JULY 24TH PART FOUR: BLAME CANADA
Well, hello everybody! Long time, no post. I'm really sorry, but this whole being back at college thing has been distracting me for the past couple weeks. It's not that I'm so overwhelmed with school that I have no time to write, it's just that there are more distractions here than there are at home. I'm living in a house with five other girls...we have shennanigans to get up to. Plus, the Fall TV season is in full swing and that means I spend a ton of time watching TV which takes up a lot of my free time.
But anyway, I'm here now with a brand spankin' new update. Hopefully it's comprehensible because after not updating for so long, I had a bit of a rough time getting back into the swing of things. If this update makes absolutely no sense, just make something up and pretend it happened to me while we were at Epcot.
But first of all, because I know that I will be overcome with the need to burst out into a full Broadway-style production of this song at some point during this update, I’m just going to go ahead and get it over with now…
BLAME CANADA!
BLAMA CANADA!
IT SEEMS THAT EVERYTHING’S GONE WRONG
SINCE CANADA CAME ALONG.
BLAME CANADA!
BLAME CANADA!
THEY’RE NOT EVEN A REAL COUNTRY ANYWAY!
Alright, I think I’ve gotten that out of my system. Actually, I probably haven’t. But the rest of the lyrics aren’t exactly Disney-appropriate, so let’s just pretend I’ve gotten it out of my system and move on.
When I last left off, practically 3 months ago (I’M SORRY!!!), my sister and I were chillin’ (out, maxin’, relaxin’ all cool) and watching Off Kilter while waiting for our parents to meet us because they were without cell phones because they were lame and didn’t want to carry them around the parks (I know…so weird) and we had made really vague plans to meet up in Canada sometime before our lunch ADR.
Wow, Kara. Wow. That was quite the run-on sentence. Anyway, it’s probably better for you to just re-read my last update so that I don’t have to try to explain everything again. So go re-read. I’ll wait.
…
*Hums “Blame Canada”*
…
Oh, you’re back! Let’s move on.
After the last misadventure with not being able to find our cell phone-less parents, Katie and I were staring down every single person that passed by just to make sure we didn’t miss them. I’m serious. I don’t think either of us blinked for like 15 minutes. I sincerely apologize to anyone who might have felt visually assaulted while walking through Canada on the morning of July 24th.
Anyway, with our super-skilled radar eyes, we were easily able to locate our parents when they approached and another crisis was avoided.
Man, Katie and I were on a roll with this whole “crisis averted” thing. First, we saved the world with Kim Possible and now we used our radar eyes to detect our parents. OMG. Do you think this means we’re superheroes? I mean, I’ve kinda wanted to be a vampire lately (but a good vampire, not an evil one…like Stefan from “The Vampire Diaries” but with Damon’s wit…although Stefan can be witty when he’s not being all hot and broody and he can also be “bad” when he needs to be…) but being a superhero would be cool too.
And again, moving on…
Now that the gang was all back together, we decided to explore Canada a bit more.
I love that Totem Pole. It’s so Totem Pole-y.
We still had an hour before our ADR, so we had some time to kill. And let me tell you, it was the longest hour of my life. I WANTED THE SOUP. BADLY. RIGHT THEN AND THERE. Granted, I had never even had the cheddar cheese soup before, so I wasn’t exactly having cravings, (can you crave something you’ve never tried before) but everyone says it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and I was in Canada so HAND IT OVER, CANADIANS. Why wasn’t there a welcoming committee standing there with a GIANT bowl of soup just waiting for me? Canada, you dumped Justin Bieber on us. The least you can do is offer up some cheddar cheese soup in return.
To distract myself, I headed in here to do a little shopping.
So, I don’t have a picture of them, but I ended up buying moose print pajama shorts. They’re red with little black moose all over them. And evidently they aren’t flame retardant because, I’m not kidding, there’s a GIANT tag in them that says “DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT GETTING CLOSE TO A FIRE WITH THESE ON”. Ok, it doesn’t say *exactly* that, but it says not to wear them near fire. Which completely ruins all of my biggest Canadian fantasies. I was picturing wearing them while sitting around a fire out in the woods with a bunch of lumberjacks while drinking maple syrup from a flask like the one Buddy carries in “Elf”. But I guess I can’t do that anymore. Bummer.
At least the shorts are really comfortable. And they’re really cute. Plus, everyone needs a pair of moose print shorts in their life. So thanks, Canada! (But I’m still not forgiving you for Nickelback)
Shopping excursion completed, we walked around a bit more.
I wouldn’t mind living there. Would I need a green card to live in fake!Canada? Does Canada even give out green cards? Yuki, how does Canadian citizenship work?
Disney is the best at making fake rocks. They always look so real. I could stand in front of Disney’s fake rocks/mountains/etc for hours just observing how realistic they are. And that says a lot because I’m not really into nature at all. I hate camping. I hate bugs. I hate dirt. So, I could care less about real mountains, but Disney’s mountains are just so…beautiful.
After taking a while to contemplate the meaning of life while staring at that waterfall, it was finally time to check in for our ADR at LE FREAKING CELLIER. I could barely contain my excitement as we approached the check-in podium. It sorta felt like my life had been building toward this one moment. Every single thing I had done throughout my 20 years of living had led me here, to this amazing, wonderful, fabulous restaurant. And now it was FINALLY time for me to have my mind blown.
I was terrified that we would go up to the podium and give the CM our name only to have her be like “I’m sorry. You’re not on the list. Sucks to be you!!!” But, thankfully, everything worked out ok and we headed off down the winding path to the restaurant.
Maybe it’s just because I’m weird, but walking down this path reminded me of the Wizard of Oz. It felt like we were traveling down the fake!Canada version of the Yellow Brick Road. I was half expecting the munchkins to jump out of the bushes and start singing a little song to wish me well on my journey.
I love this tree. It’s so pretty.
These gardens are just gorgeous. I wish I hadn’t been in such a haste to get to the restaurant because I would have loved to stop and take more pictures of them. I guess I’ll have to do that on my next trip to Le Cellier.
We made it inside the restaurant without anyone jumping out, murdering us, and stealing our identities so that they could use our ADR (THANK GOD) and before long we were being led to our table. We were seated in the Quebec section of the restaurant and apparently that means something, but I was too busy staring at other people’s food as we walked past to pay any attention. Before she left, the hostess made sure to tell us that our waiter, Barry, was quite the troublemaker. I didn’t really know what to make of that. Did she mean troublemaker in a good way or a bad way? Did she mean that he’s a complete jerk and will refuse to serve me my cheddar cheese soup? It made me kinda nervous.
As it turns out, Barry was anything but a troublemaker. He was FANTASTIC. One of the best waiters we’ve ever had. He was sweet and funny and seemed genuinely excited about his job. He had quite the Canadian accent which I loved because Canadian accents are the best. So, in case you couldn’t tell, basically by the end of the meal I was ready to marry him and have little hockey playing, half-Canadian babies.
Anyway, Barry took our drink orders and I decided to live on the wild side and ordered one of these…
The Red Maple. It’s a raspberry smoothie mixed with Sprite. OMG. This was sooooooooo good. After just this drink, I was willing to call Le Cellier a success. That’s how good it was.
Before Barry took our orders, he went on a long spiel about the cheddar cheese soup and how “awesome” it was. (He said awesome A LOT. It was cute.) I was just like, “Barry, buddy, you’re preaching to the choir. Just bring that stuff out here. Preferably in an extra large vat.”
So here it is. The big moment where I FINALLY got to taste the food of the Canadian gods, the cheddar cheese soup. But before I could dig in, I took a picture of my bowl. No joke, I got this picture printed and it’s now hanging up in my room as part of a Disney collage. I look at it every day and wish that a bowl of cheddar cheese soup would magically appear in front of me. Unfortunately, that never happens, but I’m gonna keep trying. Maybe if I start praying to "Grilled Cheesus" it will work.
It’s safe to say that this stuff ROCKED MY WORLD. It is soooo freaking good. Especially when you dip the pretzel bread in it. OMG. Pretzel bread dipped in cheddar cheese soup is officially one of my favorite foods. It is TRAGIC that I can only eat it once a year. TRAGIC.
For my entrée I got the Chicken Caesar salad. I’m sure you’re all thinking, “But Kara…How could you go to Le Cellier and not order a steak?” Well, the answer to that is I can’t eat that much. Especially not at lunch. I knew I was going to be pigging out on soup and bread, so there was no way I was about to order a steak. I needed something lighter.
Here’s my salad:
It was super yummy. And it really hit the spot.
My sister ordered the Prime Rib sandwich, which she thought was just ok. I guess it was really tough. But I know the fries were really good. I stole one.
Mom and Dad both ordered the Mushroom Filet Mignon. I’m sorry about this sideways picture. I don’t know what I was doing when I took it. I guess I was just high on the soup or something.
Mom really liked hers, but Dad was iffy. I mean, he ate it, but you could tell it wasn’t his favorite. I had a bite of Mom’s and I thought it was really good. Like, REALLY good. But I guess it isn’t for everyone.
For dessert, we ordered two of the Chocolate Moose to share. These guys are the cutest things ever. Maybe I should start demanding that my food be presented in cute little animal shapes at every restaurant I go to.
Barry was really excited about the Moose. I already had my camera on the table, so when he brought them out, he was like, “Get it ready. Get it ready. You’ve gotta get a picture of this!” Oh, Barry. I’m sure you’re used to crazy people taking pictures of their food.
So that was my first Le Cellier experience. It not only lived up to all of my expectations, it exceeded them. I mean, I went in expecting good food and I got DELICIOUS food and great service. It was wonderful and I absolutely cannot wait to get back there.
Dad, on the other hand, won’t be going back any time soon. At least not without us forcing him. He is not a Le Cellier fan. There was nothing wrong with his food, he just didn’t like it. He thought the whole experience was incredibly overrated and kept saying that he wished we would have gone back to the Biergarten instead. (He is a HUGE Biergarten fan. Seriously, it’s all he ever talks about. I think it might just be his favorite thing at Disney) But I guess it just goes to show that Le Cellier isn’t for everyone. Nothing is. Sure, there are a lot of people who rave about it, but all of that raving also causes overly-inflated expectations. So, basically what I’m saying is don’t trust that everything you read on the internet will apply to you.
And there you go. That’s your life lesson for the day.
UP NEXT: An evening trip around the world. (Hopefully it won't take me another 2 weeks to get it posted
)
If I had a child of my own I'd do it, but I feel like people would wonder why I was doing it...although, like you, I'm also 5 on the inside, so I guess it doesn't matter, we're all kids at Disney World! 
My favorite! 
So I can feel your pain, and yes we were stuck on HM several times, the worst though was getting stuck on SE by where they burn the papers - that smell will gag you after 10 minutes - trust me!
By far, this was Fiance's favorite meal back in March. I actually have the recipe to make that cheddar cheese soup in one of my WDW cookbooks! If you wanted the recipe I could give it to you sometime this weekend when I am home!
