness waiting to happen.
Hey, you know who else liked the crab cake?
You're All Mine You Sweet Krabby Patty!
If you look carefully you will notice that Plankton is missing his mouse ears. I think I may have mentioned earlier that it was a very windy day and sadly we didn't have the little hat attached as well as we should have. Somewhere between Italy and America-town his hat blew away, never to be recovered. We actually lost three sets of ears during the week...how many people do you know who spend more than $30 on antenna balls just to cut them up in order to make miniature hats for their stuffed mascots?
Looking forward to reading more of your adventure.
- they looked scrummy
)
But you know, if they still have that booth near the America Gardens Theater, it's an excellent place to get a little yummy dessert and booze before waiting in line to see the Eat to the Beat concert. 
