suserphone
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- May 9, 2003
- Messages
- 6
DAY THREE: EPCOT/ROSE AND CROWN
The next day was Epcot. Whee! This was a great day! When we arrived at the park, I advised Mike that we should head immediately to Test Track, since this is the only semi-thrill ride in Epcot and it fills up pretty quickly. I kept telling him how much fun it was and how fast it went, blah blah blah, but the line didn't seem to be moving. I was really hoping that it wasn't broken down. But finally our turn came and we climbed into our test car to be crash test dummies of sorts and off we went. Things seemed to be going smoothly. We tested out the brakes and different road surfaces, then different temperatures. We got stuck in the acid rain portion and that is when things started to go downhill (har). According to the narration that kept playing along even though we weren't moving, the implication was that we were supposed to get out of there before the robots sprayed us with acid. Ha. We eventually moved on to the next section that was going to test switching gears at high speeds and on hairpin turns. Oh boy! Uh...we never seemed to quite get up to speed. Mr. Narrator was exclaiming, "Whoa, did you feel that?" and "Uh oh, this is going to be a sharp one!" and "Hold on!" Meanwhile, the speedometer read "4 m.p.h." Whee. It was at this point that our picture was taken (this was supposed to be a "screamy" part of the ride). FINALLY, it picked up speed just in time for the best part, the outside speed course where we zip all around and go almost completely horizontal, but it didn't make up for the initial disappointment. When we got off the ride and saw our picture, we laughed our butts off. I wish we had bought it. The couple in front of us is smiling nervously and looking kind of hopeful, as in "Maybe it will get faster in a second?" Mike has his eyebrow raised and is looking at me as if to say, "Uh, Susie? You did say this was a thrill ride, didn't you?" And I was just flat out scowling. It was priceless. Man, I wish we'd bought it. Oh well. We still have lots of other great "precious memories" (I've been jokingly referring to our pictures that way to amuse Mike).
After we got gypped by Test Track, we decided to leave Future World for a while and hit the World Showcase. This was the best! It had just opened for the day so there was hardly anyone around. We took picture after silly picture and laughed and had a grand time. We hadn't even gone on any attractions yet, but we were having a blast. My favorite pictures were taken at a fine art kiosk of sorts (near France) that was plastered with reprints of famous paintings. Mike looks as though he's trying to sneak a peek at a lady undressing, and a paranoid-looking lady and I are staring sidelong at each other. Ah, precious memories.
By now, the attractions were starting to open and of course we started off in France. I love that movie. The music, the views, the pastries. It's so beautiful. Then we wandered around the French gift shop and oddly enough, I wasn't in the mood for the French pastry shop. Wha-? I know, I know! Crazy. I think it's because we were hungry for actual food, and after the delectable napoleon the night before, I was worried I would be disappointed by anything else.
Following our stomachs, we headed to Canada. Le Cellier, the restaurant we wanted to try, was not yet open, so we walked around the "mountains" and waterfall and watched the "O Canada" movie. This was a 360-degree theater, which was really cool. There was a really cheesy song at the end that Mike and I ended up singing for the rest of the trip: Canada! (Canada!) My Canada! (Canada!) You're the something something something on this planet earth! (Canada!). We still bust out with it occasionally.
Finally, Le Cellier was open and we dashed in. I was expecting a long wait since we didn't have reservations and I know it's a very popular restaurant, but we were seated right away. The entire wait staff was so friendly! The girl who seated us noticed Mike's birthday pin. She congratulated him and asked if this was his birthday present. When she heard I had planned this trip as a surprise for him, she seemed very impressed and told the other wait staff about what a cool girlfriend I was. Yay me! Our waiter, Brendan, was really nice and explained all the menu items to us, including the multiple-flavored breadsticks (each one represented a different part of Canada and its agriculture--neat!). Our meal was quite tasty. Mike ordered the cheese soup that had come highly recommended on all the sites I'd visited and I had...a hamburger. But it was a fancy Canadian hamburger! So there. The restaurant itself was really beautiful and Brendan was gracious enough to take a picture of Mikey and me. Then we bid them goodbye and waddled out.
Once again, I am fuzzy on the sequence of events. I know we wandered into Morocco and I got a really cool henna tattoo that sweet Mikey paid for. Sarah, the henna artist, was really nice and really pretty and really talented. The tattoo was made of a sticky paste and I had to keep putting lemon juice on it to preserve it so my hand was a useless mess for the rest of the day, but it was worth it. It cost $40 for a very intricate, full-hand tattoo, and it lasted for about a month. I asked Sarah if they were usually reserved for special occasions (i.e. weddings), so for the rest of the trip, Mike kept jokingly insisting that the henna did not mean we were married and that I was trying to trick him into something. Well, it must have worked because he proposed a few months later. Woo hoo!
I don't think we really played around much in any of the other countries. We did head back to Future World to check out the Living Seas, a really cool , gigantic aquarium, and the Honey, I Shrunk the Audience movie. The Living Seas was neat. There were so many varieties of sea life, and they had a pair of manatees that were fascinating to me. I had never seen any without scars on their backs from speeding boats. They were beautiful. And the 3-D movie had more silly special effects to make the audience scream. I think Mike might have made some involuntary noises on this one too. I don't remember and I'm sure he'd never admit to it.
After we had had our fill of Epcot, we wandered back over to the Boardwalk in the hopes of eating at the ESPN club. Mike really wanted to try it out, but it was packed. There was no way we would be getting in any time soon, the line was long, and it was freezing. We headed back to Epcot to try our luck at the Rose and Crown pub in United Kingdom. I didn't think we'd be able to get a table, but they sat us right away, outside even, so we'd have a good view of IllumiNations. After sitting out there for a while, however, we were way too cold to stick around for a show and we thought about leaving right after we ate. Our server was really great. His name was Martyn and he was really funny. He helped Mike choose a beer. Mike had a "half yard." It came in this huge test tube-looking thing and you got to keep it as a souvenir. I had some weird concoction called a Welsh Dragon or something. It was green and had melon liqueur and crème de menthe, among other things. I had the prime rib and Mike had the bangers and mash. We both enjoyed our meals but decided we definitely would head out and not stay for the show. It was about this time that Martyn came by with, I believe, the manager and told us that in honor of Mike's special day, they had a special table reserved for us. They moved us to a cozy little table right on the waterfront with a perfect view of the lake (where the show would occur). We had been sitting off to the side of the patio at a larger table. To keep warm, we ordered hot chocolate and coffee (with Frangelica, of course) and they brought us a birthday treat: a sticky toffee pudding thing. It was scrumptious. Then IllumiNations started. It was an interesting mixture of video and moving sculpture and fireworks and lights and water. We had a great seat and I'm glad we stayed, even if I had to hold my hands over the tiny candle on our table to keep them warm. It was a perfect end to a perfect day.
The next day was Epcot. Whee! This was a great day! When we arrived at the park, I advised Mike that we should head immediately to Test Track, since this is the only semi-thrill ride in Epcot and it fills up pretty quickly. I kept telling him how much fun it was and how fast it went, blah blah blah, but the line didn't seem to be moving. I was really hoping that it wasn't broken down. But finally our turn came and we climbed into our test car to be crash test dummies of sorts and off we went. Things seemed to be going smoothly. We tested out the brakes and different road surfaces, then different temperatures. We got stuck in the acid rain portion and that is when things started to go downhill (har). According to the narration that kept playing along even though we weren't moving, the implication was that we were supposed to get out of there before the robots sprayed us with acid. Ha. We eventually moved on to the next section that was going to test switching gears at high speeds and on hairpin turns. Oh boy! Uh...we never seemed to quite get up to speed. Mr. Narrator was exclaiming, "Whoa, did you feel that?" and "Uh oh, this is going to be a sharp one!" and "Hold on!" Meanwhile, the speedometer read "4 m.p.h." Whee. It was at this point that our picture was taken (this was supposed to be a "screamy" part of the ride). FINALLY, it picked up speed just in time for the best part, the outside speed course where we zip all around and go almost completely horizontal, but it didn't make up for the initial disappointment. When we got off the ride and saw our picture, we laughed our butts off. I wish we had bought it. The couple in front of us is smiling nervously and looking kind of hopeful, as in "Maybe it will get faster in a second?" Mike has his eyebrow raised and is looking at me as if to say, "Uh, Susie? You did say this was a thrill ride, didn't you?" And I was just flat out scowling. It was priceless. Man, I wish we'd bought it. Oh well. We still have lots of other great "precious memories" (I've been jokingly referring to our pictures that way to amuse Mike).
After we got gypped by Test Track, we decided to leave Future World for a while and hit the World Showcase. This was the best! It had just opened for the day so there was hardly anyone around. We took picture after silly picture and laughed and had a grand time. We hadn't even gone on any attractions yet, but we were having a blast. My favorite pictures were taken at a fine art kiosk of sorts (near France) that was plastered with reprints of famous paintings. Mike looks as though he's trying to sneak a peek at a lady undressing, and a paranoid-looking lady and I are staring sidelong at each other. Ah, precious memories.
By now, the attractions were starting to open and of course we started off in France. I love that movie. The music, the views, the pastries. It's so beautiful. Then we wandered around the French gift shop and oddly enough, I wasn't in the mood for the French pastry shop. Wha-? I know, I know! Crazy. I think it's because we were hungry for actual food, and after the delectable napoleon the night before, I was worried I would be disappointed by anything else.
Following our stomachs, we headed to Canada. Le Cellier, the restaurant we wanted to try, was not yet open, so we walked around the "mountains" and waterfall and watched the "O Canada" movie. This was a 360-degree theater, which was really cool. There was a really cheesy song at the end that Mike and I ended up singing for the rest of the trip: Canada! (Canada!) My Canada! (Canada!) You're the something something something on this planet earth! (Canada!). We still bust out with it occasionally.
Finally, Le Cellier was open and we dashed in. I was expecting a long wait since we didn't have reservations and I know it's a very popular restaurant, but we were seated right away. The entire wait staff was so friendly! The girl who seated us noticed Mike's birthday pin. She congratulated him and asked if this was his birthday present. When she heard I had planned this trip as a surprise for him, she seemed very impressed and told the other wait staff about what a cool girlfriend I was. Yay me! Our waiter, Brendan, was really nice and explained all the menu items to us, including the multiple-flavored breadsticks (each one represented a different part of Canada and its agriculture--neat!). Our meal was quite tasty. Mike ordered the cheese soup that had come highly recommended on all the sites I'd visited and I had...a hamburger. But it was a fancy Canadian hamburger! So there. The restaurant itself was really beautiful and Brendan was gracious enough to take a picture of Mikey and me. Then we bid them goodbye and waddled out.
Once again, I am fuzzy on the sequence of events. I know we wandered into Morocco and I got a really cool henna tattoo that sweet Mikey paid for. Sarah, the henna artist, was really nice and really pretty and really talented. The tattoo was made of a sticky paste and I had to keep putting lemon juice on it to preserve it so my hand was a useless mess for the rest of the day, but it was worth it. It cost $40 for a very intricate, full-hand tattoo, and it lasted for about a month. I asked Sarah if they were usually reserved for special occasions (i.e. weddings), so for the rest of the trip, Mike kept jokingly insisting that the henna did not mean we were married and that I was trying to trick him into something. Well, it must have worked because he proposed a few months later. Woo hoo!
I don't think we really played around much in any of the other countries. We did head back to Future World to check out the Living Seas, a really cool , gigantic aquarium, and the Honey, I Shrunk the Audience movie. The Living Seas was neat. There were so many varieties of sea life, and they had a pair of manatees that were fascinating to me. I had never seen any without scars on their backs from speeding boats. They were beautiful. And the 3-D movie had more silly special effects to make the audience scream. I think Mike might have made some involuntary noises on this one too. I don't remember and I'm sure he'd never admit to it.
After we had had our fill of Epcot, we wandered back over to the Boardwalk in the hopes of eating at the ESPN club. Mike really wanted to try it out, but it was packed. There was no way we would be getting in any time soon, the line was long, and it was freezing. We headed back to Epcot to try our luck at the Rose and Crown pub in United Kingdom. I didn't think we'd be able to get a table, but they sat us right away, outside even, so we'd have a good view of IllumiNations. After sitting out there for a while, however, we were way too cold to stick around for a show and we thought about leaving right after we ate. Our server was really great. His name was Martyn and he was really funny. He helped Mike choose a beer. Mike had a "half yard." It came in this huge test tube-looking thing and you got to keep it as a souvenir. I had some weird concoction called a Welsh Dragon or something. It was green and had melon liqueur and crème de menthe, among other things. I had the prime rib and Mike had the bangers and mash. We both enjoyed our meals but decided we definitely would head out and not stay for the show. It was about this time that Martyn came by with, I believe, the manager and told us that in honor of Mike's special day, they had a special table reserved for us. They moved us to a cozy little table right on the waterfront with a perfect view of the lake (where the show would occur). We had been sitting off to the side of the patio at a larger table. To keep warm, we ordered hot chocolate and coffee (with Frangelica, of course) and they brought us a birthday treat: a sticky toffee pudding thing. It was scrumptious. Then IllumiNations started. It was an interesting mixture of video and moving sculpture and fireworks and lights and water. We had a great seat and I'm glad we stayed, even if I had to hold my hands over the tiny candle on our table to keep them warm. It was a perfect end to a perfect day.
