Spring Break 2014: Days 1 and 2

April 10-11

Last Thursday I left for Anaheim with my choir for Heritage Festival, though most of our trip was spent in Disneyland. The first day was only an eight hour travel day down to our hotel. It wasn't very exciting; we watched an awful superhero movie on the way there, and I swam a bit when we arrived. The fun really started on Friday. We had a park-hopper all day, and we planned to stay from 8:00 am to 12:00 am. I spent the first half of my day in Disneyland with my mom until 1:00 pm, which was our check-in time. The last time I went to Disneyland was ten years ago for my little sister's third birthday, which means I was about five. It was exciting and a bit scary to return and relive some of the memories.  I met Aurora, who is still my favorite princess, Cinderella, and Ariel. I was nervous that it wouldn't be the same as from when I was younger, but it was amazing. Aurora was kind and brightened my face with a smile, Cinderella was so elegant, and Ariel was quirky and friendly. She asked me to sing one of my favorite songs, so I decided to sing the first verse of Us by Regina Spektor since I sing it all of the time at home. It was nerve-wracking to sing it without the piano to distract my fingers, but I'm proud of myself for doing it. 

I also rode Mr. Toad's Wild Ride for the second time. Last time I cried for about ten minutes after the ride because I was so terrified of going through hell. The second time wasn't much better either. I grasped onto my mom for dear life the entire time and screamed numerous times. We rode on some other kiddie rides, and they were all adorable. We weren't rushing to go on any rides though because we were staying for three more days after our choir left. At check-in, we met up with another group from our school and went to California Adventure. There, I was persuaded to go onto California Screamin' on which I definitely screamed (and cussed a lot more than I'd like to admit). The girl sitting next to me, Lauren, was cracking up the entire time. I sat out on most of the rides that the group went on, but I did experience Soarin' Over California. It was such a relaxing and beautiful ride. It turns out that not going on rides is a sort of adventure in and of itself. For example while Alex, my mom, and I were waiting for people to finish Grizzly River Run, a man sat and played folk tunes in front of where we were sitting. He was very talented and even threw in some Phineas and Ferb songs, but everyone walked past him like he was nobody. We were basically the only ones clapping for him. It made me a bit upset with human nature, but I enjoyed the music. 

After our check-in at 5:00 pm, we returned to Disneyland, and I met up with Serena and her mom. Serena had been going on rides by herself all day because her mom is pregnant and wasn't allowed to go on most rides, so we got fast passes for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Peter Pan's Flight, an amazingly detailed and beautiful ride by the way. While waiting to go on Peter Pan's Flight, my mom got a text from my choir teacher saying that we actually have to meet again at 10:00 instead of 12:00, so we rushed off to our meeting spot directly after Serena and I finished the ride. Apparently, our bus driver had a different schedule than us and had already started her 16 hour shift or something. When we arrived at the parking lot, people began to notice that Stephen, our foreign exchange student, was missing. Everyone's phones were dead including his, and nobody had a clue as to where he might be. A few of the chaperones continued to look for him while the rest of us piled onto the bus and sat until 2:00 am because the bus driver couldn't leave without him. One of our students got a text from him saying that he was okay but had taken a shuttle to the wrong Holiday Inn. We picked him up and returned to the correct hotel where I cried myself to sleep because I knew I had to wake up in about four hours to leave for our performance at Fullerton Junior College.