Magic Far, Far Away

Monday morning in Anaheim, the whole apartment rolled out to the historic (that means 1940s) city of Orange. They have a ton of antique shops and it was so fun to see how fully stocked with all sorts of cool things they were! And best thing: the stores were all nicely lined up next to each other. "Walking distance" are so rare words in LA. And I got a chocolate + lavender ice cream at a nitrogen ice cream parlour.

 

These cute halloween children were in a room full of creepy Santas haha.

The cat quickly fell in love with me (much to Laura's surprise and jealousy).

So we stuck together a bit, even if it was pretty hot to have a cat on the lap all the time.

Tuesday me and Migh went to meet up with Princess at the Fullerton Arboretum. It was so nice to finally spend some time in a green area. The cold water was refreshing to take a stroll in too.

 

Migh correctly said that this tree looked like that one life tree from Avatar (Na'vi).

We also went vintage shopping! I found a couple of cute things, but they were all priced with a too heavy hand. We went by a Dollar Tree and those were the days only purchases - snacks to last us for the whole day.

At night, Michelle picked me up after her work ended. We went to a food court in a mall in Brea, saw the Pixar collection at Forever 21, and then decided to drive down to Disney Village on a whim. Lots of hats were tried on.

We spent the Wednesday cooped up inside. More cat snuggles and then we went to karaoke at night! It was great fun. Especially when we ran out of queued songs and I ended up putting a song from Phantom of the Opera on. We even sang the opera-y bits. It got very loud, haha.

 Thursday morning I got up quite early to go to Disney. Against all odds (and the time difference), I had gotten a free Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour through the Ambassador program with less than two days' notice. 

It turned out to be a bit of a disappointing affair though. It was pretty great to see the park so empty (!), but other than that... I knew basically all the things our Plaid host told us, only got to go on 2 rides (since both Haunted Mansion and Lincoln were closed), and the group I was in was unusually quiet for Disney fans.

We got to see the Dream Suite, which had some pretty sweet Imagineering. I was missing some actual historical feel though - I shame that Walt's apartment is no longer included in the tour.

I then headed for California Adventure to get Frozen fast passes.

And meet up with Hannah and her mum! Joanna is great fun, and since both of them are annual passholders they know so much about the parks. We single-rided Cars in about 5 minutes (woo!), saw a few shows, and went on Goofy's rollercoaster - which I had never noticed before.

We also met Judy and a certain sly fox! It was fun to experience Soarin' after it's been changed from California to The World. It's insane that it's all CG.

 And we had some especially fun character interactions with the red, white, and blue Marvel men. I talked about how Spidey had had a French accent last I saw him and somehow it turned into discussing that my face and outfit was cute? And Captain was great, but wouldn't do the leg.

We went back to Main Street USA just to catch the Soundsational parade. I hadn't seen the beginning of it before, so I was a happy camper that we just made it in time. Both parks were unusually empty (the emptiest that either Robersons had ever seen), so we managed to get front row seats even though we got to the park just as it started.

The emptiness of the parks were also the reason for us being able to get orchestra fast passes at 3 - usually all the shows are sold out by 10 in the morning. The seats were great and I actually enjoyed the show a lot. Especially since I had seen the Aladdin one, I could really appreciate how the had changed the space for this new production.

I liked their scene changes, the stage division in the climax was effective and the moving projections on the backdrop made for a very cinematic feel.

Back to Disneyland for twilight.

We decided to sit tight and wait for a long time to get 2nd row spots for the fireworks. The Parade views were all right from there too! But then disaster struck: The fireworks got cancelled. My 2nd time that has happened.

I was gravely disappointed. It was so odd seeing the little 3-minute replacement projection with a summary of the normal show. But the castle looked lovely, and I had bought myself a lovely bracelet and ring.

Michelle didn't make it to the park in time for anything, but she was kind enough to drive me back up to Mid City where I spent a final night. I then packed up, threw most of the things out I wouldn't be taking home to Denmark in a week, and moved to Heather's place.

I skyped with Amalie to arrange our Disney plans for the Saturday... and then I got dressed up for the Hollywood Bowl.

I was meeting Michelle and her boyfriend at the John Williams concert. David Newman conducted part of the concert too and it was fantastic to see two greats in the flesh. The crowd went nuts every time something Star Wars played! I thought the show was a little short, but it might be because I felt like some numbers were missing. Not one Jurassic Park theme was played. But it was a great experience nonetheless.

Amalie came to pick me up in the early morning. We got our free parking at Donald at then went into the parks. We instantly ran into Cindy, and it was my first time actually meeting the character I bounded!

We went to check for Frozen fastpasses, but they were all done. Misters America made us happy again.

I like the area in general - the themed meet-n-greet areas are something I feel like Disneyland lacks in general.

 Back to Disneyland for our first Dole Whip at the Tiki Room. It's funny how spending more time there has made me appreciate it so much.

We went on the Mark Twain riverboat and heard some live music. We left before Tiana made her appearance though.

 In Fantasyland I stumbled across my second appropriate character! The fairy godmother was so lovely, and she didn't believe we weren't sisters.

I had wanted to see Mickey and the Magic Lamp before I left, and Amalie readily agreed. Neither of us knew anything about the show though. We quickly understood the Epic Mickey parallel, were immensely happy to see Pocahontas and Mulan represented in the parks, and enjoyed the trumpet music. We were taken by surprise when confetti fell from the heavens - and we were sitting directly where they where aimed.

I showed Amalie Toontown. Since there were no clouds on the sky, the illusion was quite complete with the cartoon-y hills. Our eyes felt tricked. And we saw a rogue selfie stick!! 

I had asked if we got any perks from having the fireworks display cancelled the other day - and we got two fast pass rides each. We spent one of them on Roger Rabbit, since it's a classic at Disneyland and the line is always too long.

We said goodbye to the cartoons of the old and hello to the future of Tomorrowland. And grabbed some much needed food.

Seasons of the Force were playing just as we sat down, so we had some dining entertainment. The kids that really tried were so cute! I was a little displeased by the fact that they were mixing timelines though - Darth and Kylo in the same show??

I blasted Amalie away to a galaxy far, far away and we then took the monorail around the park. It is a strange attraction - it shows a lot of backstage areas to the public.

Golden hour arrived and made everything beautiful. And we went to swing dance at the Fantasy Fair! This was such a good experience. I have really fallen for the swing culture in the States, because all generations are present and it's just great fun. Dancing it at Disneyland was just lovely - and so reminiscent of old photos I've seen from the park.

We went down to the Rivers of America to see the light reflected and used our second pass to go on Indiana Jones. We then stopped by the Tiki Room. To my surprise, Maynard was there. He made us laugh for a few minutes before we continued on our way to get spots for the fireworks. Amalie got us to go back though, so we caught the next Tiki Room performance. Since we joked around with Maynard so much, he decided to gift us Official Tiki ProtectionTM and bring special attention to us during the show, haha. He's a gift.

 After some failures, we finally found an all-right spot by Tomorrowland. After Paint the Night we then hurried up by the castle when the street was opened up. We managed to get a pretty good view! After another cancellation announcement, I thought we wouldn't get to see the fireworks again. But they ran them anyway - thank gods. They were gorgeous!

Afterwards we rushed to make our fast pass time at Space Mountain. I was super scared again, but yet again it was just purely fun. People started leaving the parks, and we managed to go on Mr. Toad and Finding Nemo with 5 minute wait times. Not anything to complain about there.

Tired, we made our way back. It was quite a magical week.