Week 1

I am sorry to all my faithful followers -- I CANNOT figure out how to properly load photos onto this thing, so this will be a text-only blog for now. All my pictures that I have taken so far are up on facebook, so refer to that album for the photos to the stories :)

Day 1: Woke up early at the hotel and ran across the street to the Vista Way apartment complex, where we had to wait an hour before we could check in. There we got our keys and our housing IDs and found out that Lisa, Steph, Bec, and I would all be rooming together in a 2 bedroom apartment in Vista Way! Vista Way is the oldest of the 4 complexes for Disney College Program students, but are nice anyway. Our apartment is spacious, and we love the vaulted ceilings from being on the top floor! Then we headed to the Disney Central Casting building which is famous for its design. We just got fingerprinted there, and that's all! The rest of the day was ours, so we shopped at Wal-Mart (expensive!) and in the evening went to the Avatar viewing party at The Commons (another complex) to get free Disney popcorn and sodas. Then we hit the hay on our plastic mattresses!

Day 2: Woke up early again (this would become a trend) and eagerly awaited finding out where we would be working. We filled in all our important work documents and got looked over to see if we fit the "Disney Look", which is much like the honor code, but even more strict. I DID find out half of where I would be working, they told me "Animal Kingdom: Asia Operations" which could be a number of things, so I still didn't know! We also had a housing meeting for a few hours to learn about our complex, the rules, and the upcoming events. At night, there was a big Block Party out on the street in front of our building, so we partied, and I even won some prizes for answering trivia questions correctly! A dip in the pool and hot tub, and off to bed again.

Day 3: Traditions! Traditions is a class that all Disney employees go through, that goes over the history of the disney company and discusses our past, present, and future. It also covers important things like safety, courtesy, efficiency, and show. As part of the class, we got to go behind the scenes of the Magic Kingdom to see for ourselves those principles in action. The even gave us "whisper sets" in our ears so our instructor could talk at a normal level and we could hear her in our ears. Magic Kingdom is built on the second floor of the earth, because the whole first floor is tunnels under the actual park! We got to go in those tunnels! I am sorry, but no photographs are allowed! In traditions we also received our Disney nametags and Disney ID cards, which get us free into any Disney Park in the world! SO, we sprinted home to change and dashed back to the Magic Kingdom to play the rest of the day! We rode everything! The park was so empty. We got buttons to "celebrate" "working for the mouse" or "bring a member of the club made for you and me" or "being paid weekly. very weakly!" haha, that is what the cast member wrote on our pins for us. It was a fun day and I slept well!

Day 4: Turned out I didn't start work until Saturday, which meant I had 2 whole days completely free. I continued on my park tour to Animal Kingdom -- my new home! And braved Expedition Everest -- my new favorite Disney rollercoaster. Animal Kingdom is a very fun park with cool rides and lots of animals of course! After AK, we went over to EPCOT to visit Steph on her first day of work, and also went on the rides! One of my new friends threw-up on Mission:Space! We felt so bad! Next time some says they get motion sick, we are going to listen! I also love Test Track. At the end of the day, we ate dinner in Japan and watched IllumiNations firework show from Norway. How beautiful to view the world!

Day 5: Today was the day for Hollywood Studios, after another trip to Wal-Mart of course. We grabbed Fast-Passes for Tower of Terror and then rode Rockin' Rollercoaster, The Great Movie Ride, Backlot Tour and Little Mermaid Stageshow before our fast passes we ready. Then we rode and survived the Tower of Terror and finished the afternoon with Toy Story Mania (it's a new ride, check it out!). It was amazing to come to a park late in the day and leave early in the evening. That's what you can do when it is free and unlimited!

Day 6: DAKlimation! DAK stands for Disney's Animal Kingdom, and this day was the time for all new DAK employees to get to know their park better. Here I found out I will be working on Kali River Rapids! It is a rapids water ride that gets you SOAKED! It will be fun to work there. We learned all about conservation and the goals of DAK and then took a park tour, ending with a ride on Kilimanjaro Safaris. We ate lunch at the backstage cast cafeteria Pride Rock and then went to Wardrobe to get our costumes! Photos to come of my hot river-guide look :). After a short nap, a huge group of CPs (college program) met at Cici's pizza and then 5 of us went to Downtown Disney.

Day 7: Whew! We made it! Today, I had the day off, so I got to go to church! The ward seems really great and I am excited to get started. I am especially excited about the missionary efforts in this ward and plan to go out with the Sister Missionaries later in the week. After church I napped :) and later watched the CES broadcast on my computer, then watched High School Musical 3 with Steph before bed. Lovely Sabbath!

Wow! I have done SO much in a week! I can't believe it has only been a week. I'll try to keep more updated than this -- but we'll see!