So probably one of the first big events was Canadian Thanksgiving. I haven't been home for Thanksgiving in 3 years now, so it wasn't a big deal to me to not be home, but I was curious as to how it would be living in a different country. Thankfully, I am surrounded by many other Canadians who felt the same way. 2 girls from our pavilion were kind enough to offer up their apartment to us and host a Thanksgiving potluck the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It was awesome. There was so much food! I'm not sure how we all managed to cram into that little apartment, but it was nice. I'm very thankful to continuously have good Thanksgivings even though I'm not at home.
On real Thanksgiving, I did something a little different. I spent a lovely day in Magic Kingdom with some friends, then went to 1900 Park Fare for dinner. 1900 Park Fare is at the Grand Floridian (one of my favourite places) and has Cinderella character dining at dinner. Characters present were Cinderella, Prince Charming, Lady Tremaine, and the stepsisters, Anastasia and Drizella. It was so much fun! For one thing, we got to meet a Prince and that was awesome. The stepsisters are absolutely hilarious. They essentially just run around screaming the entire time. I love it. Near the end of our meal the restaurant was quiet so the stepsisters were just messing around and at one point Anastasia pulled us up and got us to follow her skipping around the dining room. Not to mention that the buffet was really good. Lots of different kinds of food, and you can't go wrong with their famous chilled strawberry soup. Also a great way to spend Thanksgiving :)
Posing with Drizella
There was also one particularly awesome day in October and that was October 20th. October 20th I went on a beach trip to Clearwater beach. It was through housing and lunch was included in the price. I'd been dying to go to a beach since I got here and it did not disappoint. It was beautiful, and laying on a beach all day was exactly what I needed. It was nice to see real Florida, since we are so trapped in a Disney bubble. I want to go back to a beach so bad but it's really hard to get anywhere without a car :(
Clearwater Beach
When I got back from Clearwater, I headed over to Epcot to watch Smash Mouth play at Eat to the Beat. It. was. AMAZING. I knew pretty much all of the songs, and they were great to watch. All Star (of course) was the finale, and they told everyone to come up on stage with them! Probably not a good idea in reality, but it was super fun! Got to jam and dance along with Smash Mouth onstage. That was honestly one of my favourite things I've done since I've been here.
View from up onstage
October included me and two other people trying to conquer the Kitchen Sink. The Kitchen Sink is located at Beaches and Cream at the Beach Club resort, and consists of 8 scoops of ice cream, every topping in the house, and an entire can of whipped cream. It was pretty spectacular. We 3 couldn't quite finish it on our own, but I would say we did pretty well. This was pretty high on my bucket list so I was happy to do it.
Before
After
If you ever have the chance to make an early breakfast reservation at Magic Kingdom, do it, no matter which restaurant it is for. Ours just happened to be for Crystal Palace, which was fun we got to meet Pooh Bear characters, but not quite as exciting as being in a nearly empty Magic Kingdom. See, the park opened at 9, but breakfast reservations start at 8, which means if you have a reservation you can go in. I got some really beautiful photos from parts I could walk around.
Unfortunately, Halloween wasn't really celebrated for me (a shame because of how much I love it), but I figure I went to two Mickey's Not So Scary, so that makes up for it.
Now we're creeping into November, and with November 1st for me begins Christmas. There is definitely a Christmas tree in my apartment right now. And when I saw Christmas items in the stores I went nuts, and lost it when I saw Magic Kingdom decorated. Needless to say, I'm a Christmas nut. My parents came for a visit last week. That was nice. We stayed in French Quarter, which meant I had a Queen bed to myself for 4 nights. It was awesome to have a little staycation, and to feel like I was on vacation. And of course it was good to see my parents. My Dad wasn't so into Disney this trip (party pooper), but my mom was so it was okay. We (or me and my mom) had a lot of fun.
At Food and Wine with my parents
Lastly, last night was the Very Merry Christmas Party. I was so super excited for this. Like I woke up early because I was so excited. I bought Christmas ears and a shirt specifically to wear to the party. And it was fun. My main focus of the evening was meeting Flynn Rider. I LOVE Flynn Rider, and he was meeting with Rapunzel. Also at the party was "Sandy Claws" (Jack Skellington dressed as Santa), which was pretty epic, especially since I absolutely love Nightmare Before Christmas. We got in line at 6:15 for him. The party started at 7. He actually came out at like 6:20, and thank God he did. We didn't get out of that line until 7:30. And I thought we'd be out by 7, but Jack is a ton of fun to meet so it was worth it.
Nice to meet you Sandy Claws
Our next target was Flynn so we headed to Fairytale Hall. The line hardly ever moved. It was very frustrating and when we got in the room we saw why. Flynn and Rapunzel were spending forever with the guests. One girl was crying because she was so excited to meet them and they spent at least 5 if not more minutes with her. I understand wanting to have good character interactions, but when lines are long like that you can't be spending that much quality time. It just causes a lot of frustration. Finally getting to meet them was awesome. I've met Rapunzel a lot so as much as I adore her it wasn't overly exciting, but meeting Flynn was pretty fun. I got to look in his satchel and he has Rapunzel's crown in there. It's beautiful. Prince Charming and Cinderella were also in the room. I felt kinda bad for them because it was obvious everyone was more after the other two, but they were both lovely as well.
Rapunzel and Flynn
By the time we got out of there, it was close to 9. Celebrate the Magic was on at 9:15 and Holiday Wishes at 9:30, so we barely had time to grab a Christmas cupcake from Gaston's Tavern before heading to watch. The fireworks I've gotta say were pretty spectacular. I love when they do perimeter fireworks. They can't do them all the time because they have to shut the roads down, so they save them for special events, but when they happen they're stunning. I shed a tear as they are set to Christmas carols and I loved it. After the fireworks we set ourselves up in a place where we could watch the stage show and the parade. Honestly, the stage show has mixed reviews, but it was one of my favourite parts of the evening. If only for Goofy singing "Must Be Santa". It was way too adorable. The parade followed. It was good, I liked the Halloween and the Disneyland Christmas parade better, and I don't understand why Frozen needs 3 floats, but I was mad because there was this couple in the front row who insisted on standing even though everyone behind them was sitting. Who does that? We couldn't see sitting, but we didn't wanna stand in front of the kids behind us. We ended up standing because we wouldn't have seen anything, but my goodness. Have some courtesy. They also started making out in the middle so that's nice. Aside from frustrations the parade was cute and got better and better as it went along. After the parade we booked it to try and see Snow White and Aurora with The Prince and Prince Phillip, and when we got there they had cut the line, but we were second in standby so we waited. They were leaving at 11:30. At 11:28 they saw the last person in the line and left. No one in standby got in. Then we tried to see Scrooge but the line was cut. So was Minnie. We did get to see Santa Goofy, so that was good. The party was fun, but there was just a lot of frustrating moments. We didn't get to do half the things we wanted to. We're going to go again because there's no way I'm not meeting Philip, Scrooge and Clarabelle and Horace (who I didn't know were there until last night!!!). Next time we won't be as stressed and rushy :)
Well, this post turned mainly into a Very Merry post, but that's alright. I think I'm going to bring my new Sven stuffie to the next party, because I love him and he's a reindeer so that's Christmas:) What else is there? I wrote my service test and passed, no date for food running, but I only cared about passing. I go to Magic Kingdom every week. I love it and never get bored of it. It's like my happy place. I think I need to go every week to keep myself sane. I have to keep that Disney magic going for myself or being here would be way too hard. I've also watched Festival of the Lion King at Animal Kingdom twice this month and it always makes me really miss performing. Not that I could be in that show because I'm white and can't dance, but still. So do parades and castle stage shows *sigh*. I bought tickets for Book of Mormon though in January so that's really exciting! Oh, and James Monroe Iglehart came into Le Cellier last week AND I WAS WORKING POPCORN AND MISSED IT!!!! I was devastated. I love him. If you don't know he's the Genie in Aladdin on Broadway. There are some very exciting things coming up in the next month or so, so stay tuned for that ;) I'll hopefully post in the next month. Until next time.
