Mission

“These are the voyages of the traveler Steven. Its five-year mission: to explore the strange world, to seek out life and civilizations, to boldly go where few men have gone before.”

When I set out to see the world, my goal was to check off a bunch of boxes. I set some goals, got a full-time job, added some more goals, learned that taking 50 vacation days a year was not considered acceptable, figured out how to incorporate all of the goals I set, and had at it. My goal was never to explore new cultures, yet that is what these voyages have become. I have started to understand foreign cultures, but I have learned one fundamental truth. Human beings are, for the most part, the same.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Orlando - Day 2 - Disney

12/7/14
Aboard DL 1976, En route MCO-LGA


One might think that after having spent the day in happiest place on the Earth with my favorite person in the world, I would have a long and interesting entry to right, replete with deep philosophy.  One would be wrong.  Just as on the flight in, I’ve got bubkus.  The entire philosophical theme of the trip was properly contained in yesterday’s entries, and I can think of nothing new to say.  Instead, in the entry that will bring this document to 500,000 words, all I can do is recall the events of the day.

I had much the same for breakfast as I did yesterday, but it was much better not eating alone, eating outside, and having my chopsticks.  After breakfast, I got another cup of coffee and headed up to the room to smoke my Partagas.  We were under a bit of a time crunch to get ready and catch the 10:35 AM shuttle.  In fact, we were under a bit of a time crunch all day, but that did not stop us for enjoying ourselves.  In order to get from our hotel to the Magic Kingdom, we had to take a bus to the monorail to a ferry boat, a process that took about an hour.

After taking the requisite photos with the Walt and Mickey and the Castle, we went on the carousel.  I mounted the carousel the same we I would mount a real horse, and I do not think the fake horse was designed to handle that.  After the carousel, we went to see Mickey’s “PhilarMagic,” a 3-D delight for all the senses, replete with songs from all of our favorite Disney pieces, from “Be Our Guest” to “I Just Can’t Wait to be King.”

Next, I wanted to do “It’s a Small World.”  It was probably the most famous ride that I skipped when I went to Disneyland.  Well, it was just as wonderful and delightful and charming as promised.  We then went to the gift shop, and my card got declined.  Again, plenty of money in the bank, but Citibank once more decided to put a security hold on my card.  I sorted it out during lunch, but it was a nuisance.



For lunch, we went to the Beauty and the Beast castle, and it was a truly wonderful experience.  I treated myself to a Croque Monsieur, which was delicious.  I wanted a cigar, but (as of writing this, “but” is the 500,000th word in this Travelogue) we were truly out of time.  It would be a tight race just to get to Hollywood Studios and see the Frozen stuff and still catch our 5:15 PM bus back to the hotel.  There was certainly not a free hour for me to have a cigar.  In fact, the Partagas was the only cigar I had all day.

We took the bus to Hollywood Studios, and, like at Universal, they had a replica of New York.  We headed towards the Frozen Sing-Along, which was as magical as it seemed.  Belting out our favorite songs at the top of our lungs, while the characters cracked new jokes, it was wonderful.  We were almost out of time, though.  It was 4:25 PM.  We needed to get to our bus at Epcot at 5:15 PM, and we still hadn’t seen the Frozen main exhibit.  We rushed through that, and we got a Frozen collectible slush ice cup, along with a Olaf cupcake to share.

It was 4:50 PM, and there were two ways to get back to Epcot: the bus and the boat.  I chose the boat.  It was the wrong decision.  We effed up.  By the time we made all the stops and got back to Epcot, not only was it 10 minutes past our bus’s departure time, but we were on the wrong side of Epcot with no cabs to be had.  In the end, it was a costly mistake, since we had to trek back and get a cab to our hotel.  The cab waited for us while we got our stuff and I changed into my suit.

I was again worried about the time crunch, but we got to the airport with no worry about time.  In fact, in the end, our flight was delayed, and we were sitting in the gate for quite some time.  I lost my lighter to security, the first time I lost a lighter at an airport in the continental United States in well over a year.  I picked up a burger at Outback, which was delicious, and we were soon on our plane.  When the beverage service came around, I grabbed my laptop, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, along with the trip.  The sentence I am about to write made me smile very excitedly.  Next stop: Antarctica.
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