We last left off just as we were about to meet Duffy the Disney Bear. Who is Duffy, you ask? We didn't really know either. Until we saw that you could MEET Duffy on Paradise Pier. He was waiting for us in his little pumpkin patch themed gazebo. Raphael gave him a high-five and got a "I Hugged Duffy" sticker for her efforts. On that spot, she was deemed Duffy's BIGGEST FAN.
Duffy just makes me think of DUFFMAN.
DUFFMAN, OH YEAH!
So despite Duffy not being in any sort of merchandise, movies, or books whatsoever, apparently he is now a LONGTIME ESTABLISHED CHARACTER WHOM WE ALL KNOW AND LOVE. At this point in time, I was ready to cry with how badly my feet hurt. This was when Raphael and her bro told me to look at my shoes and my choices and that they were probably to blame for my pain. So we went on a SHOEVENTURE to find me new shoes. The other thing that happened was that, since my belt had broken earlier that day on Indy, my pants kept falling down so I had to tie Raphael's jacket around my waist in order to keep them up. It was very fashionable: brown jacket tied around black pants nerd style with broken feet.
Shoeventure was already cut short by lunch, which we ate at that grill by the California Glidin' ride. I had forgotten to pack my own lunch, so I decided I could afford to eat lunch that one day. After lunch we went on the Glidin' ride, where the pinesol smell is pumped into our faces every single scene. Last time I checked, cities don't smell like cleaning fluid. The only change to the smell-composition was when we flew over the orange groves and they pumped slightly orange smelling pinesol into our nostrils. After Glidin' we headed over to Grizzly Rapids, since we'd fastpassed it earlier, and I did my usual "OH SHIT, OH SHIT" routine where I go on water rides and then scream and slither around the tube to try and escape getting wet. I failed in that aspect, but we did succeed in avoiding the secret terrifying geyser attack that got us all drenched last time we were in Disneyland. We checked the gift store after, looking for shoes, but there were only expensive moccasins so we continued on our way. At this point, I actually WAS crying with the amount of pain I was in. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), I kept getting distracted from my one-track mindset of GETTING NEW SHOES.
I kept looking inside the Junior Wilderness Ranger Park for Dug, because my mom wanted a picture of him and I to hang on the fridge (awwww). He wasn't there though :( I remembered my aching feet yet again and we continued on our search. We got distracted AGAIN, however, by the prospect of eating dinner at Ariel's Grotto, a restaurant by the water on Paradise Pier that includes fastpasses to World of Color with the ticket and which serves ALCOHOL! We made a reservation and then tried to find me some shoes again. But THEN we saw that California Screamin' was up and running for the first time since we'd arrived at the parks. We perked up as we heard the faint sound of screams in the air and then our hearts lifted and fluttered as we saw, above the horizon, people hurtling around the circle surrounding Paradise Pier. I forgot my pain once again as we dove into line to ride the roller coaster. In line, Raphael took some more pictures for her photography class and as we arrived at the actual coaster (frontsies!) I half laughed, half cried, "I hope the car comes soon so I can sit down." Since the roller coaster had been down for the previous 48 hours, there were some sad changes to the ride, like the fact that the soundtrack and the picture-taker things were down. But it was still SO MUCH FUN and just like I remembered it. After riding the coaster, we went in search of shoes again and entered a terrifying clown store. It was a terrifying clown store because the opening to the store was a GIANT, TERRIFYING CLOWN. They had flip flops at this store, and I was in so much pain that at this point I didn't care what kind of shoes I got, so I purchased a pair. The weird thing is that, in the midst of navy blue and lime green flip flops, I got the pinkest pink pair I'd ever seen in my life.
So that's cool.
After getting new shoes, my feet felt slightly rejuvenated. I was a new, happier person and in my fit of happiness, I proclaimed that we should ride the swings.
I probably would have asked that we ride the swings anyway, but you know. We met up with Raphael's sister again and then tried to ride Screamin', but found out that it was closed. Thank God we rode it when we did, as it was also closed the rest of the time we were there. Instead we went and sat down for awhile, since I was still in pretty bad shape feet-wise. We were sitting in front of the L-Merms ride (Little Mermaid), where I took some pictures of the surrounding area.
I like to creep and take pictures of children laughing. So if these are your children playing in the fountain and you are currently reading my blog, just know that I am actually not that creepy. I just like candid kid shots.
While we were sitting, we had the utmost pleasure to hear, yet again, the Phineas and Ferb traveling "rock" float where people dressed up as Phineas and Ferb and sung the song "Best Day Ever" over and over again. I'm pretty sure they just travelled back and forth all day along the street running adjacent to Paradise Pier.
After our sitting spell, we headed over to Sorcerer's Workshop to talk to Crush. I love Sorcerer's Workshop because of the huge antechamber that shows huge scenes and concept sketches of Disney films on the walls and plays songs from the films. It felt good to sit down and just watch the giantness of the scenes around me in a stupor. Talking to Crush was HILARIOUS because the kids he talks to are so funny. He asked this one little boy if he could talk turtle, and the boy answered with a flat, "No." That ended THAT conversation pretty quickly. The best part was when he was talking to a tiny girl, who was maybe four. The parents were feeding her questions, like what her name was, what her favorite princess was, etc. and she was just answering them. So when he asked her what her question for him was, she answered, "Abbey" and then started saying things like, "'Punzel", "Pink", etc. to which Crush would respond to with true or false. It was really funny. After talking to Crush we headed into Beast's Library, where we took the what character are you quizzes again (for Raphael and I, anyways). I always remembered what my villains were (Gaston and Queen of Hearts), but I always forgot what my good character was. I took it again and found out it was Dot, which was truly disappointing. I did not like A Bug's Life all that much. Now ANTZ! That was a quality movie. Then we went into the animation chamber where I made a little animation reel depicting a guy flying, colliding with an airplane, and then exploding. The magic. We exited through the gift shop (DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID THAR?) and saw some really cute things.
I love this style of poster. If it weren't $300...
I was looking in a book of the Johns of Disney (John Lasseter and some other John, idk) and saw some concept sketches of Nightmare Before Christmas characters in it. I LOVED this snapping Jack, so cuuute!
AXE HEAD GUY IS SO CUTE <3 Then...WE WENT ON TERR TERR AGAIN! We love Terr Terr you guys. After this though, I was seriously dying so I said I would be A-OK if we had an early night. Raphael agreed whole-heartedly and we headed back to the hotel to go to dinner with Raphael's sister's friend. We ate pasta, I sat in a stupor of exhaustion while everyone else conversed, and when we got back to the hotel I had a shower and then collapsed on the bed, completely relieved to be off my feet. It was only 10 PM at this point, so when it sounded like the people next door were pounding on metal doors, we were ready to call management and complain. We were too afraid to open the window shade and see what was going on outside, since it sounded like someone was punching in a tin roof, but eventually I did look outside and saw that it was the fireworks from Disneyland. SILLY US. We laughed about it and then promptly passed out. Day three :: this could possibly be the best day ever
Raphael and I wore our matching EO shirts this day, as tradition states. I made Raphael get up with me early so we could go to REAL Magic Morning this time, but we slept in too much and didn't make it in time. We were given a magic morning pass five minutes before the park was about to open, and the lady who gave it to us said, "For the love of God, run. RUN LIKE THE WIND!" So we did. And saw that Main Street was packed with people waiting to flood the park. Disneyland on Saturday is DISGUSTINGLY full of people. We, unfortunately, did not make it in time to get ahead of the swarms of people. We feared for our lives as the park was opened and people took off like runners in a long distance race. Since we were angled towards Adventureland, we decided to forego Haunted Space for the moment and instead head toward Indy.
THIS IS WHEN WE WENT ON JONESY FOUR TIMES!
This is by far the best ghost picture.
The first time Raphael asked if she could have side, since she'd never had the pleasure of punching King Cobra before. I relented, saying she could have side if I could have it next time. Then we went a third time, where Raphael got side again, and then we had to go on it a fourth time just to even it out. Every time we exited the ride, our conversation went like this.
Raphael: ...Can we go again?
Me: YES!
The next time:
Raphael: So...again?
Me: OF COURSE!
The next time:
Raphael: Indy?
Me: Duh.
The next time:
Raphael: Indi-
Me: Yeah.
After Indy we decided to go on the Jungle Cruise, since we hadn't been on it yet. While waiting in line we decided it would be really funny if we held a mutiny on the jungle cruise. We would purchase those awful neon green and orange fake pistols, wait in line patiently with guns slung over our shoulders, and then once we got on the boat we would scream, "HAND IN THE AIR, THIS IS A MUTINY" and kick the operator off the boat. Then the operator would slog after us, the unnaturally green water up to his chest as he shakes his fist at us and yells while we cackle and steer the ship in the direction of the sunset and fake elephants.
These are the pistols of which I speak. Check out that kid, he is super intimidated.
After the Jungle Cruise, we headed over to Frontierland.
I had to take a photo with this terrifying pumpkin man.
All of the Woody hats were too small for my head, which is why I look more ridiculous than western in this picture. This is also when Raphael found her new love, a raccoon skin hat.
We rode THE TRAAAAIN in the back, which is wear it is AT! After the train, I decided that I was pretty hungry already so I bought an ear of corn to nom on. Unfortunately, eating and walking spells certain death for me. I consistently inhaled kernels of corn down the wrong tube and then hacked them back up as we walked to the entrance of the park, earning several looks of disgust as I wheezed and choked on corn. In a grand finale, I ended up dropping my corn on the ground before I could even finish half of it. Perhaps it was for the best, however, considering that I might have actually died by the time I finished it. When we reached the entrance we found that the Mad Hatter and Alice were signing autographs! We immediately jumped into line and got to listen to them banter back and forth while we grinned happily and meeting them. At one point, a woman with a small girl stepped into line behind us and asked the Hatter if that was the end of the line. He smiled at them and then went to stand in front of the girl and her mom, claiming that now THAT was the front of the line, since he was standing there. It was so funny, the people who had originally been up next to sign autographs were so pissed. Raphael asked for a picture with them, so they agreed.
They were obsessed with her mirrored glasses. Alice asked who the fairest one of all was to her glasses and then stated it was her, to which the Hatter responded with an incredulous look. Unfortunately, they did not pause long enough after Raphael's picture to allow for a picture with me too, which made me sad :( But oh well. We headed over to California Adventure to go on Terr Terr again (of course), TWICE!!! We told corny jokes while waiting in line to entertain ourselves and our new bff, a 12 year old girl in a monster hat who latched onto us. We got back both times on the ride, making the experience that much better. At one point, we were held up for a few minutes because something was telling the operator that one person's seatbelt wasn't fastened, so she made us check with her a thousand times. Then someone else stole the elevator, so we were held up. She asked us if there was anything she could do for us and I asked her to tell us a story. She said she didn't know any, but a little boy told us all a joke (that I can't remember now, but it was funny). Then the operator asked us what a bellhop's favorite season was. FALL! And then the doors closed. I was impressed by the timing.
We met up with Raphael's siblings at Grizzly Peak where I searched for Dug again and failed. We headed over to the pier to eat lunch, where I discovered that my chips had crumbled into a million little pieces. So I instead opted to feed the ducks with them, dropping the crumbs over the edge of the dock for the mallards and Brewer's Blackbirds. Unfortunately, while leaning over the railing I got some gross chocolate or something on my beautiful, white EO shirt. If there's one thing you should know about me, it's that I can't stand having dirty or wet clothing. Having something as simple as a stain on a shirt can ruin my entire day. So I was pretty upset. We went across the park and into Disneyland so we could visit the space gift store again, where I bought a STAR WARS shirt! It has R2D2 and C3PO on it and it is my new love. As soon as I changed I was happy again, though weirdly enough, the shirt was a pale pink. Pink is a good color, and hot pink happens to be one of my favorite colors, but it's just weird that everything on this trip I bought was pink. After I bought my shirt, we went to see if Haunted Space was open and found out it was CLOSED! Noooo! So instead we went on EO! YESSSS! EO in 3D!
The best part about EO was when Fuzzball comes out of the screen at the audience. The boy next to me reached his hands out, as if he were trying to touch Fuzzball, but instead smacked his hands together like he was smashing a bug. Raphael and I both burst out laughing.
After EO, Haunted Space was OPEN AGAIN. But the wait was 60 minutes. But everyone wanted to go, as did I, so we stuck it out. I sat down a lot in that line, no shame. I just couldn't handle it. By this point, I was pretty sick and in a lot of pain. My feet felt like they had splinters of white hot pain embedded in them that sent up ropes of freezing cold into my lower back to combat the fire engulfing my feet. I had a sore throat from screaming and not getting any sleep the past couple of nights, a cough was beginning to develop, and my stomach was having issues. Basically, I was a mess. We finally got through the line, however, and it was worth it to ride Haunted Space ONE LAST TIME up front. After the hour of moaning and being upset due to my pain and sickness and being basically one big child, I ended up screaming and giggling on the roller coaster.
AFTER the roller coaster, however, I was about ready to snap. We walked around, trying to find food and rest, and ended up in Toon Town, which had made me even more exhausted and dead. I sat down and proclaimed that I would not move for the next hour as I dug into my pizza, damning the fact that I had already eaten lunch. We had a prime spot for watching adorable kids running around the plaza and got to see Pluto signing autographs. He hadn't brought a chaperone with him to make the kids back off, however, so we watched as he edged away from the continuous sea of grinning kids for fifteen minutes before he was able to escape. Then the most hilarious thing ever happened. Pluto emerged from his doghouse, I'm assuming after a costume change, and then tripped epically. He caught himself, looked around wildly, and put his paws up in a manner that seemed to say, "I'm okay you guys! I'm okay!" Then he smoothed back his ears in a coy manner and walked confidently to his gazebo. It was the smoothest recovery I've ever seen.
Standing in the crowd with the kids waiting for Pluto was this glorious man: Kenny. He even has his name on his sweeper. Do you see that? It belongs to Kenny.
Wait a second...do you see what I see? MARIO AND LUIGI MAKING THEIR WAY TO THE POST OFFICE??? They even had little pot bellies and mini-mustaches! Mama mia!
After an hour of just sitting, we decided to slowly make our way over to New Orleans quarter so we could people watch and keep an eye out for Jack and Sally (since I hadn't seen them yet). On the way over, we stopped by the petting zoo. The goats, which were adorable babies last time, were now all grown up and uninterested in everything.
They were wearing their cute little Halloween bandanas though!
And jingly bells!
An adorable little Snow White!
There was some master pumpkin carver making masterpieces across from the goats. My favorite was his Kevin pumpkin. Obviously, Up is one of my favorite movies ever.
We finally reached the French Market and found that a jazz band was playing music. So we sat down and enjoyed while we watched the line for the Haunted Mansion wrap around the market and the wait probably reach up to three hours.
This little Cinderella kept looking right at me and posing, so of course I had to take her picture. She was so cute.
We were going to purchase mint juleps and spike them (I'd smuggled in my mini bottles that morning), but I felt too sick and Raphael was too tired, so we decided not to drink at that moment. After an hour and a half, we decided we could probably move enough to head over to California Adventure, so we could play there for awhile before going to Ariel's Grotto to get our drink on. We, of course, beelined for Terr Terr and on our way there we happened to cross paths with the best thing I have ever seen in my life.
DR. DANCE!!! (picture courtesy of Raphael, as mine were incredibly blurry)
Well, I guess his real name is Castor (I learned that tonight because I watched Tron for the first time). We had stumbled upon the amazing world of ElecTRONica, the Tron themed mini rave party that occurs in West Hollywood every night. Instead of Castor, however, he was Dr. Dance and he was fabulous. SO FABULOUS I WAS BASICALLY IN LOVE WITH HIM. He was like David Bowie, but in Tron world. As much as I loved the rainbowy, colorful rave that happened to us spur-of-the-moment the last time we were in Disneyland, this mini rave was TEN TIMES BETTER!!! Everything was glowy and lighty and beautiful and techno music was pulsating and Dr. Dance was showing us how to dance up on stage and it was ALL SO GREAT. The Dr. Dance thing was a pre-show where he and his Tron bitches showed all of us "users" how to do little dances. He was so fierce with his cane and cool British accent.
This picture is mine, as you can tell from the terrible quality. I just wanted to include them to show how fucking AWESOME he was.
MOVEMENT. We learned some dances from him and made some new friends as we all danced and twirled to Dr. Dance's instruction. I asked Raphael if we could please go on Terr Terr one last time before we went back to the Tron rave (ElecTRONica). Unfortunately, the line was WAY to long to even THINK about standing in it, so instead we searched out somewhere to sit. We found a lovely stoop to inhabit, just outside the End of the Line Club and Flynn's Video Arcade.
We were stoop kids, like in Hey Arnold. We sat there for half an hour, watching the people in Terr Terr plummeting down with forces exceeding gravity and screeching like banshees.
Stoop Kid's afraid to leave the stoop! (p.s. Raphael bought a Star Wars jacket at the same time I bought my Star Wars shirt).
After sitting for awhile, we joined the crowd surrounding Dr. Dance to join in counting down to the opening of the Portal. At the time, I had no idea what the hell was happening since I'd never seen Tron. It was just awesome because everything was glowing and beautiful and Dr. Dance was there in all his glory. The phrase "everything was beautiful and nothing hurt" was completely true here. I learned tonight from actually WATCHING Tron that the portal is the link between the human world and The Grid aka Tron world, so we were waiting for the portal to open into Tron world, where we were going to party it up. We joined in counting down at ten seconds and when we hit zero, everything became EPIC.
Lightning flashed across walls of buildings, lasers etched gridlines into the ground, electronica music was EVERYWHERE, and everything was glowing. I looked back at Dr. Dance just as we were entering the actual party to see him just hanging out with his Tron bitches and I thought WHAT A PIMP! I was actually pretty obsessed.
Once inside "the portal", Tron bitches were handing out glowing hula hoops.
At this point, we decided that we needed alcohol. Damned be sickness! Damned be pain! Damned be exhaustion! WE WERE DRINKING AND GETTING DRUNK IN CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE AT THIS FUCKING AWESOME PARTY! So we bought a glowjito (for me) and a digitini (for Raphael).
Mine came with a glow cube, that can be set to a single color setting or a continuous, rainbow changing glow. Raphael's came with a martini glass with a glowy base.
As we were dancing with drinks in hand (much like Spring Break, where I drank until the pain in my knee went away, which allowed me to dance against better judgement), I noticed a lone, abandoned C3PO figurine standing on a wall nearby. We KNEW we had to take pictures of him, and then we had to steal him.
Raphael tried taking some more ghost pictures, resulting in these cool, blue glowy pictures (I realize I've used the word glowy entirely too much in this post, but it is truly the only word that can describe the entire situation).
Dr. Dance came to teach us some more dances, which is when we noticed that DJ Michael Paul was NOT DANCING.
He was NOT having it. He could work at an awesome rave and be best friends with Dr. Dance all he wants, but he is NOT going to dance no matter WHAT. He abides really well by Disneyland's rules of NO PARTYING.
NO PARTIES! It's a strict regimen. So we partied hardy for about an hour, forgetting pain and sickness and exhaustion in our drunkeness (drinks outside of Utah really kick my ass) until we realized we should probably head over to Ariel's Grotto. Once we got there, we were seated to a DELICIOUS dinner. It was SO GOOD!
This is our entire party. Notice how delighted and drunk I am in the back, and notice how Raphael is not looking at the camera. At all. Not only did we get an absolutely yummy dinner with an amazing appetizer, tri-tip with cheddar mashed potatoes, and then an array of amazing desserts, but we ALSO got to sift through the Bible of ALCOHOL. I got a World of Color cocktail, which provided me with ANOTHER glow cube (SCORE!) and then drunk a Mai Thai that was lacking in the glowing department, so I shoved my purple glow cube into it and sipped away.
Raphael also ordered a drink with a glow cube in it, and I demanded she take a picture to note the contrast between the drinks. As I said this, Raphael asked, "What contrast, that one is empty and the other is full?" And then I hit her. After dinner was over and drinks ultimately consumed, we headed to our fastpass spot (directly front and center) and I snapped some pictures of the lit up park at night. I love amusement parks at night because of the lights.
The outside of Ariel's Grotto.
World of Color is my ULTIMATE FAVORITE. I adore it because it is basically my life. Disney music and scenes projected onto huge fountains of water lit up with rainbow, neon, glowing colors? ALL OF MY FAVORITE THINGS, ROLLED INTO ONE! Except for Dr. Dance. Basically, World of Color is the best. Some lady sort of sneaked her way between Raphael and I at one point and separated me from the pack, sort of adopting me as her own as she showed me where things were happening on the water. I was trying to use my camera to film my favorite parts of World of Color, but my camera had run out of memory at this point. Luckily, Raphael snapped this picture of Zurg during my favorite laser battle between Buzz and Zurg.
It is THE BEST. Just know that I love World of Color. That's all.
We slowly made our way out of the park, knowing we had to say goodbye and also sort of looking forward to sitting for twelve hours straight in the car the next day. Once we arrived back at the hotel room, Raphael and I watched the Best Day Ever music video over and over and over again. I literally had no words for that video.
It is now our new favorite song. This is the song that the Phineas and Ferb characters were singing on their rocking float that went back and forth all day throughout the park. We were pretty sure that they were going to pass out at any time.
Thus ends a GREAT TIME at Disneyland, even though it was a little bit of a shit show. But, like I said before, an AMAZING shit show! The next day I wanted to leave early, so we could get home early and I could finish homework. Also I have been trained by my family that the last day of vacation is always a day for packing and GETTING THE HELL OUT without any semblance of fun. So I was pretty cranky when Raphael's siblings said they wanted to go out to breakfast in Downtown Disney. We eventually got to eat a delicious breakfast and finally got out at around 1 PM.
So even though I didn't get to meet Jack and Sally (which made me kind of sad), I did get to see Dr. Dance in all his glory and had THE MOST EPIC FINALE EVER to our Disneyland trip with ElecTRONica, Ariel's Grotto, and World of Color. So I am incredibly happy. Yaaaay Disneyland!!!
Face of joy.
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