A Magical Time

Now, it's time for the post you've all been waiting for: Disneyland Paris! My parents and I were at the resort from the Monday after they arrived through Wednesday. We traveled there by a Eurostar train and through the "Chunnel" (the tunnel underneath the English channel), arriving at a station literally just outside the gates of Disneyland Paris. The Disney Express service provided us our tickets on the train, and gave us luggage tags so that we could drop our bags at the Disney Express counter at the train station, where they would be taken to our hotel so that we could pick them up later. Within minutes of arriving, we were within Walt Disney Studios, sister park to Disneyland Paris. This smaller park has fewer rides, making it an ideal first stop as the train reached the parks in the early afternoon, and the parks close relatively early during the off-season at seven o'clock.

Walt Disney Studios seen from outside the park. It was supposed to rain the entire time we were at Disneyland, a fact we had sadly accepted. And it did rain severely--once at 6 in the morning on Tuesday. The rest of the time it drizzled lightly at the worst, and at some points it was even sunny! For the most part it was overcast, however, as you'll see in the somewhat darkened photos.


The lines in both parks were pretty much non-existent. Rockin' Rollercoaster was a five-minute wait, unheard of in its other location, Florida.


This was one coaster that we had to wait a decent time for: Crush's Coaster.


The ride, however, was well worth the wait. Part dark ride (a la Peter Pan or Snow White), part coaster, it comes with cars shaped like turtle shells, with back-to-back seatin that holds four people, as seen in this model outside the ride.


The tiny bit of track you can see outside the building is from the very beginning of the ride and is fairly tame. After you go through that bit, you go into the dark ride section, seeing Nemo and his friends under the ocean. Then up the lift you go, finally getting to the top where you suddenly swerve to the side and drop sharply, car spinning at the same time. Imagine dropping a marble into a steep bowl and letting it roll around, and you may understand the sensation that is Crush's Coaster. While I thought it was quite a blast, I was alone when I went on the ride later in the trip--Mom said that the ride was amazing, but she'd never do it again.

Walt Disney Studios overall was fairly underwhelming, with lackluster themeing and few rides and shows, so we easily saw everything we wanted to before the park closed and we headed back to the hotel. The Sequoia Lodge was nice, reminescent of the Wilderness Lodge at Disney World, if not quite as expansive. We went to bed early after getting up equally early to get to the train station on time. the next day, however, we got up early to take advantage of a hotel special: Extra Magic hours. Guests of all Disneyland Paris hotels get to enter the Disneyland Park starting at 8 o'clock. Since the park doesn't open to the public till ten o'clock, that meant that we had two hours of little-to no crowds. Even though we were restricted to Fantasyland Discoveryland (the equivilent of Tomorrowland), it was amazing to walk through the park with barely any other people around. We got to walk onto rides such as Peter Pan and Space Mountain that normally would have required a wait, going onto every attraction available to us before the park officially opened to us.

If Walt Disney Studios was underwhelming, Disneyland Paris was the exact opposite. The detail was amazing. Everything was giant in structure and yet intricate at the same time. Take the castle for instance. It is big enough to house two stores, a second floor gallery of stained glass windows telling the story of Sleeping Beauty, and a dragon's lair in the basement.



There are two levels of walkways along the moat. Yet the columns have been detailed with Gothic-like architecture, with a Disney-twist.

It was an absolutely wonderful experience. Tuesday we spent at Disneyland Paris, Wednesday at both parks, going on any rides we hadn't had a chance to do yet, and re-doing ones that we had enjoyed. Then it was back on the Eurostar to be dumped off at St. Pancreas station.

Here is the album for the parks. Facebook recently expanded the number of pictures one can include in an album, thank heavens! More pictures, less albums.

Disneyland Paris

Hopefully I'll have time to wrap up my trip posts this weekend. My new internship is keeping me busy, but I'm enjoying it!

A Day at the Theatre....Shakespeare-Style

One of the last things my friends and I managed to do together was to attend a production of Romeo and Juliet. This production had the added attraction of being performed in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, a replica of the original theatre where Shakespeare first put on his productions. Not only does the theatre look like the original, it does its best to make the entire experience as close to the 1600s as possible. This includes a section of standing-room-only (tickets cost five pounds and you have to queue early to get a good spot); my friends and I decided we wanted to be a little more comfortable, however, so we popped for seats just behind the peasants--I mean, standing patrons. If you attend a production here, however, be ready to be uncomfortable no matter where you are. The benches we sat on were wooden and had no backs--cushions could be rented for a pound. The cushion makes things better for a while, but after three and a half hours of sitting, not even the cushion can take the edge off.

The stage from my seat. Notice it is an open-air theatre.

Free paper sun-visors were on the seats to help counter-act the glare from the sun, an unavoidable side-effect of the open-aired venue.


Singers and musicians perform seventeenth-century music before the show begins, complete with instruments that would have been around during the period.


Seating arrangements aside, it was a wonderful production, and I had a lovely time at my last show in London. All-in-all, I managed to see 90% of the shows I wanted to see, only missing Jersey Boys and The Lion King, and I've already seen The Lion King twice in the States.

Coming up next, a trip to the most magical place in Europe!

London Eye and Ireland

I am now safely home, albeit somewhat jet-lagged. I will tell you right now that the sun has never felt so good! I'm still running around like crazy, unpacking and getting my summer internship finalized, but I have a few minutes to catch you up on what I did the last few weeks in London.

On Sunday, May 3rd, I went with my friend Kevin to do the London Eye and the London Aquarium. The giant Ferris Wheel that is the London Eye is a bit over-priced and over-rated, as you pay a hefty fee for a ten-minute (though impressive) view of London. Still, it was on my list of attractions to visit, and I'm glad I did it. The London Aquarium was also quite nice, and I enjoyed it as well.



Then there was a few days of cramming, followed by my one and only final for the semester in my Medieval Europe class. Less than six hours after I walked out of my exam I was on a plane heading for Dublin, Ireland with my friends. Apart from nearly freezing to death in weather that was much colder than London, I had a wonderful few days there. We did a day tour into the countryside around the city, where we saw among other things the monastic settlement of Glendalough. The second day, we took a free three-hour tour of the city given by a group called New Europe. The tour guides work on a tips-only basis, as the company believes that anyone should be able to afford a tour in the major cities of Europe. It was amazingly good, and we were led all around the city and filled in on its history from the Vikings to the revolution that occurred in 1916. If you ever have a chance to do one of these tours, I highly recommend it.

Besides touring the city, we also managed to find a local pub that puts on free Irish song and dance every night, seven days a week. We enjoyed two hours of music and Irish stepdance. It was a wonderful experience. After two days, it was back to the airport for Caitlin so that she could be ready to pick up her parents on Saturday!

Albums are located below, as always.

London Eye and Aquarium
Ireland One
Ireland Two
Ireland Three

Don't Worry, I'm Still Alive

I realize that it's been two weeks since I last posted, but I've been both busy and absent from the computer during all that time, so there have been no blog posts. As Mom and Dad are keeping me busily running around England for the next few days, I probably won't have time to post until I get back to the states next week. For now, know that Disneyland Paris was an absolute blast!

Upcoming posts:

London Eye/Aquarium
Ireland
Disneyland
Hampton Court
Windsor Palace
Blenheim Palace
Coming Home

Let's Make Some Noise!

Last night, I went to see a performance of STOMP, and spent the evening completely mesmerized. For those who don't know, STOMP is a group that takes everyday objects and turns them into a percussion orchestra (check out their website for a promo video). This is a group that I've been wanting to see live for over ten years now, ever since I first saw Mr. Rogers visit them when I was watching Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood on PBS. I was not disappointed. I laughed, I cried (from laughing so hard), but mostly sat in the audience with an giant grin on my face that I was hardly aware of because I was having such a good time. Among the items used to create the rhythm "music" were brooms, trashcans, inner tubes, cigarette lighters, grocery bags, dustpans, folding chairs, and yes, even the proverbial kitchen sink. And it wasn't enough to just bang these objects around. In one number involving metal paint buckets, the cast tossed the buckets across the stage, creating a criss-cross of flying objects, all while keeping the beat. The cast didn't speak one word the entire show, yet still interacted with the audience, at one point getting the entire theatre to mimic their hand claps. I was amazed when the nearly two-hour show was over, as time simply flew by. If you ever have a chance to check it out, do so! (For you Southern Californians, a touring production makes a stop in Long Beach at the end of May!).

Back to studying.....