Florida Day Dos

While I avoided the Internet the entire time I was on vacation, CNN helpfully informed me this morning that Chris Benoit and his entire family were dead. While I haven't watched wrestling in years, he was the last of the guys I had loved to watch that hadn't yet died or retired, so I initially felt a bit bad for him. You know, until later in the week when it came out that he had murdered his family before killing himself, making me somewhat less sympathetic.

We started the day by going to the Magic Kingdom and taking the monorail to Chef Mickey's for lunch. This was somewhat of a rocky ride, as we had the good fortune to sit down on the monorail in front of a mother whose kid had just crapped himself, and we got to enjoy the pleasant aroma while we waited in midair for five minutes while the monorails ahead of us slowly got out of our way.

Chef Mickey's was a presumably typical theme restaurant, filled with Goofy, Pluto, Minnie, and what have you roaming around for photo ops, and every half hour or so we all had to show our party spirit by waving our napkins around in the air (yes, pictures of my shame will be forthcoming whenever my brother in law e-mails them to me). Most important, though, there was a middle aged woman waitressing nearby that had a five o clock shadow.

After lunch, we went to Animal Kingdom (So yes, we waited for a bus to go to Magic Kingdom, then took a monorail to our restaurant, then took another bus to Animal Kingdom, keeping us from reaching the park itself until noon. This led to me and my sister deciding that we were no longer going to follow my mother's itinerary, as it was completely retarded.), where we were swarmed with people, as evidently this is one of the most popular parks at Disney. Animal Kingdom and Epcot definitely seem to be the most popular parks for the Asian crowds, as they were everywhere (though for some reason they don't seem to be big fans of Blizzard Beach). We knocked out the big rides as fast as we could (meaning within two or three hours), checking out Expedition Everest (possibly the best roller coaster at Disney), the safari, and the river rapids. The worst part of the waits was the hour in line for the safari in which we had an obnoxious redneck guy behind us (sorry Southerners, but your atrocious accents make me want to kill whenever I hear them) spouting off nonsensical rants about Disney to his no doubt long-suffering wife and child. We also caught the 3-D adventure It's Tough to be a Bug, featuring part of the cast from A Bug's Life, which was a good deal better than the movie itself, despite the nonpresence of Heimlich.

For the evening we all went to Downtown Disney, where we did some shopping, and I stayed after everyone with the promised lure of an improv comedy show on Pleasure Island. While it had its moments, it really wasn't worth the money I spent on it, so I made my way back home and ventured out to the hotel pool just as the rest of my family was going back inside. I wound up playing catch with this family who had two pool balls in the vague shape of baseballs. I unfortunately arrived at the pool at exactly ten o'clock, which is when the big scary clown slide got shut down for the night, so I had to wait until the next day to enjoy its dark delights. I made my way back to my room just before midnight, as the pool closed then and I'd start needing my ID to get back in my hotel room, which I didn't have with me, and so went to bed feeling somewhat unfulfilled.