Tales of a Wanderer in a Strange Land... Also known as "A Tourist's Tale"

So, I've been doing the tourist thing in lovely Florida with my wonderful grandparents. Yesterday we went out and fed buffalo! As you will notice to the right --> I found the sign posted on the fence rather amusing. We fed the buffalo (I love those things) carrots and sweet potatoes. They liked 'em =). One of the buffalo kept trying to get more, twas quite funny.

And then today we went to Disney World! We went to Epcot, which is the educational part of Disney World. While "educational" might sound dry and boring, I assure you, it was anything but. The first thing we did was go on a boat ride through various ecosystems and then through a greenhouse-type thing. Before the ride started we stood in a line with a wall covered in mother earth propaganda. Made me laugh. Second, we went on the AWESOMEST ride ever. Basically we were astronaut trainees (you can see where this is going) and we were going on a training mission to Mars... There were two different versions of the ride, Green and Red. Green was supposed to be easier, without the spinning and g-force. GG and Pop-o wanted to take Green, so we went on that first. We got tickets and went to stand in line... The line was awesome. On one side of the line there was this big spinning thing--it was in a circle shape (and really big) and had rooms all around the edges. The floors of the rooms were all on the middle, so when the circle spun the rooms whirled around upside down! There were chairs, tables, dishes, treadmills, and equipment stuck to the floors! It was really cool seeing them spin around upside down. And there was a real Apollo-model moon-buggy-thing! It was cool. And considering that the line was long, it was good that it was cool. After we got through the line we were ushered into a waiting room by people in space-like uniforms... Kind of tacky, but very fun. We were put into teams of four, my team obviously consisted of myself, Pop-O, GG, and Kristine. As we waited we watched a video from the guy at the "command center" and the "lieutenant" who told us what we would have to do... Then a guy came in (in one of those uniforms too) and took us in, team by team, inside a room, where we watched another video, and then went inside again.... This time, we got into our little capsules. They were long-ish, about four seats wide, but once you were in your seat you had something right in your face... Anyway, I don't need to describe it all to you...But oh, I want to. Anyway, we got to push buttons, zoom around the moon, and eventually we crash landed on Mars!!! It was so awesome that Kristine and I decided to go back and do orange....Well, we might have gotten more than we bargained for... At first, everything was the same, we got in our capsules, put our personal belongins into a box-thingy in front of us, pulled down our restraints, watched the doors close, watched our control panels pull forward in front of us, and then I noticed something different--this time, the ride was equipped with throw-up bags. I tried to put that out of my mind and concentrated on the viewscreen in front of me as it flickered and I got a perfect view of the blue, cloud-filled sky in front of us, including the long ramp that would give us a perfect lift-off into deep space. Then, I felt the *real* difference. The whole thing started to shake. You would not believe how real it felt! Then suddenly we were blasting forward. It shook, and suddenly I felt an incredible force pushing down on my chest, neck, and head. I could barely breathe because of it! Then I heard our orders being given-- "Pilot..." it was for me--I had to push my button and release the lower part of the shuttle--I reached forward, trying to push the button. I couldn't move my hand forward because of the force pushing back on it! At last, I barely manged to push the button, then we were out in space, and all I saw on my viewscreen was stars. But not for long. Soon we were zooming by a satellite, almost hitting it, and then we saw the moon coming up in front of us. We jerked forward, the whole thing spinning around (I felt nauseous) until we were shooting around the very edge of the moon. We circled it, and then, on our viewscreens, we could see Earth again. Then the orders were given to activate chronic sleep. The engineer pushed a button, everything felt cold, and then everything went black.

"Warning! Warning! Danger!" a red light flashed overhead, instantly giving me a headache. In front of us was a whole field of asteroids! I grabbed my manual control stick and started navigating around the asteroids as the g-force pressed down on me and the shuttle shook from side to side--then we were out of the asteroid field with Mars directly below. We engaged rockets for the landing and started to head down. Then we started to crash! We all navigated towards the field we were to land on, overshot the field, and landed on the very edge of the canyon. Then it was over. We had completed our mission.

Ok, so maybe it wouldn't be very real for a real astronaut, and yes, some of it was very tacky, but it was soooooo fun and for a moment I completely lost myself and was actually out in space on a three-month mission to Mars... Oh, it was awesome. But it was over, so we moved on.

In Epcot, they have different sections for different countries. Each country has lots of shops...heh... We started with Mexico, where we went on a boatride, complete with annoying singing donald ducks. We visited a few of the shops there, and Pop-O and GG bought me a beautiful silver bracelet (Kris got one too, but a different design). We also went to Italy, where I saw the most gorgeous masks; England, where I saw lots of soccer (or should I say, football) stuff; Canada, where we watched a movie; Germany, where I saw the cutest little village (everything was reeeaalllyyy tiny); China, where I bought a gorgeous pair of earrings; Japan, where I saw people making candy-art like they used to have in Cambodia; old America, where we visited the Liberty Inn, where all the staff wore old costumes, and we ate hamburgers for lunch; last of all, we visited my favorite place there...Morocco. One of the shops had all sorts of awesome Egyptian stuff, models of Tut, Neferti, Bast, etc. It was really awesome. GG and I walked into another stop where I instantly saw a little sign saying "Have your name written on a pendant in Arabic." I happen to really like Arabic... So I walked over and felt the little pendant, looking for a price tag. It was $12 for a little pendant with your name written on it... Obviously, I couldn't get one. I sighed and started to walk on when a girl wearing traditional Moroccan clothes walked up to me (she obviously worked there). "Would you like to get your name written on a pendant?" she asked. I really wished that I could say yes. I told her no, I couldn't get one, but it would be awesome... She smiled and asked me what my name was. I told her my name, but that I couldn't get a pendant today. She said something about writing my name on paper. I instantly assumed that she wanted me to write my name on a piece of paper so she could translate it and write it on a pendant like I've done before when getting my name on something. I said something stupid along the lines of "Oh, but I can't get a pendant today." (again, stupid me). She said something along the lines of "No, on paper," walked behind the desk, grabbed a piece of paper, and wrote really quickly in Arabic on it. Then I realized what she was doing. She was writing my name on a piece of paper for me because I couldn't get a pendant! You would not believe how happy I was--I really love Arabic writing. She handed me the piece of paper, I was so surprised! I smiled and said thank you (probably several times--like I said, I was surprised). I was staring at my new treasure when a man walked up (also wearing Moroccan clothes--so he definiely worked there). Seeing me staring at a piece of paper with a big lopsided grin on my face, he naturally asked me what it was. I grinned widely (well, I think I did, I was kind of dazzled by my piece of paper. A very special piece of paper. With my name on it) and told him that it was my name in Arabic. I showed him the piece of paper and he looked at it. "Hmm..." he said, "Jimmie." I grinned, raised my eyebrows and looked at the girl who had written it, "Jimmie?" I asked. Then I couldn't help but laugh, I knew she had written it right. Who mistakes Katherine for Jimmie??? "No," I said laughing, "Katherine!" he laughed too and nodded, "It says Katherine," he said. I smiled, thanked them both, and left the store, clutching my piece of paper with my name on it. Call me slightly obsessive, but I think I worried about losing that piece of paper for the rest of the time there. I think I'm going to have it framed. Anyway... We did several other things at Epcot, but eventually we were ready to leave.

I had soo much fun! And now I'm leaving you all this massive blogpost to read...

Oh yes. Note to self and anyone who cares: Never listen to a really good cd (like Comatose) while reading a really good book (especially ones by Stephen Lawhead). Especially don't listen to the same cd every time you read the book from beginning to end. Every time you listen to the cd it will remind you of the book. If, of course, both the cd and book are good and somewhat seem to go together, this isn't such a bad thing, but then, it can be.

And that, my friends, is all. Oooh, did I mention-- No, you don't want me rambling for another hour. I bid you adieu!

Oh! And I totally forgot to tell you... Oh bother. I forgot what it was...hmm... You guys are probably relieved.