Orlando Recap
I finished the page full of wedding photos from the weekend before last. You can look at them on the pictures page. I promise the pictures from Orlando will be done soon, along with a new DOTW.

They released us from the company conference at about noon on Friday, which was a beautiful day, not quite as hot as the previous days last week, but still sunny and nice. I made up my mind that I was going to go to Disney World, and decided on EPCOT, as there would almost certainly be neat things to look at. With this in mind, I went up to my hotel room, changed clothes, and asked the front desk, when I got back down, how to get to Disney World.

The woman behind the counter started giving me driving directions, and being the slow type, i didn't figure this out until about two words until she was done explaining, when I cut her off with, "I don't have a car." She then said unhelpfully that the hotel had a free shuttle that wasn't scheduled to leave again for the rest of the day, and then suggested taking a cab.

Not completely opposed to this idea, I asked her curiously how much it would typically cost to cab it to WDW. When she informed me, my slow sensitivity instinct wasn't able to overcome my immediate response: "Forty dollars!? You've got to be frigging kidding me!" Annoyed, she said she was not, and asked if I wanted a cab or not. I politely informed her that I did not, and went outside.

As soon as I stepped out into the pleasant early afternoon Florida sunshine, I spotted a tourist office across the street, and chanced a risky crossing of the crosswalk-less International Drive, narrowly disappointing an angry driver in a suburban. I walked into the office, and asked them if there was a relatively cheap way to get to Disney World. They informed me, to my delight, that they ran an hourly shuttle, and for $19, I could get a round trip ticket for the van that left in twenty minutes.

Forty five minutes later, I was standing dumb, looking up in awe at Spaceship Earth. After a quick trip around the park on Disney's incredibly efficient, but noticably aging monorail system, I giddily handed over $58.13 and entered EPCOT Center. It turned out that the day I visited was one of the last days of the annual EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival. This, to my further delight, meant that in each of the "countries," represented in EPCOT's World Showcase, where it's socially acceptable, beer from the country in question was available on tap. I helped myself to a number of glasses of: Pilsener Urquell, 1664(I pronounced it "seize-cent soixante quatre," when I ordered it!), Kirin Ichiban, Tsingtao, Tusker, Carlsberg, and Key West.

Needless to say, my breath utterly stank of beer when I stumbled out of the park, and made my way over to Pleasure Island to spend more money and drink more beer. Fortunately, once I ate, the desire to drink anymore had largely left me, and over the next three hours, I managed to get only three bottles of Yuengling down. This was also because of the fact that I went to the Adventurer's Club, an adventure-themed nightclub, set in 1937, and canvassed with very entertaining costumed personalities and talking wall ornaments. I would highly recommend a visit.

The next day, I met up with my relatives who live on the north side of the city, and spent the remainder of my trip with them. I hadn't seen any of the kids since they were two, six, and eleven years old, four years ago. Needless to say, it was an eye-opening experience hanging out with them, but would have been better if the Irish had beaten BC.

UPDATE: No thanks to Geoff, the newest DOTW is now up.

Renae responded:
Beautiful People. Looks like a lot of fun! I am so sorry we missed it!!

5:32 PM, Oct 26, 2004

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